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Burroughs: The Movie
- Director: Howard Brookner
- Producer: Howard Brookner; Alan Yentob
CGiii Comment
Defining Burroughs...
So much - perhaps, too much - has been filmed and written about Burroughs, it's difficult to differentiate between fact and fiction, between sycophantic adoration and intelligent opinion.
Well, there is always a remedy to such meandering whimsy...talk to the man himself. Here he is...mostly, off his head and - surprisingly - playful, witty, warm. Not an inch as grumpy and morose as the man he has been portrayed to be in subsequent films...fraudulently made by people who neither knew nor met him.
The difficult events are here...the killing of his wife, the death of his son...his tyrannical assault on literature, alcohol and drugs - there's even a clip of his appearance @ Heaven [I was there].
This once lost film has been found, re-mastered and - thankfully - re-released. After watching it, the finger of suspicion [for its loss] points accusingly at James Grauerholz...the word 'parasite' springs immediately to mind.
Definitive.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
The film was directed by the late Howard Brookner. It was begun in 1978 as Brookner's senior thesis at NYU film school and then expanded into a feature which was completed 5 years later in 1983. Sound was recorded by Jim Jarmusch and the film was shot by Tom DiCillo, fellow NYU classmates and both very close friends of Brookner's.
Cast & Characters
William S. Burroughs Jr. as Himself;
Mortimer Burroughs as Himself;
William S. Burroughs as Himself;
Jackie Curtis as Nurse;
Allen Ginsberg;
John Giorno;
James Grauerholz as Himself;
Brion Gysin;
Lauren Hutton as Herself;
Patti Smith;
Terry Southern as Himself