Documentary William S. Burroughs: A Man Within engagingly dissects the influential writer's body of speculative and sci-fi work.
Running at nearly an hour, director Yony Leyser's wide-ranging analysis of Burroughs' tragic yet productive life touches all the subversive bases: The author's accidental murder of his wife, Joan, in a drug-fueled shooting game. His creative collaboration with fellow Beat Generation pioneers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. His open homosexuality and persistent heroin addiction.
Most importantly, A Man Within, which makes its broadcast debut Tuesday on PBS' Independent Lens, explores Burroughs' uncanny ability to create cut-up novels like Naked Lunch and The Nova Trilogy, which influenced punk rock, heavy metal, cyberpunk and other subcultural phenomena that have since been absorbed into the yawning mainstream.
Interzone Calling! 2011 Burrows Into William S. Burroughs____Ah Pook Is Here: Burroughs' long lost graphic novel Ah Pook Is Here arrives in July from Fantagraphics. Originally published in the '60s and '70s as The Unspeakable Mr. Hart, Burroughs and artist Malcolm McNeill's apocalyptic tale about monolithic media and mind control comes back into circulation as a two-volume package including McNeill's companion memoir, Observed While Falling. Want to watch it now in the form of an animated mind-fry? Check out Philip Hunt's award-winning 1994 short, Ah Pook.
On the Road: Viggo Mortensen (The Lord of the Rings, The Road) inhabits Burroughs' literary avatar Old Bull Lee in director Walter Salles' film adaptation of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, reportedly due out this year. (In a dose of awesome subcultural synergy, Mortensen also stars as Sigmund Freud this year in director David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method. In 1991, Cronenberg adapted Burroughs' transrealist sci-fi classic Naked Lunch into one of the greatest midnight moves ever made.)
Leyser's film premiered theatrically in late 2010 in a very limited run. Its television debut is an engrossing must-watch for fans of Burroughs (and of artists like Alan Moore and Steely Dan, who were influenced by the writer).
Engaging interviews with counterculture heroes like John Waters, Iggy Pop and Jello Biafra steer A Man Within close to hagiography, but the dark details and scathing insights about Burroughs' life and work torpedo that objective.
The defiant Burroughs probably wouldn't have had it any other way.
To A Man Within's credit, the film doesn't shy away from the writer's personal tragedies. Even Burroughs admitted he wasn't the most likable or admirable of husbands, fathers and lovers. From the death of Joan to the suicide of his son, Burroughs' life was as littered with destroyed relationships as it was with annihilated literary and artistic traditions.
As Dennis M. Dailey, Burroughs' neighbor and author of The Sexually Unusual, says in A Man Within: "I think probably Freud would think [Burroughs] to be deeply, deeply troubled [and] profoundly mentally ill."
Featuring a spirited soundtrack from Patti Smith and Sonic Youth, A Man Within lightens the load with lively chats with people like RoboCop's Peter Weller, who starred as Bill Lee in David Cronenberg's brave and moving film adaptation of Naked Lunch.
Watching Weller, who narrates the biodoc, recount the mind-boggling laundry list of drugs Burroughs managed to get his mind and body on – including the CIA's own strain of LSD – is a definite highlight in a film that boasts many.
Which is fitting, given that Burroughs' narrative mind-body merges are some of the most challenging works ever written. But despite their stark desperation and so-called depravity – depending on which side of the Naked Lunch obscenity trial you stand – they're also some of the most creative experiments ever committed to culture.
William S. Burroughs: A Man Within airs Tuesday on PBS' Independent Lens.
WIRED Hilarious Weller and Waters, excellent footage, uncompromising biography.
TIRED Stop-motion wire animation doesn't add much; needs more Cronenberg.
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