***
Pairing a piece of fiction and its film adaptation,
analyse and compare their handling of character psychology; and/or plot; and/or
narration.
William S. Burroughs’ 1959 work Naked Lunch evades a chronological narrative and employs the
“cut-up method” to fragment psychological states. Burroughs’s radical treatment
of character and narrative contributes to an abstracted reality which lends to
the work’s satirical underpinnings. Narrative bricolage articulates the textual
themes of psychological disunity and repression which are explored by
Cronenberg in his adaptation. Writing in a letter to Irvin Rosenthal in 1960,
Burroughs wrote “THIS IS NOT A NOVEL. And should not appear like one […] the
book should flow from beginning to end without spatial interruption.”[1]
This demonstrates an aversion to narrative convention, as well as underscoring
Burroughs’ fluid treatment of time and space. Burroughs’ non-linear narrative
complicates the practise of cinematic adaptation, undertaken by David
Cronenberg in 1991. Writing on the process of adaptation, Boris Eikhenbaum
states, “to translate a literary work into the language of film means to find
in film language analogues for the stylistic principles of that literary work.”[2]
In an interview following the release of the film, Cronenberg confessed that “It
is impossible to make a movie out of Naked
Lunch. A literal translation just wouldn’t work.”[3].
Cronenberg’s translation to the “language of film” draws on the text’s “analogues”
of narrative vignettes and the thematic attention to psychological disunity and
repression. Ultimately this adaptation necessitates an application of plot to
the written work to effectively make this transition. Whilst this may not be an
exact reproduction, Cronenberg fulfils what J. Dudley Andrews cites as the “the
task of adaptation”, being “the reproduction in cinema of something essential
about an original text”[4].
Character
psychology within Burroughs’ Naked Lunch is
explored through an unstable narrative which demonstrates psychological disunity.
The stylistic use of repeated words and images alludes to the paranoid state of
the protagonist, William Lee. Burroughs further explores psychological disunity
through the narrative execution of editorial parentheses which intersect the
stream-of-consciousness narrative, such as in the opening passage. This
indicates a retrospective revision, perhaps from an altered state of
perception. This creates a sense of narrative disunity, where the editorial
parentheses relay a stern, declarative tone which offsets the fluid ramblings
of Lee. Ultimately, these narrative effects underpin the psychological
instability of the text’s protagonist. The use of heavy repetition and the
‘cut-up’ method, disrupts the reader’s ability to rationalise the text’s
meaning, producing an effect similar to the disorientation of narcotics.
These repeated phrases therefore hold
symbolic weighting and reveals paranoid preoccupations. Repetition of
‘vultures’ across “vultures pecking through the mud streets”[5],”
vultures over the swamp and Cyprus stumps”[6]
“vultures; little wheeling specks”[7]
spans three consecutive pages and elucidates Bill’s feelings of entrapment and enclosing
enemies. A paranoid narrative style pervades the discourse of medicine, as
Burroughs writes “the finance company is repossessing your wife’s artificial
kidney… they are evicting your grandmother from her iron lung”[8].
This satirical hyperbole emphasises the collective loss of empathy which late
capitalism can be held accountable for. As Robin
Lyndenberg writes, “[the text] disrupts structures of binary opposition and
hierarchy; exposes the “parasitic economy” of discourse; “extend and dissolves”
the boundaries of the body and uses the concrete metonymy of the “bodily
functions of digestion and procreation” to dissolve metaphoric abstractions”[9].
Narrative repetition visualises the protagonists’
attempts to conceal sexual desire, which conversely erupts through obsessive
repetition. ‘Baboons’ are repeated throughout the text as we read, “purple-assed baboons”[10],“baboonsasshole”[11],
“my baboon assistant”[12]
and “baboons always attack the weakest party”[13]. This operates as a crude metaphor for sexual
over-indulgence and sodomy. This thematic focus on the anus and/or red bottoms
is perhaps indicative of Freud’s concept of ‘anally-expulsive’ behaviour. This is
defined by Freud as a character who is “generally messy, disorganized,
reckless, careless, and defiant”[14]. An anal-expulsive individual draws
pleasure from disarray and anal-expulsions. Lyndenberg also argues that “the
aesthetic mode pursues the “pleasures of the text”[15]
and in this way, we can deduce that the text’s protagonist gains pleasure from
the radical unpacking of the narrative form. References to “The Man” allude to paranoia,
oppression and distrust as we read, “The Man is never on time”[16]
“there is The Man on a cane seat throwing bread to the swans”[17]
“waiting on The Man”[18].
This differentiates between the common, lower-case man as well as communicating
a sense of systematic oppression, surveillance and entrapment as ‘The Man’ is
synonymous with authoritative forces. Conversely, whilst one can consider these
repeated phrases or images to hold symbolic value, Robin Lyndenberg argues that
the narrative disruption and heavy repetition triggers the eruption of textual materiality, “reducing language to isolated phrases
and signifiers”[19]. Furthermore,
when asked whether the passages of repetition in the text were intentional,
“Burroughs replied they were all by mistake, caused by the rush to get the text
to Girodias”[20]. Nevertheless,
the stylistic narrative devices still stands as it recreates the disturbed
psychology of an individual on narcotic drugs.
Burroughs
parallels the disintegrating body and psychology of the addict with the
thriving state of late capitalism which benefits from exploitation. As the
addict and their psychological state deteriorates, so do perceptions of reality
along with conventional form, chronology and narration. This underscores the
absurdity of modernity and Burroughs further satirises the farce of Western
democracy and tradition through “the President is required by custom to crawl
across the garbage on his stomach”[21].
Whilst the text is presented as a series of vignettes with equal narrative
weighting, the order of the text as it was conceived was crucially important
for Burroughs, writing “the form can not be altered without loss of life”[22].
This illustrates the extended metaphor of the text’s form as holding “life”,
mirroring the body of the addict. The opening sequence ‘and start west’
foregrounds the abject consequences of addiction and plunges the reader into a
community of users, all victims of their settings. The contextual scares of the
1950s lose their significance in the face of junk, as Burroughs writes “but
what does she care for the atom bomb, the bedbugs, the cancer rent, Friendly
Finance waiting to repossess her delinquent flesh”[23].
One must not take Burroughs’ writing literally, and the satirical tone of
Burroughs’ style alludes to his distrust of aggressive capitalism which
conditions “the presiding powers of our world- the media conglomerates, the
vast political and commercial bureaucracies, and profit-driven medical science”[24].
Cronenberg
draws on the literary “cut-up” method through his cinematic style of piecing
together fragments of the book and meshing them with biographical aspects of
Burroughs’s own life. In this way, one can consider that both author and
director have a similar creative process through their use of bricolage. Tom
Graham writes on Cronenberg’s adaptation and he claims that, “rather than
attempting to adapt the book in a literal sense, Cronenberg treats Burroughs’
schizoid prose as a secondary source. He gave it structure”[25].
Whilst Cronenberg engages with Burroughs’s narrative fragmentation, the film
relies on structure not found in the text. Cronenberg’s engagement with the
cut-up method is not exclusive to Burroughs’s text, and Cronenberg refers to
widely known figures of the cinematic canon through stylising Bill Lee with a
striking resemblance to Humphrey Bogart in The
Big Sleep (1946)[26].
Bill’s hat, tie and trench coat are coordinated through a colour palate of
muted browns. This draws on the organic colour palate of the novel’s tapestry,
drawing on blues, greens, and primarily the colour grey. The visual echo of
Bogart alludes to a righteous, hyper-masculine protagonist as well as one who
“gets the girl”. Conversely, the champion of Naked Lunch is an anti-hero who is addicted to narcotics and delusional
sexual fantasies.
Cronenberg
foregrounds the text’s themes of psychological repression and homosexuality, warning
of the dangers of the creative process which may liberate the ‘true’ self and their
organic desires. A liberated creative process is signposted in the opening
credits of the film which replicating the novel’s editorial interludes. with
the inclusion of a free jazz soundtrack, composed by Ornette Coleman, and the
visual abstraction of colours and shapes, rotating and intersecting. It is
interesting to consider Freud’s writing on his psychological notion of
repression here. In his book The
Interpretation of Dreams, Freud writes, “We shrink back [from the primeval
wishes of our childhood] with the whole force of the repression by which those
wishes have since that time held down within us”[27].
Looking to the opening scene of Cronenberg’s film at the exchange between Bill,
Hank and Martin; Martin suggests “Why don’t you try your hand at writing
pornography?”[28].
To this, Bill responds “I gave up writing when I was ten”. This conversation
illustrates Bill’s learned control of repressed desires in his adult life which
is moderated by his unwillingness to engage with creative processes. Bill’s
response to whether rewriting is an act of censorship is simply “Exterminate
all rational thought, that is the conclusion I have come to”. Cronenberg’s Bill
at this early stage in the film is therefore psychologically repressed as a
character.
Once Bill
enters Interzone he is encouraged to write and can reconnect with his repressed
homosexual impulses. The metaphor of the creative process as purging
unconscious desires is also visualised through the animated typewriter which
encourages Bill to consciously embrace his homosexuality as a ‘cover’, as he
advises; “Homosexuality is the best all around cover an agent ever had […]
These are words to live by Bill”[29].
In Burroughs’s text there is an overt discussion of homosexuality within
society in the exchange “”A functioning police
state needs no police. Homosexuality does not occur to anyone as conceivable
behaviour.””[30].
This metaphor alludes to the power of heteronormativity which does not require
people to enforce it due to it being conditioned as the normative sexuality. The
character of Yves Cloquet introduced by Cronenberg into the text’s narrative is
visually depicted as Bill’s antithesis. Cloquet is softly spoken with an
English accent, dressed in a white suit, a white shirt and a white tie with an
angelic face, juxtaposing Bill’s bleakly coloured hat and hung head. “I’ve seen
you around but I’d no idea you were Queer”[31]
positively frames Bill’s homosexuality within the context of their breakfast
table discussion. Lee’s articulation of his Queerness is hyperbolically pessimistic
(“Queer. A curse, it’s been in our family for generations […] I shall never
forget the unspeakable horror that froze the lymph in my glands when the
baneful words seared my reeling brain- I was a homosexual.”[32])
Due to Cronenberg’s directorial tradition of body horror films, the metaphor of
repressed sexuality is crudely and brutally executed. This culminates in the
scene where we see a man mutilated by a large insect whilst simultaneously having
sex with it, blurring the distinctions of pleasure and pain[33].
This physical torture illustrates the psychological torture of repressed
homosexual desires. Bill finally acknowledges his true self as a writer where
he announces “I write reports. I’m a writer, I tend to write reports on life”[34].
When the officials ask for confirmation of this, Cronenberg recreates a scene
from Burroughs’s own life in which he allegedly accidentally shot his wife
whilst enacting a ‘William Tell’ act. Burroughs has been often cited as saying
that this incident was the “genesis of his becoming a writer”[35]
and so we may consider that the film charts Bill’s own journey in liberating
his true self and becoming a writer. Cronenberg’s use of narrative bricolage
here contributes towards the film’s resolution and illustrates a character arc
which is not present within the original text.
Cronenberg’s
film draws on the text’s narrative confusion and themes of deception and
distrust of authority through opening the film with a quote by Hassan I Sabbah.
This reads; “Nothing is true; everything is permitted”[36].
The inclusion of this quote by the Nizari missionary highlights theological and
spiritual ideas, as well as casting doubt on perceptions of reality and
governance. Furthermore, the second quote used in the film’s introduction is
taken from Burroughs’s text and emphasises notions of deception and concealed
identities. This quote reads, “Hustlers of the world, there is one Mark you
cannot beat: The Mark inside…”[37].
The ‘Mark’ is typically the victim of a con job and thus, Burroughs’s notion of
the “the Mark inside” would be the act of lying to oneself. Deception and
illusion are explored through discussions of conscious and unconscious actions
and telekinesis in the film.[38]
The film’s climax is centred around the deceptive presentation of the character
of Doctor Benway, who reveals himself to have been disguised as the female
servant Fadela in 1:40:30. This name is aurally and etymologically similar to
the Latin ‘fidelis’, meaning truthful and loyal, which is ironic given the use
of this character as a disguise. Benway’s dramatic removal of Fadela’s
prosthetic exterior in this scene is sexually charged and Benway primarily
exposes his artificial breasts to Bill before tearing the costume apart. This
is ironic given Bill’s lack of sexual attraction to female bodies and Bill
actively substitues the female body for male bodies whilst indulging in sexual
fantasies. The pervading deception of Cronenberg’s film indulges in fulfilling
the protagonist’s most paranoid fears. This is further explored through his
casting of the police officers as the border control officers; bracketing the
film’s distrust of authority figures. We
are reminded once more of the opening quote “Nothing is as it seems, everything
is permitted.”
Therefore, Burroughs and Cronenberg share a similar approach
to their creative processes. As Tom Graham writes, “They share a flair for the
grotesque met with perfect nonchalance and bone-dry wit.”[39] Cronenberg rejects
Burroughs’s pornographic leanings and favours the disquieting exercise of body
horror to communicate Bill’s repressed desires, rather than revelling in the
pleasures of sex. For Burroughs, there is a pervading anxiety of language and
expression of meaning which cannot ever incorporate the psychological essence
of existence or a lived narrative. This is encapsulated as he writes, “You were not there for the
beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going
on can only be superficial and relative”[40]. Burroughs strives for a
narrative which incorporates the fragmented psychology of an individual under
the influence of narcotic drugs and repressed thoughts which textually erupts
through the repetition of Freudian slips. Both text and film share a united creative vision
in their representations of psychological disunity,
repression and abstracted realities, manifesting through literary and cinematic
employment of the cut-up method. Whilst Cronenberg’s adaptation has
structural and narrative alterations, these alterations are what Eikhenbaum
names ‘stylistic principles’ which facilitate the text’s filmic translation and
creates a character arc in Cronenberg’s Bill which is necessitated by the
filmic medium.
Bibliography
Andrew, James Dudley. Concepts
in Film Theory (Oxford: Oxford UP 1984)
Bleu,
Christopher. “The Novel Enfleshed: "Naked Lunch" and the Literature
of Materiality”, Twentieth Century
Literature, Vol 57, No. 2 (Summer 2011) pp.119-223
Burroughs, William S. Naked
Lunch: The Restored Text (London: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005)
Cronenberg, David (director). Naked Lunch, Universal Pictures (1991) DVD
Eikhenbaum Boris. in Kamila Elliott, Rethinking the Novel/Film Debate. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003)
Freud, Sigmund. The
Interpretation of Dreams, (London: Courier Dover, 2015)
Ginelle, Leela. “Great Artist Kills His Wife: Not it’s Just
a Quirky Footnote in his History”, Bitch Media,
27 Mar 2014. [accessed: 12/02/18] https://www.bitchmedia.org/post/a-great-artist-kills-his-wife%E2%80%94now-its-just-a-quirky-footnote-in-his-history
Lydenberg, Robin. “Word Cultures: Radical Theory and
Practise in William S. Burroughs’ Fiction”, American
Literature, Vol. 60, No. 3 (October 1988) pp.498-500
Pulver,.
Andrew “Interzone Revisited: David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch (1991)” The Guardian, 31 July 2004. [accessed:
03/02/18] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jul/31/featuresreviews.guardianreview14
Schwartz, David. “A Pinewood Dialogue with David
Cronenberg”, History of the Moving Image.
January 11 and 12, 1992 http://www.movingimagesource.us/files/dialogues/2/57500_programs_transcript_pdf_204.pdf
[accessed: 02/02/18]
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[1] William
S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch: The Restored
Text (London: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005) p.236
[2] Boris
Eikhenbaum in, Kamila Elliott, Rethinking
the Novel/Film Debate. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003) p.184
[3]
Burroughs, p.236
[4] J.
Dudley Andrew, Concepts in Film Theory (Oxford:
Oxford UP 1984) p.100
[5]
Burroughs, p.12
[6]
Burroughs, p.13
[7]
Burroughs, p.14
[8]
Burroughs, p.154
[9] Robin
Lyndenberg, “Word Cultures: Radical Theory and Practise in William S.
Burroughs’ Film”, American Literature, Vol.
60, No.3 (October 1988) p.205
[10]
Burroughs, p.37
[11] Ibid., p.34
[12] Ibid.,
p.27
[13] Ibid.,
p.26
[14] Sigmund
Freud, in Theories of Counselling and
Psychotherapy: An Integrative Approach, Elsie Smith-Jones. (London: Sage,
20p.324
[15]
Lyndenberg, p.205
[16]
Burroughs, p.26
[17]Ibid., p.27
[18] Ibid.,
p.35
[19] Lyndenberg,
p.204
[20]
Burroughs, p.245
[21] Ibid.,
p.153
[22] Ibid.,
p.341
[23] Ibid.,
p.120
[24] J.G.
Ballard, “Introduction”, Naked Lunch: The
Restored Text (London: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005)
[25] “In
praise of Naked Lunch- the weirdest studio film ever made” Little White Lies, Tom Graham, 15 June 2016 [accessed: 28/01/18] http://lwlies.com/articles/naked-lunch-david-cronenberg-william-burroughs/
[28] David
Cronenberg, Naked Lunch, Universal
Pictures (1991) (01:12:34)
[29]
Cronenberg, (00:05:15)
[30]
Burroughs, p.31
[31] David
Cronenberg, Naked Lunch, Universal
Pictures (1991) 46:02
[32]
Cronenberg, (00:46:40)
[34] Ibid., (01:44:40)
[35] Leela
Ginelle, “Great Artist Kills His Wife: Not it’s Just a Quirky Footnote in his
History”, Bitch Media, 27 Mar 2014.
[accessed: 12/02/18] https://www.bitchmedia.org/post/a-great-artist-kills-his-wife%E2%80%94now-its-just-a-quirky-footnote-in-his-history
[36]
Cronenberg, (00:02:09)
[37] Ibid., (00:02:15)
[38] Ibid.,
(00:43:30)
[39] Tom
Graham, “In praise of Naked Lunch- the weirdest studio film ever made” Little White Lies, 15 June 2016
[accessed: 28/01/18] http://lwlies.com/articles/naked-lunch-david-cronenberg-william-burroughs/
[40]
Burroughs, p.168
