Transformation into another self has been a long standing tradition in western horror as we saw in Vee’s investigation into transformation horror in the Monster Flicks and Vampire Chicks season. The transformation into other and a loss of body control has long stood as an analogy in film but with this season I hope to investigate an alternate form of Body horror that I term “identity horror”.
Cronenberg has a long filmic history that examines body horror, the body invasion in his early works such as Shivers, his transformation or becoming horror in the Fly and Videodrome and his becoming machine in Crash. There is a section of his work that although relates to his body horror still sits slightly outside the mold. Instead of a pure becoming (although these films too contain a transformation of self which I will highlight as well) these films contain an idea of the ever present threat. Cronenbergs Double or Other in is not separated form the original self in his films Naked Lunch, Dead Ringers and A History of Violence it is another menace another self that is contained and in this sense is not Other it is within or 1 step separated from the self weather it be forgotten, embedded (and therefore) emergent or the doubled self.
Films about writers and the creative process are not generally action-packed, but this unusual piece has plenty of incidents. The action takes place largely inside the mind of "William Lee" (William S. Burroughs) whose first book "Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict" dealt with his struggle against heroin addiction. "The Naked Lunch", is a film that melds together, almost in Burrough’s trade mark “cut-up” style, “Junkie” “Naked Lunch” the book, and scenes from a plethora of other Burroughs books including “The Ticket That Exploded”. This film can be seen as everything Burroughs and has been not as Naked Lunch but as “A film about writing Naked Lunch”.
(in short: Cronenberg's Naked Lunch is an amalgamation of Cronenberg's interpretation and experience of reading Burroughs, Burroughs own life, and Burrough's legendary novel, Naked Lunch.)
After "drying out" he has a job as a pest exterminator, killing cockroaches with powder from a cannister. He discovers that his wife Joan, still an addict, is shooting up with the bug powder and having sex openly with two of his literary friends, Hank and Martin. He then manages to kill her accidentally with his pistol ("I guess it's about time for our William Tell routine"). He flees the country and washes up in "Interzone" (Tangier - then an "international" city).
There are six or more plots operating in six or more interacting layers throughout the film, and the action centres exclusively on Burrough's alter-ego, Bill Lee, as he attempts to discover the relationships between all of these plots.
In this pure film of doubling every character has an alter ego or on screen double. Bill is doubled through bill the exterminator and bill the agent/writer, his wife Joan is doubled through her dual characters as Joan: Bill’s wife and Joan: from inter-zone, many actors play 2 characters (or one character and the voice of another).
Naked Lunch seems to be just totally incomprehensible upon first viewing. However, after watching it again, you start to understand more and more. Upon multiple viewings, you really get a feel for what's transpiring before your eyes.
“If any three of the following conditions apply see Naked Lunch:
YOU
1. ...know what the term "visual metaphor" means.
2. ...are a Burroughs, Kerouac or Ginsburg fan.
2a. ...are not a fan, but know and respect Burroughs, Kerouac or Ginsburg
3. ...can't see how the book Naked Lunch could make a good film.
4. ... believe that Peter Weller is an underrated actor.
5. ...thought any of the following films were 'lightweight': Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, The Last Wave, Heavenly Creatures, Dead Ringers.
6. ...have lived in the New York area for 15 or more years.
7. ...know the relationship between improvisational jazz, poetry, and modern art.
8. ...think you understand what Andy Warhol was trying to do.
9. ... are curious about what the process of writing a novel is like.
10. ...spend a lot of time arguing with inanimate objects.
11. ...without knowing the content of this film, can see a potential relationship between sexual ambivalence, guilt, paranoia, addiction, typewriters and over-sized talking insects.
(…you should watch this movie)
You should NOT see this film if any of the following apply:
YOU
1. ...consider homosexual love to be evil, wrong, and something you can not sympathize with or understand.
2. ...use the phrase "he's on drugs" to explain behavior and ideas that do not make sense to you.
3. ...do not like or respect Burroughs, Kerouac or Ginsburg, and you know who they are.
4. have a concept of challenging literature as the latest John Irving novel (no offense to Mr Irving intended - he's easily as great as Burroughs, just sort of mainstream and pop).
5. ..like films which you can walk away from easily.
6. ...don't want to see any film which requires a second viewing to feel as if you've really got any of it.
7. ...view films strictly as a form of entertainment.
8. ...without knowing the content of this film, you can not imagine a potential relationship between sexual ambivalence, guilt, paranoia, addiction, typewriters and over-sized talking insects.
9. ...don't care to understand most of the following review.
10. ...consider ambiguity and loose ends in a film to be "plot holes" and consider any film which has them to be 'flawed'.”
Author: mstomaso IMDB
Labels: Alan Hook, Body Horror, Canadian Cinema, David Cronenberg, Transformation
posted by Atomic Discourse Gale at 8:42 pm
1 Comments:
A stunning film and one that sparked a lot of debate in the pub afterwards. Naked Lunch has long been established as a cult classic and is one of those films that most people have seen a bit of at some point in their lives. I witnessed the sexblob typewriter scene on the now defunct Moviedrome, the consequences of which are still rippling through my mind.
I still need another viewing of this film and I'll be surprised if I ever work it out. But that is the beautiful thing about it. There are so many layers, realities, and spiralling paranoias, that the transition of the novel on to the big screen was a massive feat in itself, and of course Alan's introduction covered this very nearly impossible process. I think the reason the film works is because it offers ...insight isn't actually the word, more like a fleeting glimpse...into the creative process of Burroughs, in as much as the film is as much a film about the writing of Naked Lunch the book as it is about the story. That it ever got written at all is amazing, as Burroughs’s paranoia's and addictions were real, like fellow Gonzo specialist Hunter S. Thompson and legendary science fiction writer Kurt Vonnegut (see in particular the hallucinatory/literary experience he published as the VALIS trilogy).
Interesting fact Alan brought up about the banning of the novel due to its alleged pornographic nature. I think that the supposed ambassadors of vanilla sex always inadvertently reveal their own perversions when they speak out against art like this. I’m actually thinking of Crash .
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