One of David Cronenberg's finest movies! | Naked Lunch [VHS]

Spectacular, Mind-Blowing, and Deranged Cornucopia of Masterful Artistry | Naked Lunch [VHS] | Peter Weller, Judy Davis

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	• Naked Lunch [VHS] Peter Weller, Judy Davis 20th Century Fox, 2001 average customer review:based on 99 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A surreal journey through the nightmarish world of a junkie...

David Cronenberg's film "Naked Lunch" (1991) is based on William S. Burrough's surrealistic novel of the same name from 1959. This film is Cronenberg's synthesis of the writings and life of Burroughs, as well as the actual writing of the novel the "Naked Lunch" in Tangier. The movie starts off with William Lee (Peter Weller) standing in as the Burrough's character who makes his living as an insect exterminator. This first segment is based on Burrough's work the "Exterminator!". Early on Burrough's actually made his living as an insect exterminator. The collection of stories entitled "Interzone" also formed the basis for aspects of the film. The movie also has characters such as Hank (Nicholas Campbell) and Martin (Michael Zelniker) who loosely represent friends of Burroughs, such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg (who helped Burroughs compile his novel "Naked Lunch"). Joan Lee (Judy Davis) portrays Burrough's drug abusing wife whom he accidentally shot in real life. This film weaves the real with the surreal as we follow the junkie William Lee through the dark corridors of his mind.

This DVD comes with an exceptional audio commentary by David Cronenberg. It is filmed in English with subtitles in French with a 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack, and in widescreen, with an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 at 115 minutes.

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One of David Cronenberg's finest movies!

In the early 50's, big city bug-exterminator/writer Bill Lee (Peter Weller) has been addicted to bug powder that causes him to hallucinate bizarre stuff such as giant bugs with talking retcums, alien-like creatures and many weird stuff. His wife Joan (Judy Davis) was accidently shot by him as he panics, he gets a one way ticket out of town to an Islamnic place called The Interzone where he can keep his mind at ease away from home for a bit until things clear off. He runs into a British couple named Tom and Joan Frost (Ian Homl and Judy Davis) as he befriends them and writes reports on what is going on thanks to the wonders of talking critters.

Bizarre and stylish horror fantasy drama thriller from David Cronenberg is one of his best movies. Based on the book by William Burroughs and his alter ego character Bill Lee, this is a film definitely not for everyone. The film is about what it is being a junkie and loosing your sense of reality, it's also part fiction and part semi-biography of Burroughs including his druggie life that he had before he wrote the book "Naked Lunch". The book has been considered unfilmable by many but David Cronenberg knew how to successfully bring the novel to the big screen in an acclaimed way, the special effects and creature effects by Chris Walas ("Gremlins", "Fly 1 & 2", "Scanners", "Raiders of the Lost Ark") are very well done and realistic. The acting is quite superb even by Riy Scheider as Dr. Benway, the film is a required taste and one of David Cronenberg's greatest movies.

This 2-Disc DVD from the Criterion Collection has a superb transfer and terrific sound. The extras are just great such as audio commentary, a documentary on making the film, illustrated essay about the film's special effects, still galleries, marketing materials, William S. Burroughs's audio recording of excerpts from his novel, and a 32 page booklet of great infomation.

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Spectacular, Mind-Blowing, and Deranged Cornucopia of Masterful Artistry

I don't know how anyone could watch this film and assume there is no storyline, nothing interesting, or provocative, other than scenes that test the viewer's constitution. This has got to be the single best film I've ever seen in my life. I couldn't imagine any director but Cronenberg for this masterpiece. It simply crescendoes marvelously and uncontrollably toward the "end" without a single abrupt scene along the way, and Weller's performance is without peer. In a role that both reflects and repels the persona behind RoboCop to the extreme, Peter Weller deftly delivers the most stoic, elegant, and mysterious acting I have ever seen.
Now, anyone who is looking for a linear plotline should probably spend the next few days cutting up the original novel and trying to piece it together in the most logical way possible, because you are not going to get that in this movie. This is, as Burroughs puts it, only a tiny fraction of the book, but for the $35 I paid for it, I found it amazingly coherent. What's it about? A man who goes insane? Is that all? NO. This is a manifesto of Burroughs' life and work, filtered through the visual medium of film and the twisted genius of Cronenberg. The effect is astonishing. Absurd drug use, hallucinations, aliens, beetles, homoeroticism, and typewriters of every form under the sun. What this entails is an intimate, harrowing personal account of the creative process in the face of otherworldly circumstances. James Oroc proposes that Bill Lee's writing reports for interzone can be interpreted as Burroughs' solemn duty undertaken in the name of the psychedelic experience. I'll leave you with that, because with any more reductionist interpretation, the film might disintegrate before my very eyes.
6 stars.

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Non-rational thought

This show was made from a book by a one of a kind author who lived a unique life & combined his life & his talent to create this story. William S. Burroughs' "Naked Lunch" was a novel many wanted to turn into a movie but it had to wait for F/X & a Director capable of filming its unreal expression of the Author's inner turmoil. David Cronenberg & modern film making combined to make it a unique & shining reality.

The cast is dynamite & do a tremendous job of portraying Mr. Burroughs characters. Peter Weller from Robocop as Bill Lee, Judy Davis as Joan Lee/Frost their wife, Ian Holm of Bilbo fame as Tom Frost, Julian Sands as Yves Cloquet & Roy Scheider as a Doctor of deception & others you'll know.

WARNING this show takes flight earlier & does not return. Get drinks first. A married exterminator & drug addict hooked on using his "bug powder" for intoxication as well as work begins his journey into psychosis on the train of hallucinations. His wife, then perceived as a problem, is easily removed at the direction of Bill's controller. It then becomes time to go undercover in a truly foreign country. Once there he will send out reports on enemy agents hiding in the same culture he is in. There are new customs, new friends, new enemy's but still the same old Bill to try & deal with it all. Thats this story line in a nutshell.

It gives you No Idea about what is visually contained in this movie. All of these scenes play out in an exquisitely detailed & totally outlandish manner thanks to the direction of David Cronenberg. He was truly the one director to handle the job of book story to finished film here. What he accomplished before doing this film was only training for the making of "Naked Lunch".

This movie is not etheral & otherworldly the images are recognizable by anyone (I'm assuming you know what a typewriter is). Bill Lee our lead character is truly a stranger in his own strange land (pardon me Mr. Heinlein). To watch this show is to be in the middle of a psychotic mind visually. If you are a fan of the weird, the unusual, the bizarre & the unique you will love this. If you are a David Cronenberg fan this show is a non-stop Cronenberg fantasy you shouldn't miss.

This was worth the wait & a BIG thanks to all the people that backed off trying this because they knew it wasn't time to try yet. 5 BIG STARS!

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memorable Julian Sands

This was a film not soon to be forgotten. Like all of the films Julian Sands act in - they all capture your imagination. I recommend it highly - next to Boxing Helena.

You are now entering Interzone, William S. Burroughs's phantasmagorical land of junk, paranoia, and crawly things. Best travel advice: "Exterminate all rational thought." In David Cronenberg's superbly shot, unnerving warp on the Burroughs novel, the novelist himself becomes a main character (played in an implacable monotone by Peter Weller), with elements from Burroughs' life--including the shooting of his wife during a "William Tell" game, and bohemian friends Kerouac and Ginsberg--added to frame the book's wild visions. This is, ironically, a somewhat rational approach to an unfilmable book (and it makes a hair-curling double bill with Barton Fink, another look at writerly madness, with both films sharing Judy Davis). Cronenberg is a natural for oozing mugwumps and typewriters that turn into giant bugs, of course. But in the end, this is really his own vision of the artistic process, rather than Burroughs's hallucinatory descent into hell. --Robert Horton

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