Naked Lunch
Tags: comedy, murder, insanity, psychedelic, humor, sci-fi

Plot synopsis:
New York City, 1953. While spraying an apartment for insects, Bill Lee runs out of bug powder, to the annoyance of his employer, A.J. Cohen, who rations it carefully. In a local bar, Bill meets with two writer friends who debate technique. Martin endlessly rewrites while Hank disagrees with any form of self-censorship. Bill's opinion is "exterminate all rational thought". Bill tells them that he no longer writes because it's "too dangerous". Bill arrives home to find his wife, Joan, shooting up the powder. She tells him that he should try it too by saying: "it's a Kafka high... you fee like a bug."Bill is arrested for possession of illegal drugs, and at the police station narcs Hauser and O'Brien leave him a interrogation room with a giant beetle. Gorging itself on the powder, it asks him to rub it into it's sphincter-like "lips" on its back, and says it's his "case officer". Bill's assignment is to kill his wife, who is an inhuman agent for Interzone Incorporated. Bill crushes it with his shoe and escapes from the station. Bill finds Joan and tells her that he was arrested for bug powder and he's hallucinating. A work colleague gives him a card for Dr. Benway, who can cure his addition.At Dr. Benaway's office, the mysterious doctor dispenses black centipede powder, which he says is like "an agent who's come to believe his own cover story but who's in there, in a larval state, just waiting for the proper moment to hatch out". Passing a marker stall selling giant centipedes, Bill feels nauseous. When he gets home, Hank is having sex with Joan while Martin recites stream of consciousness prose. He inject himself and Joan with narcotics and then says "I guess it's about time for our William Tell routine." She places a glass on her head and he shoots, killing her.In a bar, a young Asian man introduces Bill to a mugwump, a bizarre gangly alien creature who recommends a Clark-Nova portable typewriter for his report on his wife's death, to be written in Interzone. It hands him a ticket. In a pawnshop, Bill exchanges his gun for a Clark-Nova.In Interzone, a North African coastal enclave, Bill and many other men type reports. He is propositioned by German bon vivant Hans, whose drug factory synthesis black centipede 'meat'. In Bill's room, his drug haze is interrupted by his Clark-Nova's semi-transformation into a beetle - a bug writer - which tells him that homosexuality is an agent's best cover.At a party, Bill meets expiate American writers Tom and Joan Frost. Joan looks like Bill's death wife, and whom has the same name. Tom confesses to Bill that he is killing her slowly, using their housekeeper Fadela. He does this telepathically - her lips says something else entirely. Bill crashes out on Interzone beach, and in the morning he is picked up by enigmatic Swiss dandy Cloquet. The Frosts tell Bill that he impressed Cloquet, and Tom lends him his sleek Martinelli typewriter. Bill writes that he seems addicted to something that doesn't really exist. He wakes up to find his bug writer devouring the Martinelli, which is indignantly informs him it is a enemy agent. It suggests that he seduce Joan Frost for information.Bill goes to see Joan and confesses to wrecking Tom's Martinelli. She tells him that she has another, in Arabic - a Mujahedin (!) As she types something erotic, it mutates into organic form. A vaginal orifice opens, into which she thrusts her fingers as Bill caresses her. Their arousal escalates and the typewriter transforms into a 'sex blob' and jumps on them in uncontrolled ecstasy. They are interrupted by housekeeper/witch Fadela, who whips the thing over the balcony. It crashes to the street in front of an incensed Tom, becoming a typewriter once more. Bill and Joan walk through the kasbahs, finding Fadela with her cover on a stall selling black centipede meat. Joan is her power.The bug writer tells Bill that he was programmed to kill his wife. She was a "special case", an elite-corps-centipede. Tom storm in for his Martinelli, only to find it smashed, and captures the bug writer in exchange. On Interzone beach, Bill is found by Hank and Martin, who encourage him to complete his book 'Naked Lunch', which they have been receiving installments. He doesn't know what they're talking about. They get him on the bus back.Bill passes out in an alley and is helped by Kiki, who takes the broken Martinelli to a forge where a new mugwump-head typewriter is cast. The 'mugwriter' tells Bill that Benway is behind Interzone Inc. His powder is based on the black centipede meat; however, he's too elusive to catch. Bill and Kiki takes a ride in Cloquet's "wonderful car", and Bill relates a story about a man who taught his asshole to talk, but found it aspired to a life of its own.At his sumptuous house, Cloquet takes Kiki into the bedroom. When Bill investigates, Cloquets has become a giant centipede, literally sucking Kiki dry inside a huge cage. Bill takes the mugwriter to Frost to swap for his Clark-Nova. It has been tortured, but before expiring, it tells Bill to go to Hans' drug factory in the medina, where he'll find Interzone Inc.The factory is now a dispensary, where mugwumps are strung up and highly addictive jissom is milked from teat-like protrusions on their heads. Fadela supervises the process, while Hans and other dissipated addicts consume the jissom. Fadela reveals herself to be Benway in a prosthetic disguise. Bill agrees to work for Benway in Annexia, as long as Joan can accompany him.Bill drives a strange red half-truck vehicle to the border, where the border guards demand proof that he is a writer. Bill wakes Joan and says it's time for the William Tell routine. She places a glass on her head, and once again he shoots her. He is devastated, but the guards merely welcome him to Annexia and wave him on.

Review: I like most of Cronenberg's output, and I would rate 'Naked Lunch' as one of his most successful movies, and the best depiction so far of the Beat sensibility..
This is the conclusion I have come to".So says Bill Lee, the central character of David Cronenberg's adaptation of William Burroughs' bizarre novel "Naked Lunch".
I don't think there is any way to fully understand "Naked Lunch".Bill Lee is an exterminator who, along with his wife, has become addicted to bug repellent powder.
Following this, he uses the powder to go on a seemingly endless trip, ripe with sinister cabals, talking bugs, and journalistic endeavors.What the film theorizes is that this is actually the tale of how Burroughs wrote the book "Naked Lunch".
They help him piece it together and head off back to New York, leaving Lee to "Interzone" and his hallucinations.It takes a bit of discipline to watch this film - never has the creative process looked quite so destructive of the writer.
Julian Peters as Yves radiated menace but overall was a bit of a cardboard-cutout, not helped by his dress and appearance, which seemed to have come straight from "Brideshead Revisited" (Sebastian in Morocco).David Cronenberg as a director has certainly got a reputation for weird films ("The Fly", "Crash") but this offering is relatively restrained It was something of a pity that "Interzone" was a studio set somewhere (Canada?) but this is low-budget stuff after all.
mugwump jizzThemes:  Substance addiction and how physically self-conscious it makes our protagonist feel, the creativity forced by imprisonment (a direct reference to real-life events between Burroughs, his wife, his subsequent incarceration and his heroin/acid issues), the sense of betrayal as more surprise than malice and of course the inevitable interface between Dave and Bill at the pelvic level.The effects work is pre render-mation latex and sufficiently restrained to allow your imagination to back-fill the appropriate horror/fascination/titillation for the moment.
Don't try to figure out which you =should= feel or to mentally sort it out, that'd rob you of the fun; it's the psychic and emotional disarray that makes it so compelling.Peter Weller is suitably deadpan, allowing only a sparkle of the playful poet to shine through from time to time (the story about the Duke du Vantra's Espano-Suiza made me howl); he must have spent a few =fun= hours with Burroughs himself to get the role down.If you liked Cronenburg's smarter stuff, such as Dead Ringers, you'll love this.
Cronenberg and Weller are entertaining and informative, and they left me wanting to watch the movie again, equipped with a deeper understanding of this classic film.
It will either bore you to tears, or hurt your personality."Naked Lunch" is a ride into the mixture of 10% reality and 90% hallucination of a self-denial homosexual drug addict (Please note that I am not classifying this or any person or character like him - but merely listing all the qualities this character had).
None of these projects proved Mr. Cronenberg to be the genius that he showed in "Naked Lunch." I am in awe of his talent and salute him.Another thing that I applauded Mr. Cronenberg for was his augmenting the film with spots of undistilled reality - as when "William Lee" cries out to his now dead "bug" and then drops it to the ground - in the next scene it is the typewriter.
:) Scenes like this were used with the perfect amount of punctuality - to bring you back from the realm of riding out one of "William Lee's" hallucinations, and back into the real world which "Mr. Lee" has almost completely left behind.Peter Weller as "William Lee" is so good in this film.
I love Mr. Weller's work - from "Buccaroo..." to "Robocop" and now "Naked Lunch" - he is clearly a thoughtful actor who puts all of his effort and thought into each role.Kudos to Ian Holm, Julian Sands, and Roy Scheider for their great support in this fine film by David Cronenberg.
The meaning of "Naked Lunch" is the same as "Clockwork Orange" or "Bug Typewriter" - it's like a thing you dream up in your sleep - or drug addicts see in their hallucinations...
:)BTW, "kaiman" (another commentor) got it ***EXACTLY*** right in very few words - nice job dude!I guess understanding this movie is like understanding (seeing the humor in) "Pootie Tang" - you have to have "tasted it" in some small way to have appreciate it.ZPPS: I took 1 and a half hours to write this comment - that alone should tell you how much I enjoyed this film..
Anywho, the movie plot is a great springboard into the disparate shapes and pea soup- colored haze known as "Interzone." Cronenberg clearly is sharing his own experience of reading the book, mixing it with his knowledge of Beat history (including the world of Paul Bowles, the American ex-pat, living in Morocco, not an intimate part of the Beat generation) and his personal issues regarding sexuality.
This is one of those movies worth warning watchers about, I've been interested by Cronenberg's surreal settings and mastery at creating an unsettling aura, but bugs with "talking anuses" is definitely a good place to draw the line, this movie really pushes that agenda, very in your face, so if sexual ambiguity is not your bag you will be a bit bothered with about 50% or more of the film.I don't know when it started happening in the movie but it all started looking like a set, not very impressed with that department or the special effects either, most of those bugs didn't look too realistic, terribly plastic, but then again I'm not sure if this movie was intended to be quality cinema, it was probably more of an artistic whim.
Cronenberg manages to bring Burroughs' vision to life in a very strong way, keeping the film moving at a frenetic pace and never really letting the viewer feel like they finally have a grasp of what is going on.
An exterminator who injects himself with bug deterrent suffers hallucinations  or are they, to be honest I didn't fully understand it all  and becomes a writer that indulges in espionage and homosexuality while getting high from the juices of alien lifeforms.I realised when watching the movie a second time (or the first, as I've never made it to the end before) that I've seen an unhealthy amount of David Cronenberg films.
Ironically, the elements of a Cronenberg movie that you consider detracting  the juvenile need for excessive gore, the shallow characterisation and frenetic pace  are sorely missed here, as Naked Lunch is a film without dramatic conflict.
In reaction to the overwhelmingly plastic culture of the 80s, 90s media started to regurgitate grainy images of "the Beats", fifties counter-cultural icons that could be easily reduced to a handful of key works, stylized photographs and design-heavy biographies dropping names like Ferlinghetti, Kerouac, Ginsgberg and of course Burroughs - a man who's inherited wealth, tragic past and anthropological interest in obscure cultures made him a hipster, low rent bon vivant and comedy artist all at once, lampooning Americana whilst somehow representing it at the same time.The film "Naked Lunch" is something of a failure.
It has some fascinating qualities, such as Ornette Colemans jazz score, and Judy Davis's somewhat crazed depiction of Burroughs wife in the film which creates a story opening that has a real sense of purpose, but then it all goes astray because, essentially, this is a film without a functioning plot.Sure, the main character has a motivation: after the accidental shooting of his wife, he moves to North Africa, creating screeds of experimental writing under the influence of painkillers and alcohol as an escape, or perhaps a form of therapy.
The least flattering thing to say about Cronenbergs "Naked Lunch", a film that isn't really related to the wild satire and poetry of the famous book, is that it continued to reduce the image of Burroughs to an aesthetic, as if the death, addiction and suffering in his life could just be recycled as part of a conveniently "hip" pop culture style.Cronenberg and Burroughs themselves are people of considerable talent, for sure, but not here..
Burroughs' "unfilmable" novel Naked Lunch, a giant bug in a police interrogation room begins talking and tells Peter Weller that he has to kill his wife.
Within fifteen minutes of Naked Lunch, Cronenberg makes sure you know that this isn't going to be your conventional film.
For decades people had been trying to figure out a way to bring Burroughs' novel to the big screen, but after all other hope had failed, Cronenberg decided that it was time to take on a new approach to the source.This isn't a direct adaptation by any means, but instead is almost more of a biographical picture of Burroughs himself, taking strands of the titular novel, some of his other works and also elements from the author's personal life (he did kill his wife in the same way that happens here, although probably not after a giant bug told him she was an agent of a nefarious organization) and combining it all into the very mad world that you see on screen.
Weller plays Bill Lee (a pseudonym of Burroughs), an exterminator who after killing his wife flees to an exotic location known as the Interzone, where he becomes involved in a war between organizations and tries to write a novel while being addicted to the bug powder he used in his work.Cronenberg wrote the script himself but the way it all plays out it's hard to imagine how this could look on paper, as it's descent into the hallucinations and paranoia of Lee's mind seems like an almost improvisatory decay into madness.
Things like he "accidentally", shot and killed his wife in Mexico while tryng drunkenly to perform this films William Tell Routine, an event which would start Burroughs in his writing career(William and "Tell" being a strange coincidence for a writer named William), he was addicted to various drugs until his death in his 80's, heroin longer than any, did once work as an exterminator, spent a good deal of time in Tangiers and North Africa, was monotone voiced and always sharply dressed, though the film shows him as more bi-sexual than gay(he did have children), but was overwhelmingly gay(read a few of his books and you will get the overwhelming part).
As for what the title "Naked Lunch" means, it's the point during a meal when one looks down their fork and realizes what it is they've been consuming and eating all this time, where the true nature of the meal is revealed(not that this get's discussed in the movie) Without any of that information and before I started reading Burroughs, I had no idea what was going on, in this movie save something about drug addiction, sexual identity confusion, and paranoia (which it is too) afterwords though I was amazed at how much David Cronenberg was able to bring together.
Also, the tone of the movie is very slow and cold exactly like the acting.I'm really frustrated because Naked Lunch is my first Cronenberg film, and I was ready to enter his universe, and to be presented to his distinctive directorial style and to his wonderful work as I heard and read many times.
Also from David Cronenberg we have 'Naked Lunch' a weird movie that could be good but it is so depressing I was not able to like it at all.The story about drug addicted William Lee (Peter Weller) is about his own hallucinations.
The IMDb plot description gives some clue of the plot: "After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally murders his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in an Islamic port town in Africa." David Cronenberg's adaptation weaves in autobiographical details of Burroughs' life, including his copious drug use, and the accidental shooting of his wife Joan Vollmer (reportedly during a botched game of "William Tell" with a loaded pistol).The film thus combines the narrative of the novel "Naked Lunch" with a fictional story of its conception – kind of like 'Adaptation (2002),' only with crazy bug alien things which morph from one's typewriter.
The main character is played by Peter Weller, an underrated stalwart of the 1980s whose credits include 'Robocop (1988)' and the cheesy action classic 'The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984).' I didn't make much sense of 'Naked Lunch,' but it did make me want to find out more about Burroughs and his work.
The movie is partly an biography of William Burroughs life, and partly about the creative process of writing "Naked Lunch".
Naked Lunch is absolutely not a film for everyone, but those who are known with Cronenberg and/or Burroughs works should definitely check out this hallucinatory masterpiece..
Deep are the piles we sift through in trying to understand the depth of those hallucinations, yet quite simple if you give it the attention required to stay focused.This is not a film to watch because you fancy a particular actor, though Ian Holm and Julian Sands were both incredible, and Peter Weller personified Burroughs own portrayal of himself brilliantly.
Filming a movie based on the book of the eccentric writer, Canadian director David Cronenberg, prone in his work to the constant shocking, decided to mix with original work of reference to the rest of creation of the author, as well as elements of the biographyWilliam Burroughs.
After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator (Peter Weller) accidentally murders his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa.In order to recreate the beat movement, Cronenberg turned to jazz, as he saw beat writing as jazz with the typewriter as instrument.
Instead of being a truly faithful adaptation of a novel that is described as many as being "unfilmable" anyway, it weaves in elements from Burroughs's own life with memorable results.It takes place in a Northern Africa community known as the Interzone, where an exterminator and aspiring writer named William Lee (Peter Weller) has fled following his accidental shooting of his wife Joan (Judy Davis).
The reports he writes end up becoming the novel Naked Lunch.This film certainly isn't for everyone's taste, but it is a must for any Burroughs fan, and for anyone interested in surrealist existentialism..
Cronenberg's vision of Burrough's book is stylish, well acted, and about as strange as a movie can get.Bill Lee (Peter Weller) is an exterminator in 1953, and has resorted to using his own homemade substance to kill the bugs.
Cronenberg mixed elements from the "Naked lunch" novel with elements from Burrough's life and some of Burrough's other novels (obviously "the Exterminator"), to pull off this brilliantly hallucinogenic, unsettling and extremely funny piece of film.For people who like strange, haunting, unsettling, larger-than-life movies with an edge ("Brazil", "Delicatessen", "Erendira", "Satyricon", "Eraserhead", "The Devils", "Santa Sangre", and of course Cronenberg's "Existenz"...) - count me in -, this is a real treat.Perhaps David's most beautiful cinematic achievement to date (these color schemes are mesmerizing!), Naked Lunch has a great sense of humor that won't be perceived as such by many movie-goers, just like with most other Cronenberg movies, that are mistakenly taken as dead serious works.Giant bugs with talking anuses, centipedes and cockroaches, typewriters as characters, nested/folded hallucinations...
Having seen a few of Cronenberg's other films, I have to wonder how many of the bizarre notions and visuals in this where taken from Burroughs' book(s; both Naked Lunch itself and his other works, as this apparently references several of the man's writings), and how many Cronenberg thought up and added(and I doubt that he would require any drug to make them up).
Burroughs had an interesting life as a fugitive and drug addict, so I think the plot turns out well.In the film, Bill flees New York after accidentally shooting his wife as part of a drunken parlor trick during a party.
If you already read the book naked lunch of W.S.B. and you want to see a movie base on this novel...
"Naked Lunch" is loosely based on William S.Burroughs novel of the same name.The film is excellently acted and filled with some truly bizarre characters:writers,drug addicts,mysterious strangers and homoerotic bugs.During 1950's in New York City bug exterminator(Peter Weller)gets introduced to injecting bug powder into himself by his wife Judy Davis.He gets addicted and starts hallucinating.He sees giant bugs which start controlling his life,as he sinks lower and lower.The bugs are well-created,especially the typewriter bug.The film features some excellent special effects,so if you like to see something different check out "Naked Lunch".A must-see!.
Not to say that Naked Lunch is weirder then Videodrome, but it certainly is up there.When you watch a film where the lead character talks to his typewriter after he imagines it transform into a bug who speaks out of it's anus....you wonder to yourself can this be any good?
For those who are fans of Cronenberg, Burroughs, or Weird Films, then definitely check this out.Peter Weller is the perfect choice for this character, who is clearly insane.
Judy Daivs is the leading lady the plays the two characters, who in Burroughs mind tripping novel are the same.Naked Lunch is exactly what you would expect from the weird mind of Cronenberg who brought us such films like Videodrome and The Fly. Nothing new here, we see aliens, talking anus bugs, huge centipede people and so on.
I have been an avid reader of William s Burroughs since the age of 15, and I give props to Cronenberg for attempting to film the unfilmable, which is Naked Lunch.
This is one of Naked Lunch's high points.I'll admit it, this is my first film by David Cronenberg.