After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally kills his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant ... Read allAfter developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally kills his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa.After developing an addiction to the substance he uses to kill bugs, an exterminator accidentally kills his wife and becomes involved in a secret government plot being orchestrated by giant bugs in a port town in North Africa.
- Awards
- 13 wins & 17 nominations
- Kiki
- (as Joseph Scorsiani)
- Exterminator #3
- (as Justin Louis)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe movie is packed with characters based on real people and events from the life of Burroughs. Like Bill Lee, William S. Burroughs was an exterminator and drug addict, who accidentally shot his wife during a drunken game of "William Tell". Joan Lee is based on Joan Vollmer, Burroughs' deceased wife. Hank and Martin, Bill's fellow writers, are Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Burroughs moved to a section of Tangier, Morocco, known as the "International Zone", hence "Interzone". Tom Frost is based on Paul Bowles, and Kiki was the name of a young man Burroughs had a same-sex affair with in Tangier, while writing "Naked Lunch".
- GoofsThe glass shot off Judy Davis' head changes to a plastic glass. First instance as the glass is falling off her head after the shot and then at end of film it is a plastic glass Ms Davis balances on her head. It remains plastic until it falls to floor and changes back into glass.
- Quotes
Tom Frost: They say you murdered your wife. Is that true?
Bill Lee: Who told you that?
Tom Frost: Word gets around.
Bill Lee: It wasn't murder. It was an accident.
Tom Frost: There are no accidents. For example, I've been killing my own wife slowly over a period of years.
Bill Lee: What?
Tom Frost: Well, not intentionally. I mean, on the level of conscious intention, it's insane, monstrous.
Bill Lee: But you do consciously know it. You just said it. We're discussing it.
Tom Frost: Not consciously. This is all happening telepathically, non-consciously.
Bill Lee: What do you mean?
Tom Frost: If you look carefully at my lips, you'll realize that I'm actually saying something else. I'm not actually telling you about the several ways I'm gradually murdering Joan.
- SoundtracksVaya Con Dios
Composed by Larry Russell / Inez James / Buddy Pepper
Performed by Les Paul and Mary Ford
Courtesy of Capitol Records
In the 1950s WSB wrote predominantly about his life as a drug addict - and about his lust for boys in South America and North Africa. It's quite drastic and depraved stuff, sometimes an actual horror story. He mixed reality with drug-induced hallucinations, peppering it with elements from the at that time still prevalent pulp fiction literature. In "Naked Lunch" WSB used the "cut-up technique" - the mostly random rearranged of text passages - to destroy every meaning that was still left, to turn his text into art, into the kind of literature professional critics liked. He did to literature what abstract expressionist, who dominated the art world in the 1950s, did to paintings. It was a street to nowhere, at that time labeled as "avantgarde".
Thankfully Cronenberg doesn't go there. He is doing the pulp fiction thing. On the surface, his film is about conspiracies, agents and aliens. The real story is the one of WSB's junkie life told in the world of his fever dreams as a drug addict.
The only reason why this film gets labeled as "Science Fiction" are the aliens, and these aliens are no aliens at all, they are demons. WSB was a true believer and practitioner of magic, and for many of such devotees UFOs and aliens are just explanations of demonic manifestations for a less religeous age. Cronenberg obviously did understand this. The two kinds of demons (aliens) are personifications of the two parts of the male anatomy WSB was fixated on.
A lot of thoughts went into the production of this movie. There are probably many allusions and innuendoes to discover, many symbols to decipher. But is it worth it? WSB as described by himself was a terrible human being, really the worst. Hating everybody, only living for his addictions, "accidentally" shooting his wife - yeah, that's the good life! Later on he actually wrote that this killing - that happened in 1951 in Mexico and for that he was never punished - did turn him into a writer. The movie promotes this idea in a way that's evil, demonic. The human sacrifice made him an author (Totally worth it!).
The book is not only much worse than the movie, having read it and knowing about WSB has a real negative impact on the perception of Cronenberg's work. It is no longer seen as being just strange and enigmatic. It's nothing less than repugnant. Sometimes art dies from knowledge.
The title sounds interesting - until it is explained by WSB himself: "naked lunch, a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork." It's nigh on impossible to talk more pretentious and silly than this. It gets worse than ridiculous: WSB repeatedly stated that he didn't love the drugs or their "kicks", he loved the addiction itself. Art for art's sake. Addiction for addiction's sake. He went through hell and he loved it, he felt right at home. And why not? After all, he wasn't a square or something. He was the avantgarde. Cronenberg's "Naked Lunch" is a movie from hell.
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch
- Filming locations
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada(Studio, only interiors)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $16,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $2,641,357
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $64,491
- Dec 29, 1991
- Gross worldwide
- $2,641,357
- Runtime1 hour 55 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1