Cult movies # 6

Unless you have a passing familiarity with the Beat Generation, it's possible that you have never heard of William S. Burroughs. Burroughs, a scion of the Burroughs Business Machines empire, was one of the Beat's co-founders, and a hugely influential author of subversive, postmodern literature. As early as 1957-58, what eventually became The Naked Lunch had already raised eyebrows after excerpts were published in two American magazines and immediately confiscated by postal authorities. 

Burroughs's book, The Naked Lunch, was published by Olympia Press in Paris in 1959, and made its American debut in 1962 when Grove Press unleashed the "obscenity" on a nation that was, in many ways, still comfortably entrenched in the conservative conformity of the Eisenhower years. Once again, the postal service officials went to work, and The Naked Lunch was soon infamously banned in both Boston and Los Angeles. The L.A. ban was eventually lifted in 1965, the Boston ban in 1966, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court found Burrough's underground classic to have literary and social merit.  

In The Naked Lunch, the main character, Bill Lee, is a (very) thinly disguised version of the author: a  former addict and continental drifter, Burroughs refers to the hallucinatory hells of his own drug addiction to fill the pages of his disturbing, fragmented "masterpiece". If you are wondering why I put the word masterpiece in quotes, try reading the book and then get back to me with your thoughts. I first picked up Naked Lunch many years ago and, though it was a thankless chore, somehow managed to make it through to the end. But, oh God, it was tough going. Frankly, I don't believe in banning books, but I understand how regressive politicians and censors would have completely lost their shit, especially during a time when conservatives were fighting a losing battle against progress and enlightenment (a battle we currently seem to fighting again). The book, itself, is a wild, disjointed, sometimes incomprehensible, stream-of-consciousness trip that revels in debauchery, drugs, madness, mass murder, body horror and, oh, the list goes on. What is real and what is not real is up to the reader to decipher. (Imagine, if you will, Leopold Bloom dropping acid, shooting up heroin, popping a cap in Molly's head and then taking a hallucinatory journey through the streets of Dublin.) At the time I read it, I deemed The Naked Lunch so vile that I hauled it directly to the dumpster after finishing the last page. Admittedly, I didn't get it and I'm hardly a puritan.  According to a Google search, Burroughs uses "extreme and often grotesque imagery to present our vision of reality as lunacy, and challenges readers to confront controversial subjects, and the rot and sickness that lies at the heart of human interactions."  Having aged somewhat since my first (cold, naive) reading of the novel, I have decided to revisit it with a new perspective, and, perhaps, gain a greater appreciation of it. But maybe not anytime soon. 

Which brings me to Canadian director David Cronenberg and his adaptation of Burrough's novel. 

Long thought to be unfilmable, The Naked Lunch was, believe it or not, once considered fertile ground for a movie musical starring Mick Jagger, while Frank Zappa (more about my encounter him in a later post) envisioned it as an Off-Broadway musical. There were others too, but nothing came to fruition. And then David Cronenberg, riding high on the successes of The Fly, The Dead Zone, and Dead Ringers, decided the time was right for him to try his own hand at bringing the material to the big screen. 

The Naked Lunch turned out to be a perfect vehicle for Cronenberg, who had been anointed the King of Body Horror as early as the 1970's when he directed such queasy cult classics as Shivers, Rabid and The Brood. Rather than try and capture the unwieldly meanderings of Burrough's novel, Cronenberg dropped the "The" from the book's title and focused on the book's essence. Naked Lunch was released in 1991 and, while the film received acclaim from critics, moviegoers stayed away in droves. The $18 million film grossed less than $3 million on its release. Up against blockbusters The Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2 and Home Alone, Naked Lunch, Cronenberg's film was left in the dust. It didn't help that the movie had a limited release and also didn't resonate well with the coveted youth market.  Undeterred, Cronenberg continued his unorthodox approach to filmmaking that lasts up until this very day. The majority of Cronenberg's work is uniquely his own, and not what studios, or even large swathes of the general public, demand. Naked Lunch is the very definition of a cult movie. 

In the film, actor Peter Weller (Robocop) plays Burrough's alter ego Bill Lee, a bug exterminator in 1953 Manhattan. Bill and his wife, Joan (Judy Davis) reside in a grimy downtown apartment that reeks of desperation and decay. Lately, Bill has noticed that his bug powder supply is dwindling. After his boss at the shabby dispatch center (which looks like the setting for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre) rips him a new one over the missing powder, a suspicious and dejected Bill heads home--where he catches Joan mainlining bug powder into her breast. 

"It's a very literary high," she tells him. " A Kafka high. You feel like a bug." 

Such dark, cultural witticisms are sprinkled liberally throughout the script. In fact, if you can get past the grotesqueries displayed onscreen, much of the dialogue is actually quite funny. The erudition of the characters--flesh, bone and otherwise--is a nice contrast to the bleakness of the goings-on, as well as a nod to William S. Burrough's off-the-wall (uncomfortably apt) take on the human condition. 

As Naked Lunch unfolds, Bill finds himself shooting up insecticide (cut with baby laxative) with Joan. After being hauled to the hoosegow for using illegal drugs, Bill is questioned by a pair of  plainclothes detectives who are decidedly not members of MENSA. When the pair leaves him alone in the interrogation room, a beetle the size of an air fryer slithers in. Speaking from a gooey anal-like opening between the wings on its back (for a visual interpretation, think Hustler Magazine circa 1975) the bug informs Bill that he is Bill's controller. Furthermore, Joan is, in reality, an enemy agent sent from Interzone, Inc., a shady cabal located on the North African Coast (the city of Interzone being a stand-in for Tangier, a frequent hangout for artists and literary misfits in the mid-20th-century). To prevent Joan from uncovering Bill's "secret mission and his concomitant reports", he must kill her before she is able to reveal crucial information to her own handlers. What mission? Bill wonders. What reports? Why is this giant bug talking to me? While mesmerized by the enormous insect, Bill's attention is directed to a large dune of bug powder dumped carelessly on a desk. Rub some on my lips, the bug pleads. Bill obliges by rubbing the drug on the beetle's bunghole/mouth. Fearing that he has lost his mind, Bill smashes the beast to a pulp before fleeing the police station. 

Back at home, Joan has shot up so much bug powder that even her breath has become toxic: she amuses herself by blowing on one cockroach and then another as they fall dead to the floor. On the subway, a  co-worker directs Bill to Dr. Benway (Roy Scheider), who assures Bill that he has the perfect cure for Joan's addiction. This "cure" consists of a powerful black powder, known as the black meat, which is distilled from the dried flesh of aquatic Brazilian centipedes. Unbeknownst to Bill, Benway's cure is anything but. As Bill leaves his office Benway advises him to be watchful of "agents waiting to hatch out". Uh, whut? Bill takes the vial containing the powder and returns to his apartment, where he discovers Joan having desultory sex on the couch with his young writer friend, Hank (Nicholas Campell, standing in for Burroughs' real-life friend Jack Kerouac). His other pal, Martin (Michael Zelniker, a surrogate for Allen Ginsberg), recites poetry over the unenthused couple while Bill goes into the bedroom and injects more bug powder. When Joan asks him if it's time for their William Tell routine, Bill pulls out a revolver as Joan balances an empty water glass on her head. Martin grins encouragingly as Bill takes aim and misses, striking Joan squarely between the eyes. Oops. 

(A not-so-brief side note: The William Tell scene is based on an actual incident from Burroughs' earlier life. In 1951, a rejuvenated Burroughs, having kicked his heroin addiction, was officially back in action (so to speak). No longer rendered impotent from the effects of heroin, Burroughs began hooking up with various men. Wearying of his alcoholic, benzedrine-addicted, common-law wife, Joan Vollmer (a central figure in the early Beat Movement), Burroughs embarked on an Ecuadorian vacation with a boyfriend. Shortly after his return, at a party thrown above a Mexico City bar, a very drunk Burroughs asked an even drunker Joan if it was time for their William Tell act. Tragically, the answer was yes. The bullet missed the water glass and that was the end of Joan. After serving jail time, Burroughs was released on bond, although he later fled back to New York to avoid a murder charge. He later confided that Joan's death was the catalyst that set his literary ambitions on fire. In a 1991 interview, Burroughs admitted that he was wary of this catastrophic incident from his personal history being included in the film, although he eventually came to trust Cronenberg's vision). 

Whew! 

On the run again, Bill hurries out of the apartment with assurances from Martin that the killing will be reported as an accident. Before leaving town, Bill stops off at a gay bar where he is approached by a handsome young man named Kiki, who informs Bill that he has a friend he thinks Bill might like. Moving aside, Kiki introduces Bill to a repulsive, man-sized insectoid-cum-reptilian creature with fleshy teat-like appendages protruding from its head. Bill discovers that, appearances aside, the beast--a Mugwump--is rather chatty and amiable--and somehow inhabited by the smashed beetle from the police station. The Mugwump directs Bill to head to Interzone so that he can complete his mysterious mission and file the reports assigned by his handlers. But, first, Bill attends to other business. At a nearby pawnshop, Bill trades in his incriminating gun for an old Clark Nova typewriter.  

And then we're off and running to the exotic inferno known as Interzone, where the Clark Nova seems to have morphed from beetle and Mugwump to the talking typewriter now giving Bill his orders. As Bill dips into the local black meat market, he discovers that the high is far more potent--and addictive--than his bug powder. Bill encounters Tom (Ian Holm), a paranoid, expat American writer, and his wife, another Joan (Judy Davis, again), who is a dead ringer for Bill's dead wife. As soon as he discovers that this couple enjoys a mariage de raison, Bill zooms in on Joan, who both haunts and intrigues him. The more black meat he ingests, the greater his determination to have her. Not unlike the first Joan, this Joan also has a taste for mind-blowing substances. 

When a blasted Bill awakens to find himself sprawled atop a pile of something--bug powder? black meat?--he is helped to his feet by an effete European named Yves (Julian Sands). Yves is a suspicious sort who may be working in tandem with Bill's enemies (whoever they are). However, Yves may even be harboring a darker secret. Whatever the case, it is immediately apparent that Yves has designs on Bill. 

Later, Bill asks to borrow Tom's prized Martinelli typewriter, which he brings back to his lodgings. An unexpected battle royale explodes between the Clark Nova and the equally sentient Martinelli, which does not end well for the latter. The Martinelli, the Clark Nova explains, was an "enemy agent" sent to investigate Bill's writings. Meanwhile, after his black meat dealer is deported, Bill consoles himself with his dwindling supply, and shortly, winds up back in the gutter. Kiki magically reappears as Bill's guide, temporary savior and one-night stand. Bill doesn't seem to have a clue as to where he stands on the sexuality spectrum although he doesn't shrink away from words like "queer" and "faggot" when they're aimed at him. 

Hank and Martin fly over from New York long enough to find Bill passed out in yet another pile of druggy powder. The boys encourage him to keep sending the "letters"(or are they top-secret reports?) that he denies--or doesn't remember--writing. Presenting Bill with their plan to compile these missives into a book--now called Naked Lunch--they insist that it will turn him into a literary sensation. Catching the next bus out of town, Hank and Martin leave Bill to his own devices (literary and otherwise).

Tom and his henchman show up and kidnap the Clark Nova, intending to hold it as ransom for the return of the Martinelli, unaware that it has been reduced to a useless pile of rubbish. Thanks to an increasingly embittered Tom, a third typewriter, an exotic Mujahideen, is lent to Bill but this is no innocent office instrument. One of the machines--I forget which--temporarily mutates into a typewriter-giant beetle hybrid with a large erection, while another becomes a Mugwump head with the keys in its mouth. Frankly, I found all the typewriters confusing. Fascinating to look at but confusing.

It's difficult to keep up with all the surreal goings-on, although I'm not sure this post really does the film justice, either. Or maybe it's given too much justice. You'll have to decide for yourself should you choose to accept this mission.

So it turns out that the typewriters aren't the only shapeshifters in this movie: one of Bill's associates  mutates into a sexually rapacious giant centipede who mounts a horrific sexual assault on another friend of Bill's. How did I not see this coming? 

Back in her apartment, Joan and Bill (and some sort of human torso with spidery legs sprouting out of its ribcage) almost make love but are deterred by Joan's whip-wielding lesbian servant, Fadela, who is, in one way or another, Joan's true keeper. Fadela turns out to be great fun in a nutty, Cronenbergian sort of way. Upon discovering that his beloved Martinelli has been assassinated and the Mujahideen smashed to smithereens, Tom--who is possibly yet another enemy agent--decides that enough is enough: Bill must die. 

Dr. Benway pops in from New York to surprise Bill, who has stumbled upon a drug more potent than the black meat. Milked from the appendages on the Mugwump's cephalic region, this "Mugwump Jissum" intends to produce undreamt-of highs from a group of chained test subjects. Everything is wrapped up rather quickly after a hilariously shocking gender reveal sets up a finale that brings Bill back around full circle--though not necessarily to New York. 

Everything in this film depends on the viewer's interpretation. How much of Naked Lunch is a drug-induced hallucination and what is grounded in the real world is up to you to decide? Did Bill ever really leave New York?  Is Bill really some sort of unwitting secret agent, and are there enemy organizations out to get him? And what, exactly, are these mysterious reports all about? Does Interzone even exist?

There's a curious sort of Wizard of Oz thing going on that keeps you wondering. In addition to using incidents from Burrough's life, Cronenberg incorporated portions of the author's previous novels, Junkie and Queer (recently made into a film starring Daniel Craig) into the movie. 

Cronenberg, like William Burroughs, is challenging. The grotesqueries pile up and you hope they will lead to something significant. In both book and film, the principal focus is on drug addiction and its destructiveness to body, mind and soul. There are also jabs at the CIA and FBI, government bureaucracy, and America's puritanical attitudes. The fluidity of human sexuality is explored, along with the all-consuming nature of artistic creation. 

As I said earlier, the script is filled with witty dialogue. Peter Weller gives a completely deadpan performance (what else could it be?) as the drug-addled Bill, whose tight face and shifty eyes betray his concern over the blurring boundaries of reality and delirium. Other than his starring role in the popular Robocop films, Weller never really got his due as an actor, despite years of appearing on the Broadway stage and in smaller, lesser-known films. In fact, it might be easy to mistake Weller's performance in Naked Lunch for deadwood instead of deadpan. Don't be deceived. There is a hard intelligence in his darting eyes and grim humor in his off-the-wall comments. Australian actress Judy David, playing the two Joans, is alternately, darkly funny and woozily pathetic. Amidst all the weirdness, there's a bit of pathos when her Joan #2, exhausted and disheveled, delivers a moving soliloquy that anticipates her performance in Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows ten years later. The supporting performances are especially delicious, particularly Monique Mercure as Fadela, who, in a perfect world, would be the dom to a chastened Mrs. Danvers. And, of course, there is Roy Scheider as the exuberantly sleazy Dr. Benway. 

The special effects, for 1991, are well-done and appropriately icky. The bugs and hybrid typewriters make for ultra-gooey corpses, and the Mugwump is grotesque and reminds me of a distant cousin. The giant centipede rape scene is beyond disturbing and reminded me of the climax of Stuart Gordon's ultra-gross 1986 horror thriller From Beyond (sans the centipede). 

The movie locales are obviously film sets but are well-done, appropriately capturing the destitute milieu of the early Beats, as well as the surreal, disorienting exoticism of Interzone. I also enjoyed longtime Cronenberg collaborator Howard Shore's menacing score, highlighted by the expressionistic jazz notes of the late, great Ornette Coleman. 

It took 3 viewings for me to gain a grudging appreciation of this movie but, as they say, the third time is a charm. Not that I love Naked Lunch (or even like it that much) but it has started to grow on me. Well, not literally. I hope.