William Burroughs Naked Lunch: Review of David Cronenberg's Film Plus+++

The film:

Burroughs NYC apartment in the 50's copies the exact colors of places like this at this time. The particular shade of green used on walls, hallways, countertops, almost brings back the smell of them. The dull browns of peeling wallpaper, the dirty cream of window moldings and doors locates that pervasive depression one experienced in these spaces.  And yet the slanting light of an afternoon sun in winter along the wall makes you catch your breath with its beauty. You are looking at an Edward Hopper painting.

This is due to his cinematographer,

Peter Suschitzky 

with whom he has worked since the 80's. It seems once Cronenberg has worked with someone, that someone becomes a permanent member of his support crew, and if an actor or actress,  becomes a focus for Cronenberg's artistic plans for the future. Cronenberg has said a number of times that an actor or actress has become someone he wishes to work with and has found his own screenplay reveals his interest in that person in a particular part.

For the reasonably minor but important role of Kiki (Joseph Scorsiani) in Naked Lunch, actors from all over the world were considered and then he found Kiki   right at home in Toronto. Such a nuanced face and body movement for the queer Arab young man, breathtaking. Not until John Lone does M. Butterfly for Cronenberg will we see the like. That a director takes such artistic interest in just the right person for a minor role illuminates his choice of Rob Pattinson for the role of Eric Packer in his upcoming Cosmopolis. He has not chosen Pattinson for his huge media splash, but for deeper artistic reasons beyond his beautiful face; his seductive intelligence and wit reflected in the camera perhaps? Certainly not as a beautiful prop as Francis Lawrence used him in Water For Elephants.

Judy Davis is a wonder in this film. Her luscious ironic mouth always enhanced by that precise color of red lipstick worn in the 50's. Not the purplish hue of Pink Lightening, but a deep bright outrageous red. But I forget the Revlon name of the color. And listening to Cronenberg's commentary you just know he knew that about that color. Her every nuance is captured: mouth, darting eyes, shifting body language you rarely see, she is so superb that one just knows Cronenberg did not have to utter one word of direction to her, which is the way he prefers to work. He is not an authoritarian director at all. So scrap all of the Scummit Twilight directors of the month from your minds, right here, right now, and I am including Bill Condon, the affable recent one for Breaking Dawn, who is going to get spotlighted by the brilliant distribution politics of juxtaposition with the Bel Ami trailers. See screen shot gifs here. (July 23-11 posting) Thank god I don't have to download them here. They are slow slow slow. Now you are warned. But they are lovely, and make Breaking Dawn look less so.

Paul and Jane Bowles

Characters Ian Holm as Paul Bowles and Judy Davis, who plays Burroughs wife Joan and Jane Bowles incite you to know more about the work of each of them if you don't already. Jane Bowles is an unrecognized genius and fanfic could learn much from her perverse exploration of character in her stories. She is a dark read. A similar to Lovecraft read in fact. And the evil, beautifully evil Julian Sands.

More Julian Sands images from Naked Lunch

Badmouthing CGI Cronenberg turns to puppetry. Burroughs recurring characters, the Mugwumps, Cronenberg's Talking Typewriters are real, the actors can relate to them, as they cannot to a green screen. The Arabic tyewriter feels like a precursor of eXistenz's (1999) Module. The Mugwumps (youtube link) are so beautifully detailed that being told only two of them remain makes you want to scream. Preserved and shown as art and auctioned on ebay would bring a hunk of money for the next Cronenberg film. Evidently he disregards the commercial value of his beautiful puppets. They are not used as props as Benjamin and Pirandello deplore, which Francis Lawrence extolls, but are real entities in his films. I could find no gifs and would even upload against my preference to their slow page loading if one were available. But here is one from youtube. Anyone who has ever seen a performance of Bread and Puppets will immediately understand what I just wrote. And damn I forgot to mention the cenipieds.

From Bread and Puppets Web Page

Peter Weller as Burroughs  is as perfect as one can get. He also comments on the commentary and as a Burroughs devotee, asked to play in the film, as did Roy Scheider who plays Dr. Benway. Each person is so perfect a choice, so perfect an actor that no one outshines anyone else. So we see how they got to Cronenberg. Cronenberg has commented in the past how actors come to him when they hear of his projects and how he envisions a particular actor as he begins to work on a project. His casting is personal and artistic and seductive. If you research box office success you will find he does not qualify. If you research awards from his peers and film festivals, he glistens at the top. I think we have the Canadian Film Board to thank for a great deal of his longevity in film. They have been supportive of his work from early on. Contrast that with the emphasis on first weekend box office here in the states and it is obvious why our Hollywood films splash and suck and burn then turn up on the 25 cent yard sale tables. While a Cronenberg film still generates DVD sales, reviewing, references, and accolades in film study programs throughout the world. And on blogs like this.

And it cannot be overlooked how Cronenberg in his screenplay, in just a few sentences in a diner, encapsulates the crucial influence Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Ginsberg have had on American writers. How does Cronenberg do it!
Well as
a filmmaker, do you want critical acclaim or splash? Very rare to get both. Here's hoping Cosmopolis will do that for Cronenberg.

http://www.netflix.com