Naked Lunch (1991)

Director:

David Cronenberg

Writers:

William S. Burroughs (novel)
David Cronenberg (written by)

Release Date:

11 March 1992 (France)

Genre:

Biography | Crime | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery

Tagline:

David Cronenberg and William S. Burroughs invite you to lunch.

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.

Plot Keywords:

Bug | Exterminator | Writing | Writer | Cockroach

Awards:

13 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Peter Weller	...	Bill Lee
Judy Davis	...	Joan Frost / Joan Lee
Ian Holm	...	Tom Frost
Julian Sands	...	Yves Cloquet
Roy Scheider	...	Dr. Benway
Monique Mercure	...	Fadela
Nicholas Campbell	...	Hank
Michael Zelniker	...	Martin
Robert A. Silverman	...	Hans
Joseph Scoren	...	Kiki (as Joseph Scorsiani)
Peter Boretski	...	Creature Voices / Exterminator #2
Yuval Daniel	...	Hafid
John Friesen	...	Hauser
Sean McCann	...	O'Brien
Howard Jerome	...	A.J. Cohen

Also Known As:

David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch (USA) (trailer title)
Le festin nu (Canada: French title)
Alaston lounas (Finland) [fi]
Almuerzo desnudo (Argentina) [es]
El almuerzo desnudo (Spain) [es]
Goli rucak (Serbia) [sr]
Golo kosilo (Slovenia) [sl]
Gymno gevma (Greece) [el]
Il pasto nudo (Italy) [it]
Le festin nu (France) [fr]
Müthis yemek (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]
Meztelen ebéd (Hungary) [hu]
Mistérios E Paixões (Brazil) [pt]
Nagi lunch (Poland) [pl]
Naken Lunch (Norway) [no]
Naken Lunch (Finland: Swedish title) [sv]
O Festim Nu (Portugal) [pt]

MPAA:

Rated R for heavy drug content, bizarre eroticism, and language.

Runtime:

115 min

Country:

Canada | UK | Japan

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

New Zealand:R13 | Iceland:16 | Netherlands:16 | Brazil:16 | Italy:VM18 | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | France:-12 | Germany:16 | Hong Kong:III | Norway:15 | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:16 | UK:18 | USA:R | Portugal:M/16

Filming Locations:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Film Trustees Ltd.

Trivia:

The 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' 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 clearly based on Paul Bowles, and Kiki was in fact the name of a young man Burroughs had an affair with in Tangier, while writing "Naked Lunch."

Quotes:

Yves Cloquet: I've seen you around, but I had no idea you were queer.
Bill Lee: Queer?
Yves Cloquet: [leers] I saw you arrive with those three Interzone boys. What an entrance. You all looked very... familiar with each other.
Bill Lee: [gulps] Queer. A curse. Been in our family for generations. The Lees have always been perverts. I shall never forget the unspeakable horror that froze the lymph in my glands when the baneful word seared my reeling brain - I was a homosexual. I thought of the painted simpering female impersonators I'd seen in a Baltimore nightclub...

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Mystery Science Theater 3000: Stranded in Space (#4.5)" (1991)

Soundtrack:

Ballad

Introduction to the New Flesh

Movies in the last years have become more uniform, more streamlined, particularly in the US. As a result, the film market is full of sleek, entertaining movies that the whole world goes to see, but these movies have nothing but harmless baby teeth. Fortunately, people like Lynch or Cronenberg still do movies that may be considered defective by most people, but that bite into the flesh with pointy canines. The Naked Lunch has very sharp teeth indeed. It's supposed to be an adaptation from a William Burrough's book, which doesn't make sense anyway. It starts as the story of a failed writer whose wife becomes addicted to an insecticide powder... It goes downhill after this relatively sane and normal beginning. It's a ride, a drug-induced nightmare full of horribly funny visions (the sort of visions that artists used centuries ago to represent hell). Anuses talk. Aliens sip alcohol in bars. People get impaled. Typewriters turn into bugs. Liquids ooze. You may say it's flawed, or disgusting, or ridiculous, or boring. I saw it with someone who absolutely hated it. But the fact that this person still keeps talking about it 8 years after seeing it says a lot about the Naked Lunch, at a time when we tend to forget blockbusters a few hours after watching them. The Naked Lunch is here - in your mind - to stay.