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Released by: Oscilloscope Labs
Released on: 2/15/2011
Director: Yony Leyser
Cast: William S. Burroughs, Patti Smith, Thurston Moore
Year: 2010
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The Movie:
Yony Leyser's 2010 documentary, William S. Burroughs: A Man Within, takes a slightly different approach to its subject than we've seen before in that it attempts to really bring out the late beat author's personality and personal life and show how it affected his writing and its subsequent influence.
The documentary is a mix of archival clips and photographs from throughout Burroughs life and career as well as newly shot interviews with those who knew him, wrote about him, documented him, befriended him and influenced him. The movie basically goes in chronological order and takes us through his life from his early years as a writer to his involvement with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac to his more mainstream years that would follow in the wake of Naked Lunch thanks to Cronenberg's adaptation of the novel and through his influence on the New York City punk rock scene.
Along the way we learn what happened to his wife during the William Tell incident, and about how this loss, as well as the loss of his son, would affect him. We learn of his relationships with different men throughout the years, his love and trust of cats, and of his various substance abuse issues and most importantly how people were able to latch onto his work and relate to it. As John Waters says so poignantly in his interview segment, Burroughs was the only one writing about 'heroin and assholes' and as obtuse as that might sound, he really did break a lot of new ground in terms of writing openly about homosexuality and drug use.
In addition to Waters' input, also look for interviews with Patti Smith (who quite openly admits that she was very much in love with Burroughs when she was younger), Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo (who contribute original work to the movie's soundtrack), Iggy Pop, Gus Van Sant, Jello Biafra, David Cronenberg, Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV fame (whose gender modification project seems to be well under way), and Peter Weller among others. Each has a seemingly unique take on and story to tell about their involvement with the late author, be it related to his penchant for firearms (his former boyfriend tells us he kept a loaded pistol in bed) or his scathing ability to see through so much of America's hypocrisy. What stands out, however, is that no one seems to have really gotten so deep into the man's psyche, and it seemed that, up until his last year on Earth at least, that this was how he wanted it to be.
Hardly a romantic, most of us know Burroughs as the perpetually aged junkie (he didn't look young even when he was young) with the gravelly monotone voice who had a thing for young boys and recorded with Kurt Cobain. This documentary will change that, as it does as good a job as is realistically possible of letting us know the man behind the persona. The end result is a documentary both fascinating and tragic, a truly interesting personality piece that looks past his hipster credibility and which puts together a few pieces of the Burroughs puzzle which weren't necessarily so evident before.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Oscilloscope's 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen presentation is a nice one, though obviously some of the older archival clips aren't going to look as nice as the newly shot interview footage does. Colors are generally nice and natural and detail levels are fine. The quality understandably varies from clip to clip but overall, this is a nice effort.
The audio, a Dolby Digital Stereo track, is also quite good. Dialogue is clean and clear as it can be (you can only do so much with Burroughs' mumble!) and levels are well balanced. Some of the older clips used have a bit of background hiss but you can't fault the disc or the feature for that - there's nothing to complain about here.
First up, as far as the extras go, is a collection of three deleted scenes featuring Burroughs' artwork with fellow artist and friend, Wayne Propst. These flesh out Burroughs' artistic side a bit more than those in the feature do and are worth checking out. The Home Movies section contains some interesting clips shot in Burroughs' home featuring Patti Smith, Steve Buscemi, Allen Ginsberg and others and it clocks in at just under seventeen minutes in length. Shot by Wayne Propst, most of this is just simply fly on the wall footage but it's interesting to see Burroughs in a completely casual environment.
There's also a four minute clip contained here in which Sonic Youth visits Burroughs at his home in Lawrence, Kansas. Shot on Super 8mm film there' no sound but it's narrated by Ranaldo and it gives us a quick look around his house and at the Orgone Shed he built in the backyard to contain sexual energy. The Naked Lunch 50th Anniversary Celebration clip is a bit in which Peter Weller, poets John Giorno and Anne Waldman, artist Penny Arcade, producer Hal Willner, Dr. Bill Evans and others join together to pay tribute to Burroughs at an event that was held in Chicago in 2009. It's fifteen minutes long and interesting if only to see how popular this seminal book remains decades after it was written.
Patti Smith reads “Psalm 23 Revisited†is just what it sounds like, a short one minute piece in which Smith reads a piece she wrote in 2009 to honor her friend, which she reads in 'The Bunker' (Burroughs Bowery apartment in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in a building maintained by John Giorno). The disc also contains a twelve minute question and answer session with director Yony Leyser at conducted by the BFI at the 2010 London Film Festival where Leyser explains his motivations and experiences regarding this film.
Closing out the extras is a music video for “Rub Out the Word,†two and a half minutes of Burroughs creating his infamous shotgun art, trailers for other Oscilloscope releases, some nice animated menus, and chapter selection. Inside the typically cool Oscilloscope Labs packaging the disc has brief but exclusive essays written by Talking Heads front man David Byrne and NYC punk icon Richard Hell.
The Final Word:
A fairly revealing look at one of the more controversial and unusual authors in American literature, William S. Burroughs: The Man Within is not just a biographical piece on the man but also a look into how and why his personality mixed with his output so intensely and why it caught on with the people the way it did. Oscilloscope's DVD is a strong release, with good audio and video quality and a pretty solid array of extra features as well.
Also, i want an apartment on the LES. What are those going for?
And yeah, do order it, it's worth the money and Oscilloscope does a consistently great job with their discs, from the extras to the packaging. They obviously care about their catalogue.