This is not an adaptation of William S. Burroughs' 1959 novel "Naked Lunch". Cronenberg uses elements from the works and the life of WSB and turns them into a very strange, appropriate tale. He does this quite well. Still, true to his subject, it's ultimately very boring, obscure and disgusting.
In the 1950s WSB wrote predominantly about his life as a drug addict - and about his lust for boys in South America and North Africa. It's quite drastic and depraved stuff, sometimes an actual horror story. He mixed reality with drug-induced hallucinations, peppering it with elements from the at that time still prevalent pulp fiction literature. In "Naked Lunch" WSB used the "cut-up technique" - the mostly random rearranged of text passages - to destroy every meaning that was still left, to turn his text into art, into the kind of literature professional critics liked. He did to literature what abstract expressionist, who dominated the art world in the 1950s, did to paintings. It was a street to nowhere, at that time labeled as "avantgarde".
Thankfully Cronenberg doesn't go there. He is doing the pulp fiction thing. On the surface, his film is about conspiracies, agents and aliens. The real story is the one of WSB's junkie life told in the world of his fever dreams as a drug addict.
The only reason why this film gets labeled as "Science Fiction" are the aliens, and these aliens are no aliens at all, they are demons. WSB was a true believer and practitioner of magic, and for many of such devotees UFOs and aliens are just explanations of demonic manifestations for a less religeous age. Cronenberg obviously did understand this. The two kinds of demons (aliens) are personifications of the two parts of the male anatomy WSB was fixated on.
A lot of thoughts went into the production of this movie. There are probably many allusions and innuendoes to discover, many symbols to decipher. But is it worth it? WSB as described by himself was a terrible human being, really the worst. Hating everybody, only living for his addictions, "accidentally" shooting his wife - yeah, that's the good life! Later on he actually wrote that this killing - that happened in 1951 in Mexico and for that he was never punished - did turn him into a writer. The movie promotes this idea in a way that's evil, demonic. The human sacrifice made him an author (Totally worth it!).
The book is not only much worse than the movie, having read it and knowing about WSB has a real negative impact on the perception of Cronenberg's work. It is no longer seen as being just strange and enigmatic. It's nothing less than repugnant. Sometimes art dies from knowledge.
The title sounds interesting - until it is explained by WSB himself: "naked lunch, a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork." It's nigh on impossible to talk more pretentious and silly than this. It gets worse than ridiculous: WSB repeatedly stated that he didn't love the drugs or their "kicks", he loved the addiction itself. Art for art's sake. Addiction for addiction's sake. He went through hell and he loved it, he felt right at home. And why not? After all, he wasn't a square or something. He was the avantgarde. Cronenberg's "Naked Lunch" is a movie from hell.
In the 1950s WSB wrote predominantly about his life as a drug addict - and about his lust for boys in South America and North Africa. It's quite drastic and depraved stuff, sometimes an actual horror story. He mixed reality with drug-induced hallucinations, peppering it with elements from the at that time still prevalent pulp fiction literature. In "Naked Lunch" WSB used the "cut-up technique" - the mostly random rearranged of text passages - to destroy every meaning that was still left, to turn his text into art, into the kind of literature professional critics liked. He did to literature what abstract expressionist, who dominated the art world in the 1950s, did to paintings. It was a street to nowhere, at that time labeled as "avantgarde".
Thankfully Cronenberg doesn't go there. He is doing the pulp fiction thing. On the surface, his film is about conspiracies, agents and aliens. The real story is the one of WSB's junkie life told in the world of his fever dreams as a drug addict.
The only reason why this film gets labeled as "Science Fiction" are the aliens, and these aliens are no aliens at all, they are demons. WSB was a true believer and practitioner of magic, and for many of such devotees UFOs and aliens are just explanations of demonic manifestations for a less religeous age. Cronenberg obviously did understand this. The two kinds of demons (aliens) are personifications of the two parts of the male anatomy WSB was fixated on.
A lot of thoughts went into the production of this movie. There are probably many allusions and innuendoes to discover, many symbols to decipher. But is it worth it? WSB as described by himself was a terrible human being, really the worst. Hating everybody, only living for his addictions, "accidentally" shooting his wife - yeah, that's the good life! Later on he actually wrote that this killing - that happened in 1951 in Mexico and for that he was never punished - did turn him into a writer. The movie promotes this idea in a way that's evil, demonic. The human sacrifice made him an author (Totally worth it!).
The book is not only much worse than the movie, having read it and knowing about WSB has a real negative impact on the perception of Cronenberg's work. It is no longer seen as being just strange and enigmatic. It's nothing less than repugnant. Sometimes art dies from knowledge.
The title sounds interesting - until it is explained by WSB himself: "naked lunch, a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork." It's nigh on impossible to talk more pretentious and silly than this. It gets worse than ridiculous: WSB repeatedly stated that he didn't love the drugs or their "kicks", he loved the addiction itself. Art for art's sake. Addiction for addiction's sake. He went through hell and he loved it, he felt right at home. And why not? After all, he wasn't a square or something. He was the avantgarde. Cronenberg's "Naked Lunch" is a movie from hell.