Fiction

NAKED LUNCH

David Cronenberg
GBR, Kanada, Japan 1991
115 min
V'11

David Cronenberg has described his “adaptation of Burroughs’ book” as if he and the author had ventured into The Fly’s telepod together and produced an unexpected hybrid. This is not any kind of direct transposition of an intangible and hallucinatory text, but a film on the act of writing itself, with fictional narcotics as a guiding factor and the biography of Burroghs as an anecdotal reference point. Interzone is no longer the junkies’ haven of Tangiers but a studio creation of an interior world, sliding from Moroccan markets stalls to hotel rooms looking surrealistically out to views of Central Park. Aside from a few absurd monologues there is little in the script that is recognizably drawn from Burroughs’ text, and the explosive comic creation Dr. Benway (enacted by Burroughs himself in a memorable BBC Arena programme) has been transformed into the cameo role of another sinister, power-crazed scientist from the Cronenberg universe. (David Thompson)

Credits
  • Peter Weller - Bill Lee
  • Judy Davis - Joan Frost/Joan Lee
  • Ian Holm - Tom Frost
  • Julian Sands - Yves Cloquet
  • Roy Scheider - Dr. Benway
  • Monique Mercure - Fadela
  • David Cronenberg nach dem Roman von William S. Bourroughs
  • Peter Suschitzky
  • Brian Day
  • Ron Saunders
  • Howard Shore
  • Carol Spier
  • Chris Walas
  • Denise Cronenberg
Recorded Picture Company, Naked Lunch Productions, Film Trustees, Nippon Film Development and Finance, Ontario Film Development Corporation, Téléfilm Canada
HanWay Films
35 mm
col
Related Movies