Monday, October 23, 2006
TWO HOUR TRIP
There is some reality mixed into the bad trip William Burroughs has in today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film, David Cronenberg's
Peter Weller channels Burroughs and Judy Davis plays his wife as well as the nom de plume standin for Paul Bowle's wife Jane. Bowles stand in is played by Ian Holm (an old favorite).
Alan Ginsberg has a stand in as well and I think, Jack Kerouac.
The two took Burrough's manuscripts, cut them into pieces and then reassembled them into the final product.
So bizarre.
Somewhow Cronenberg made a script out of this 'unmakable film' and shot it.
There are great puppets who play the monsters that Burroughs sees; mostly his typewriters acting out.
That is Himself, Burroughs, shaking hands with one of them. He is not in the film.
I really liked this movie because I came up through and around the work of these people. It was a crazy world and a wonder that anyone made their way out of it.
I have broken my rule and seen a film made from a novel I read but I think it is OK. The 'novel' is so fractious that there is little coherence anyway. It is really stoned poetry.
The whole production is of very high quality in a restoration by Criterion.
Ebert (at the link) did not give it a high rating as he is put off by these scummy people and their sordid lifestyle.
Oh well. Ebert is a prude in some areas.
Myself, I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5 and warn anyone who doesn't have a bit of stoner in them to beware of the product.
For those of us who played with fire and made it out, it is a cautionary nightmare and a sort of 'remember when' and a bit of a laugh because we made it out. Not a bad gift for my anniversary clean and sober; 27 years.
Another reason I liked the film better than Ebert.
