Naked Lunch

In Brief: Only a madman would attempt to film William S. Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch, and that is perhaps why David Cronenberg didn't make a film of it, instead making a film about Burroughs and the creation of the book. This does not make his 1991 film of Naked Lunch an easy undertaking for the casual viewer — and it is, I think, a work that is much enhanced by having read the book. There is a plot of sorts, but, by the end of the film, it hardly matters. At bottom, the film is an exploration of the mind of a writer and the act of writing. It is, in fact, my personal choice of the best film ever made about writing — an assessment that often leaves people looking at me funny. But the truth is that nearly every aspect of writing is in there. It starts when Bill Lee (Peter Weller in the role he was born to play) trades his gun for a typewriter — for him a much more dangerous weapon. And it goes from there, examining the sexuality of writing, the escape (and trap) of writing, the use of writing to allow the writer to indulge and deny his fantasies — even that strangest of feelings of not being able to account for what you've written. Is it weird? Oh, God, yes. This is a movie where typewriters are organic (and even untrustworthy) creatures, where nightmare takes form, where ... Just watch it.