Naked Lunch
Directed by	David Cronenberg
Produced by	Jeremy Thomas, Gabriella Martinelli
Written by	David Cronenberg, Based on the novel by William S. Burroughs
Starring	Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm
Music by	Howard Shore
Cinematography	Peter Suschitzky
Distributed by	Twentieth Century Fox
Release date(s)	January 21, 1991
Running time	115 min.
Language	English
Budget	unknown
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Naked Lunch is a 1991 film by the Canadian director David Cronenberg. Image File history File links Criterion_Collection_Naked_Lunch. ... David Cronenberg at Cannes 2002 David Paul Cronenberg OC, FRSC (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director and occasional actor. ... Jeremy Thomas (born 26 July 1949 in London, England) is a British film producer. ... Gabriella Martinelli is an Italian-Canadian film and television producer. ... David Cronenberg at Cannes 2002 David Paul Cronenberg OC, FRSC (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director and occasional actor. ... Naked Lunch is a novel by William S. Burroughs. ... William Seward Burroughs II (1914 – August 2, 1997), more commonly known as William S. Burroughs, was an American novelist, essayist, social critic, painter and spoken word performer. ... Peter Weller (born June 24, 1947 in Stevens Point, Wisconsin) is an American film and stage actor and lecturer. ... Judy Davis (born 23 April 1955) is an Academy Award-nominated Australian actress. ... Sir Ian Holm Sir Ian Holm CBE (born 12 September 1931), born as Ian Holm Cuthbert, is an English actor. ... Howard Shore Howard Leslie Shore (born October 18, 1946) is a Canadian film composer, best known for composing the score to The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. ... Peter Suschitzky (born July 25, 1941) is a Polish-British cinematographer, born in Warsaw to fellow cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky. ... Related articles FOX Television Network Fox Searchlight Pictures Fox Entertainment Group List of Hollywood movie studios List of movies Variant of current 20th Century Fox logo External links 20th Century Fox Movies official site Twentieth Century Fox is also the punning title of a song by The Doors on their... January 21 is the 21st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... // April 28 - Bonnie Raitt marries actor Michael Noonan OKeefe in New York Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation is made. ... // April 28 - Bonnie Raitt marries actor Michael Noonan OKeefe in New York Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation is made. ... Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. ... David Cronenberg at Cannes 2002 David Paul Cronenberg OC, FRSC (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director and occasional actor. ...

Plot

William Lee (a pen name of Burroughs) is an exterminator who finds that his bug powder is being stolen by his wife for recreational purposes. The police arrest Lee, at which point he believes he is hallucinating due to the bug powder exposure. Lee believes he is a secret agent, and Lee's controller (a giant bug) gives him the mission of killing his wife, Joan Lee, who is, according to the bug, an agent of an organization called Interzone Incorporated. Dismissing the bug and its instructions, Lee returns home to find his wife sleeping with Hank, one of his writer friends. He soon shoots her while performing a William Tell routine. Recreational drug use is the use of psychoactive drugs for recreational purposes rather than for work, medical or spiritual purposes, although the distinction is not always clear. ... Statue of Wilhelm Tell and his Son in Altdorf, Switzerland (Richard Kissling, 1895). ...

Having "accomplished" his "mission", Lee flees to Interzone, where the Interzone Incorporated organization is based, and spends his time writing reports on his mission, which become the book Naked Lunch. While in Interzone, the typewriters Lee uses are themselves living creatures, usually giving Lee advice on his mission. Clark Nova, one of Lee's typewriters, tells him to find Doctor Benway, by means of seducing Joan Frost who is a doppelgänger of his dead wife, Joan Lee. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

After finding out that Doctor Benway is the head of a drug manufacturing ring, producing "the black meat", Lee completes his report and flees Interzone to Annexia with Joan Frost. Upon meeting the Annexian border patrol, to prove that he is a writer as he claims, he shoots Joan Frost in the head, in the same manner that he shot his late wife, Joan Lee. After seeing this, the border patrol welcomes Lee to Annexia.

Background

Based on the fiction and autobiographical accounts of William S. Burroughs (including, but by no means limited to, Naked Lunch itself), the plot follows a writer, William Lee (played by Peter Weller), who travels to Interzone, a place that can only be reached through the inhalation of bug powder. The film also stars Ian Holm, Judy Davis and Roy Scheider. William Seward Burroughs II (1914 – August 2, 1997), more commonly known as William S. Burroughs, was an American novelist, essayist, social critic, painter and spoken word performer. ... Naked Lunch is a novel by William S. Burroughs. ... Peter Weller (born June 24, 1947 in Stevens Point, Wisconsin) is an American film and stage actor and lecturer. ... Sir Ian Holm Sir Ian Holm CBE (born 12 September 1931), born as Ian Holm Cuthbert, is an English actor. ... Judy Davis (born 23 April 1955) is an Academy Award-nominated Australian actress. ... Roy Richard Scheider (born November 10, 1932) is an American actor. ...

Interzone is from Burroughs' novel, a North-African B-Movie fantasy and a drug-induced dreamworld. The name is a reference to the "International Zone" created for Tangier after 1923, and still in effect in the 1940s and 1950s when Burroughs and other artists were living there. A view of Tangier bay at sunrise as seen from Cape Malabata Tangier(Tanja طنچة in Berber and Arabic, Tânger in Portuguese, and Tanger in French), is a city of northern Morocco with a population of 669,685 (2004 census). ... {{year nav|1939 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ... The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949. ... // Recovering from World War II and its aftermath, the economic miracle emerged in West Germany and Italy. ...

Director David Cronenberg blends biographical details from Burrough's life with scenes and elements of his fiction to create a script for the "unfilmable" novel. It can be seen as a postmodern or metatextual adaptation of the book, in that it is about the creation of the fiction as much as the representation of it. Postmodernity (also called post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is a term used by philosophers, social scientists, art critics and social critics to refer to aspects of contemporary art, culture, economics and social conditions that are the result of the unique features of late 20th century and early 21st century... Look up metafiction in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Reception

Criticism

The reception of Naked Lunch was somewhat mixed. Some critics felt it was an excellent example of Cronenberg's perennial themes: the intersection of the body and the machine, biological change, and infection. Others felt it was a muddled adaptation of Burroughs' novel that reflected Cronenberg's mind much more than the novel. Burroughs' subversive, allegorically political depiction of drugs and homosexuality becomes mere grist for horror or an aesthetic choice. His social and politically situated literary techniques (the "routines") become a hermetic hallucination of a junkie. In effect, by using the life of Burroughs himself (via William Lee) as a frame, Cronenberg has turned a fragmented, unromantic, bitterly critical and satirical novel into a conventional bildungsroman.^[1] William Seward Burroughs II (1914 – August 2, 1997), more commonly known as William S. Burroughs, was an American novelist, essayist, social critic, painter and spoken word performer. ... The word hermetic is commonly applied to literary or graphical symbolism that is exceedingly obscure, convoluted, or esoteric. ... A frame story (also frame tale, frame narrative, etc. ... A bildungsroman (IPA: /, German: novel of education or novel of formation) is a novel which traces the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the main character from (usually) childhood to maturity. ...

Awards

Genie Awards: 1992 The Genie Awards are given out to recognize the best of Canadian films and television, by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. ...

• Best Motion Picture
• Best Director - David Cronenberg
• Best Supporting Actress - Monique Mercure
• Best Art Direction - Carol Spier
• Best Cinematography - Peter Suschitzky
• Best Overall Sound - Peter Maxwell, Brian Day, Don White, David Appleby
• Best Sound Editing

Monique Mercure (born November 14, 1930) is a Canadian actor. ... Peter Suschitzky (born July 25, 1941) is a Polish-British cinematographer, born in Warsaw to fellow cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky. ...

Cast

• Peter Weller as Bill Lee
• Judy Davis as Joan Frost/Joan Lee
• Ian Holm as Tom Frost
• Julian Sands as Yves Cloquet
• Roy Scheider as Doctor Benway
• Monique Mercure as Fadela
• Nicholas Campbell as Hank
• Michael Zelniker as Martin
• Robert A. Silverman as Hans
• Joseph Scoren as Kiki (as Joseph Scorsiani)
• Peter Boretski as Creature Voices/Exterminator #2
• Yuval Daniel as Hafid
• John Friesen as Hauser
• Sean McCann as O'Brien
• Howard Jerome as A.J. Cohen

Peter Weller (born June 24, 1947 in Stevens Point, Wisconsin) is an American film and stage actor and lecturer. ... Judy Davis (born 23 April 1955) is an Academy Award-nominated Australian actress. ... Sir Ian Holm Sir Ian Holm CBE (born 12 September 1931), born as Ian Holm Cuthbert, is an English actor. ... Julian Sands as Vladimir Bierko on 24. ... Roy Richard Scheider (born November 10, 1932) is an American actor. ... Monique Mercure (born November 14, 1930) is a Canadian actor. ... Nicholas Campbell as Dominic Da Vinci Nicholas Campbell (b. ... Robert A. Silverman is one of several actors often cast by writer/director David Cronenberg. ... Sean McCann may be: Sean McCann (actor) (born 1935), Canadian television Seán McCann (musician) (born c. ...

Trivia

• In an episode of The Simpsons, Bart, Milhouse and Nelson sneak into a theatre showing the film with the help of a fake I.D. card. They walk out afterwards looking very confused, and Nelson remarks, "I can think of at least two things wrong with that title."
• Although the film takes great liberties with Burroughs' work, one segment, in which Lee recounts the story of "The Talking Asshole" is presented verbatim from the novel.
• The character Tom Frost (Ian Holm)'s typewriter is a "Martinelli", apparently named after co-producer Gabriella Martinelli. When he lends the machine to Lee, Frost says of the typewriter, "Her inventiveness will surprise you."
• The first track on Showbread's Age of Reptiles is called "Naked Lunch" and is themed around the ideas presented in both the film and novel.
• The protagonist's name William Lee is the pseudonym Burroughs used for his first novel, Junky.
• The film's score is composed by Cronenberg's staple go-to scorer: Howard Shore. Shore features free-jazz virtuoso Ornette Coleman throughout the score.

Bart on the Road is the twentieth episode of The Simpsons seventh season. ... Simpsons redirects here. ... Mechanical desktop typewriters, such as this Underwood Five, were long time standards of government agencies, newsrooms, and sales offices. ... Gabriella Martinelli is an Italian-Canadian film and television producer. ... Showbread is a Christian Post-Hardcore/Alternative band from the Savannah, Georgia area. ... Age Of Reptiles is upcoming an album by the band Showbread. ... 50th anniversary edition, with Burroughs intended title spelling. ... Howard Shore Howard Leslie Shore (born October 18, 1946) is a Canadian film composer, best known for composing the score to The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. ... Ornette Coleman (born March 19, 1930) is an American saxophonist and composer. ...

References

1. ^ Murphy, Timothy S. Wising Up the Marks. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. ISBN 0-520-20951-6

External links

• Naked Lunch at the Internet Movie Database
• Criterion Collection essay by Janet Maslin
• Criterion Collection essay by Gary Indiana