William S. Burroughs: A Man Within Page #7

Now, I'm sure that

that accident...

haunted him, for sure.

Yeah.

[ Narrator ]

After killing his wife,

William Burroughs moved

to Tangier, Morocco,

where he struggled

with his heroin addiction.

There, in the form of notes,

journal entries...

and letters to Allen Ginsberg

and Jack Kerouac,

he excavated the literature

that would become the novel

Naked Lunch.

You know, Burroughs is a fairly

foreboding character

in his novels.

It's like, um...

I find Burroughs to be

hilariously funny.

Some people are like,

"Oh, God. Naked Lunch.

It's obscene.

All these guys getting hung.

All this jissom.

All this disgusting"...

You know.

What's missing from

that reading of Burroughs...

is it's totally funny.

It's like this burlesque,

but the material

he's using is, um,

the raw images

of the unconscious.

William Burroughs was alien

to many people.

And definitely to mainstream

Western culture, he was alien.

And it's only an alien that

would have the circumspection...

to write about Western culture

like he did in Naked Lunch.

[ Weinreich ]

Naked Lunch stood out

because it was so different.

It was a novel that

knocked people out

or repulsed them.

It also inaugurated

the whole era of "hip"...

because it was so subversive

that it had its own cachet.

[ Narrator ] In 1962,

the novel was tried in

Boston, Massachusetts,

for obscenity.

The courts charged

that it contained

child murder and pedophilia.

Burroughs's

supporting witnesses...

included Allen Ginsberg

and Norman Mailer.

It would be the last major

literary censorship hearing

in the United States.

Eventually, in 1966,

the Massachusetts Supreme Court

overturned the ban,

ruling that the book had indeed

redeeming social value.

And it was henceforth

widely published

in the United States.

It won all the censorship stuff

because there were no laws

against that yet.

They didn't know gay people

that did heroin...

that bragged about it

and talked about it

and made it seem appealing.

That was not on the law books.

It was thinking up something

that wasn't even illegal yet.

And that book

was so passionate.

And in the beginning,

you can't have a better

press agent than a censor,

especially in the '50s and '60s.

This is William speaking

and under attack...

for Naked Lunch

being pornographic.

So he says, "Certain passages

in the book that have been

called pornographic..."

were written as a tract

against capital punishment...

in the manner

of Jonathan Swift's

Modest Proposal.

These sections are intended

to reveal capital punishment...

as the obscene, barbaric

and disgusting anachronism

that it is.

As always, the lunch is naked.

If civilized societies

want to return...

to the druid hanging rites

in the sacred grove...

or to drink blood

with the Aztecs...

or feed the gods

with blood of human sacrifice,

let them see what they

actually eat and drink.

"Let them see what is on the end

of that long newspaper spoon."

"A man is carried in naked

by two Negro bearers..."

who dropped him

on the platform...

with bestial,

sneering brutality.

The man wriggles.

His flesh turns to viscid,

transparent jelly...

that drips away

in green mist"...

[ David Cronenberg ]

I think Burroughs's writings,

particularly Naked Lunch,

were quite revolutionary.

They talked about things

that nobody talked about,

especially in America,

which was very...

I'd say rather more

sexually repressed than...

Because of the Puritan

traditions of America

and so on.

He really... It wasn't

just homosexuality.

I mean, it was just

his alien sexuality.

[ Burroughs ]

In the '60s,

it became quite political,

with the yippies.

They had a very

definite program.

And most of those objectives

were realized.

Mm-hmm.

End the Vietnam war.

Uh, legalization of pot.

Uh, end of censorship.

Uh, recognition

of minority rights.

Mm-hmm.

Most of those objectives,

as least to some extent.

[ Chanting, Shouting ]

[ Bockris ]

When Bill witnessed an event

such as that, he wrote about it.

And what you get in the writing

is what he saw.

He said all the obvious things,

you know.

It was a fascist state.

It was, uh...

It was frightening.

In Grant Park, when

the police were approaching,

he wondered if he'd be able

to withstand it...

of if he would break and run.

He was worried about that,

and also he was worried...

about his ability to move

fast enough to get away.

After all, most people

were kids,

and he was, like,

in his late 50s

at that point.

[ People Chattering ]

[ Man ]

I gotta go be with them

on Saturday night...

for a family party on Sunday.

[ Man ]

I think of changing things.

Hare Krishna.

[ Waters ]

Alan Ginsberg

was more of a hippie.

Hippies always got on my nerves.

We were punks without

knowing we were punks.

We looked like hippies,

but we had punk values.

William was much more

up our alley... my friends.

Because he was angry

and caused trouble...

and was not politically correct.

Where Allen was

politically correct

within the hippie movement.

Burroughs was not even

politically correct

in the hippie movement.

[ Bockris ]

There's a real connection

between the Beats and the punks.

The punks really are neo-Beats.

Much of the punk philosophy

or lifestyle or attitude,

"punk" was a very good

word to use.

[ Grunts ]

[ Raucous ]

[ Van Sant ]

Right in that period of time

that I met him, in '75,

his works were influencing

punk rock.

And, I guess,

early queer culture...

was kind of born in punk rock,

I always thought.

[ Bockris ]

Don't forget, he had that

column, "Time of the Assassins",

in Crawdadd magazine

back in those days.

Crawdaddy was a fairly

widely read rock magazine.

So, putting himself

into that context,

he was opening up the door

to these younger kids...

who probably only read

one of his books,

like probably Junkie,

if anything,

but really kind of adored him

as the godfather of punk,

which is what he became.

And also you have to remember

that Bill lived on the Bowery,

five blocks down from CBGB's,

in an area where many

of the punk-rock stars lived.

So he really was kind of

in that world.

I remember Patti Smith

at St. Mark's Poetry Project...

in '74, after a reading,

ended it by telling everyone...

that William Burroughs

was back in town.

"Isn't that great?

Welcome to New York,

William Burroughs!"

[ Chattering ]

William, I was just

in Amsterdam,

and I haven't

played in Amsterdam

since we were there.

[ Chattering ]

[ Strumming:
Ballad ]

He would read in Max's,

and Patti Smith would

read or else sing.

And it was like

the early punk movement,

and he was connected to that.

[ Smith ]

He came to CBGB's

all the time...

when we were developing

our work.

And through the '70s,

he could be seen sitting there

like the royalty that he was.

There are many passages

in William's books,

particularly in Naked Lunch

and The Wild Boys,

in which he prophesied

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes