David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch is about a bizarre journey that begins and ends in the mind of a man people who have not experimented with drugs will likely never understand. Burroughs, one of the icons of the Beat Generation and a man who experimented with virtually every drug he could get his hands on.

If this synopsis makes Naked Lunch sound incomprehensible, it’s actually a much more coherent summary than the film really justifies. A part-time exterminator and full-time drug addict named Bill Lee plunges into the nightmarish Interzone, a netherworld of sinister cabals and giant talking bugs. Note: In 1992, Naked Lunch was nominated for the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Is it really going to end with Bill Lee finding his artistic voice and being honest about his sexuality?

throughout in this version, and shadow detail in some of the dimly lit interior scenes can also show improvement. track does a terrific job of getting its information across; the dialogue is prioritised with good balance and layering given to the score and effects. Most of the book’s sexuality, though, is downplayed, perhaps because of its sadism as much as its homoeroticism. This strand of the narrative is perhaps the most indicative of how the context and insight provided by Arrow’s new edition of Naked Lunch is so crucial to getting the most out of a movie that could otherwise seem potentially dangerous (even, difficult though it is to admit for the dedicatedly woke, invigoratingly so).There was a tie-in book published and a behind-the-scenes documentary, the latter of which – Chris Rodley’s Naked Making Lunch – appears in the extras here. Lee moves from being a timid insect exterminator to the man who wrote Naked Lunch – even the name “Bill Lee” is a pseudonym Burroughs used for his earliest work – and for the first time in biopic history, there is no sense of catharsis or achievement about this. It’s easy to see how Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch baffled so many in 1991, but now that initially confused viewers can immediately find detailed information about what the hell they’ve just watched it’s more likely that the film will connect, especially with those sufficiently intrigued to commit to multiple viewings. Many people will come off the back of a viewing of Naked Lunch with a tiny hint of intrigue flickering below their assaulted senses. In a career dedicated to seeing the unseeable and filming the unfilmable, perhaps only David Cronenberg could really do justice to William S.

Dolby Vision gives a depth and intensity to the colouring, the rich earthy tones are vibrant and dirty, with reds popping out. Both are philosophical and obviously very committed to this project, which makes for a compelling commentary. The release also arrives with an illustrated booklet featuring reprinted pieces by films critic Janet Maslin, director Chris Rodley, critic and novelist Gary Indiana, and William S. While it would be futile to deny that drugs are a central theme of Burroughs’s work, Cronenberg’s film looks fresher for avoiding the cliches of heroin chic. The hallucinatory properties of the drug, sees Lee converse with all manner of creatures and objects, each trying to put their own stamp on his purpose, keeping the confusion and paranoia high so as to keep him on edge and thus direct his path.The extras package goes over and above in it’s adoration of the film, with all new material supplementing the archival footage, with this special edition having even more bumph to enjoy. For items that are dispatched using our standard service, we ask that you wait 14 days from the date of dispatch before reporting any items as undelivered.

The recording was produced in 1995 for an audiobook and features music by Bill Frisell, Wayne Horvitz, and Eyvind Kang. Naked Lunch is provocative, transgressive, and surreal – a feast for the senses, where nothing is true and everything is permitted. I knew there was something alluring about the rhythms and use of language, even if I found the book very hard to get through.Extras like a conversation with Peter Weller or Tony Rayns talking about Burroughs are appetising enough, particularly when you consider how rarely Weller grants interviews these days.