William S. Burroughs: A Man Within

It is hard to find fault with this film portrait of the one and only Burroughs. There are lots of good interviews with the many artists who were inspired and influenced by him, and with those close to him. It could have spent a little more time on his actual writing instead of his notoriety and public profile, but that is merely a quibble.

When I heard about the new documentary about William Burroughs I was pretty excited . Over the years I read many of the popular books including the reader , listened to the spoken word material and watched many of the short films and movies he appeared in . I thought I had a pretty good grasp of his work . However , I didn't know what a treat I was really in for when I walked in the the Denver premier of this very well directed and produced film . I found the insight that many of the friends and colleague opened my thought process on his work opened so much wider and I have a deeper understanding of the man and his work . Showing a time line from childhood to death and his life process was amazing . Seeing so much footage from performance to everyday life was great . He is still a voice and lighthouse in counter culture . I was so grateful for many of the interviews with his friends as they were very insightful and very personal . If you are fan of the man , have just found out about him or just heard that this was a good film you have to see this one . You won't be disappointed , so check it out and pass on the good word.

William Burroughs is one of the most controversial artists of the century, his book "Naked Lunch" still disgusts and repulses some readers. Here, Burroughs is examined as a man with little emotion who refused to be loved, but inside the intellect and the anarchy lies a man of much sadness and alienation. The film shows Burroughs and his influence on the counter-culture, revealing his influence on films such as "Blade Runner", bands such as Steely Dan, and the punk movement of the '70s. It also explores his personal life, such as his homosexuality, drug addiction, guns, and his guilt over the accidental shooting of his second wife. Although Burroughs has been examined in documentary features many times, here he is given a more personal look.

Expectations often drive us. The expectation of full-boat tickets to film festivals like the one recently in Sarasota is that you get to go where you please and when. Once there, you have expectations that some films, based on your predilections, will entice you more than others. Such was the case for my anticipation of the William S Burroughs documentary that I had heard nothing about before it showing up in the SFF playbill. This guy was at least an anti-hero to any wierdster like myself who matured from the late 1950's to the early 1970's. But how to present such a life of what may be one of the most unrepresentable individuals from the 20th Century.

And from a first time filmmaker who was likely enjoying his Captain Crunch the morning the world learned of this infamous man's passing. How could Yony Leyser possibly know and appreciate an at best unknowable enigma from the weird subdivision in boomer-town's hall of fame.

What you get, fortunately, is a film that may tear through the fabric of any experienced viewers strategies on figuring out what beguiles them while viewing. Burroughs was so unpurposely misunderstood by default that he fits into a category of his own unconscious making. At best, I expected, in Burroughs' own words from the film, an 'unprecise' 'approximation' of the man whose infamy, in so many ways, took on a mass far, if not infinitely, greater than the addicted, queer, paranoid, but always genteel man he may have been … maybe.

In presentation, the film explodes past expectations of standard documentary forms like some kind of mutation that I think Burroughs would have loved. The formula, whatever it may be, affects in ways that award winning Alex Gibney did not capture nearly as evocatively in his screed on another modern hipster icon of excess, Hunter S Thompson. Throughout, the style contests your expectations in expansive ways you likely have not experienced. The always artistic, multi-textural presentation cannot possibly, as Burroughs life, be seen in one viewing. This is not unique in documentaries. What may be unique, however, is that other than those IMAX explorations of nature and beyond, the film may be the one documentary that demands to be seen in as big a venue as possible so you may best swim in its excesses and nuances. If the film gets enough attention beyond festivals to be considered award worthy, they may have to invent a category.

In judgment, it has that feel of a discovery found on a fairly long trail of enticing experiences with an array of individuals who had the privilege of hanging with the man for any length of time. What you may be witnessing is an education similar to Candide's travels with the Dr. Pangloss that Burroughs was to so many. What better possible vision of Burrough's world could there be! In the end, one is left with the ultimate contradiction of that dead pan voice from the man in his perennial three piece evoking provoking prose that leaves vapor trails in the aether of your mind in those places where it may resonate for days, confounding.

As is should be. As it will be. As it is.

Thank you, Mr. Leyser for dedicating five years of your young life to this adventure. It was well worth it.

William S. Burroughs: A Man Within explores the life of a Beat writer who was arguably the grittiest and most bedeviling of the group. Despite his association with punk and grunge, Burroughs's work was lyrically plaintive and his voice provided a window to his ineffable sadness. The documentary features interviews with Burroughs and his admirers, but they frustratingly only alight on his literary significance when speaking in terms of personal influence. Leyser attempts to equate Burroughs's gun fetishism with Hunter S. Thompson's recklessness, but Burroughs's most accomplished fiction was the boiling run-off of his inner-demon-induced sweat. Burroughs epitomized the 20th-century ideal of the over-educated libertine and forever changed the conversation about sexual orientation, but his last boyfriend recounts an evening where he confessed his love, only to be laughingly dismissed. A Man Within persuasively argues that Burroughs's most dangerous addiction might have been the refusal of love.