William S. Burroughs
Also Known As: not available
Biography: William Seward Burroughs II (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular culture and literature. Burroughs wrote eighteen novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays, and five books have been published of his interviews and correspondences; he was initially briefly known by the pen name William Lee. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, made many appearances in films, and created and exhibited thousands of visual artworks, including his celebrated "Shotgun Art". Description above from the Wikipedia article William S. Burroughs, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Department: Writing
Place of Birth: St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Birthday: February 05, 1914
Deathday: August 02, 1997
Adult: No
Gender: Male
Popularity:
Known For:
Chappaqua
Overview: Semi-autobiographical story of Conrad Rooks, who travels to France to undergo a drug-withdrawal cure. Flashbacks to the beginings of psychedelia in San Fran. Though initially confusing, as Rooks blends drug-illusion with reality, and cuts color with black-and-white and monochrome tinted shots, "Chappaqua" is conventionally constructed with a beginning, middle, and end.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1966-08-30
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FLicKeR
Overview: In 1960, Brion Gysin invented the Dream Machine, a hypnotic light device with the power to induce hallucinations, drugless highs, and revolutionize human consciousness. It looks simple enough; a 100-watt light bulb, a motor, and a rotating cylinder with cutouts. Just sit in front of it, close your eyes, and wait for the visions to come. The Dream Machine enthralled mystics and freethinkers everywhere; Kurt Cobain had a dream machine, and William S. Burroughs thought it could be used to “storm the citadels of enlightenment.” With a custom-made Dream Machine in tow, director Nik Sheehan takes us on a journey into the life of Brion Gysin; his art, his complex ideas, and his friendships with some of the most eccentric counter-cultural icons. Taking the Dream Machine as the basis of its explorations, FLicKeR asks crucial questions about the nature of art and consciousness, and imagines a humanity liberated to explore its creativity in complete freedom.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2009-07-14
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William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
Overview: A riveting and emotional journey into the world of writer William S. Burroughs, a man considered as cold as an iceberg on a winter night.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2010-11-05
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Take Your Pills
Overview: In a hypercompetitive world, drugs like Adderall offer students, athletes, coders and others a way to do more -- faster and better. But at what cost?
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2018-03-09
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Relics: Einstein's Brain
Overview: Documentary about Kenji Sugimoto, professor in Math and Science history at Kinki university in Japan. He has spent the last 30 years publishing works about Einstein and his personality. To complete his works he travels to America to find Einstein's brain.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1994-01-01
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Bloodhounds of Broadway
Overview: This musical is based on four short stories by Damon Runyon. In one tale, gambler Feet Samuels sells his body to science just as he realizes that Hortense loves him and that he would rather live than die. In another story, Harriet's parrot is killed, and she has problems dealing with her loss. Then, there is a gambler, "Regret", who has bloodhounds on his trail when he becomes a murder suspect. Finally, "The Brain" is bleeding profusely, and his friends search for a way to save his life through a blood transfusion.
Genres: Drama Comedy Music Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1989-11-03
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Wax, or The Discovery of Television Among the Bees
Overview: Computer programmer/beekeeper Jacob gets a "television" implanted in his brain by a race of telekinetic bees, which causes him to experience severe hallucinations.
Genres: Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1991-10-21
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Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles
Overview: One of the most enigmatic artists of the 20th century, writer, composer and wanderer Paul Bowles (1910-1999) is profiled by a filmmaker who has been obsessed with his genius since age nineteen. Set against the dramatic landscape of North Africa, the mystery of Bowles (famed author of The Sheltering Sky) begins to unravel in Jennifer Baichwal's poetic and moving Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles. Rare, candid interviews with the reclusive Bowles--at home in Tangier, as well as in New York during an extraordinary final reunion with Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs--are intercut with conflicting views of his supporters and detractors. At the time in his mid-eighties, Bowles speaks with unprecedented candor about his work, his controversial private life and his relationships with Gertrude Stein, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, the Beats, and his wife and fellow author Jane Bowles.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1999-04-01
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The Final Academy Documents
Overview: Documentation of the showcase titled 'The Final Academy', filmed on October 4, 1982 in The Haçienda, Manchester. Video 1 features the movies "Towers Open Fire" and "Ghosts at No. 9", video 2 features Burroughs' readings and performances by John Giorno and Brion Gysin.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1984-08-16
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Decoder
Overview: F.M. discovers that different sonic frequencies induce different patterns of behaviour in listeners, first in his own studio but later in the local "H-Burger" restaurant where the passive muzak appears to be wiping people's emotions.
Genres: Horror Mystery Science Fiction
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1984-02-19
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September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill
Overview: Filmmaker Larry Weinstein stages a wide range of performances in tribute to the compositions of Kurt Weill.
Genres: Music Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1994-01-25
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Twister
Overview: An oddball family on a Kansas farm are trapped in their farmhouse by an impending storm. The patriarch of the clan is a retired soda pop tycoon. He is currently dating a children's TV evangelist. Also living at the farm is his layabout daughter and her precocious 8 year old daughter, his would-be artist son, the son's fiancée, and the black maid. Also thrown into the mix is the daughter's ex-husband, a ne-er-do-well who is seeking to get back in his ex-wife's good graces.
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1989-06-30
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Obscene
Overview: A look at the life and work of American publisher Barney Rosset, who struggled to bring controversial works like "Tropic of Cancer" and "Naked Lunch" to publication.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2008-09-26
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William Buys a Parrot
Overview: A bizarre silent short film showing author William S. Burroughs negotiating to buy a parrot.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1963-10-16
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The Junky's Christmas
Overview: Burroughs takes down a book and reads us the story of Danny the Carwiper, who spends Christmas Day trying to score a fix, but finds the Christmas spirit instead.
Genres: Animation Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1993-04-14
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Ornette: Made in America
Overview: Shirley Clarke's frenetic documentary about multi-talented musician Ornette Coleman.
Genres: Documentary Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1986-02-21
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Glitterbug
Overview: A collage of Derek Jarman's super 8 footage spanning over 20 years.
Genres: Music TV Movie Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1994-03-05
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Condo Painting
Overview: John McNaughton's spotlight on George Condo and his art. The film, which follows the progress of Condo's large-scale oil painting Big Red over the course of one year, features an appearance by Allen Ginsberg, as well as footage of Condo collaborating with William S. Burroughs on paintings the two made together at Burroughs' Kansas home in the mid-1990s.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2000-03-17
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Bill and Tony
Overview: Experimental film by William S. Burroughs and Antony Balch
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1972-02-07
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Towers Open Fire
Overview: Antony Balch tackles key themes and ideas from the writing of William S. Burroughs in a unique, cinematic style.
Genres: Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1963-12-27
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The Cut-Ups
Overview: Essentially a dizzying montage of quirky shots of legendary Beat Generation writer William S. Burroughs and noted surrealist artist Brion Gysin, this nearly 20 minute avant-garde short features repeated articulations of such random things as "Hello," "Where are we now?," and "Look at that picture" instead of music or standard dialogue. The narrative is decidedly nonlinear and perplexing, with no discernible plot whatsoever as we see images of Gysin working on his paintings and calligraphic designs and Burroughs rummaging through draws, packing a suitcase, giving a young man a physical, making a call in a phone booth, and waiting on a platform for a subway train.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1966-01-01
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Ghost at No. 9
Overview: Experimental artistic film which uses the milieu of experimental art with a background of various kinds of sounds and music. (worldcat.org) Posthumously released short film compiled from reels of film found at Balch’s office after his death.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1982-01-11
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Home of the Brave
Overview: A concert film directed by and featuring the music of Laurie Anderson, filmed at the Park Theater in Union City, New Jersey, during the summer of 1985.
Genres: Music Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1986-04-27
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The Source
Overview: Traces the Beats from Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac's meeting in 1944 at Columbia University to the deaths of Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs in 1997. Three actors provide dramatic interpretations of the work of these three writers, and the film chronicles their friendships, their arrival into American consciousness, their travels, frequent parodies, Kerouac's death, and Ginsberg's politicization. Their movement connects with bebop, John Cage's music, abstract expressionism, and living theater. In recent interviews, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kesey, Ferlinghetti, Mailer, Jerry Garcia, Tom Hayden, Gary Snyder, Ed Sanders, and others measure the Beats' meaning and impact.
Genres: Documentary History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1999-01-23
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William S. Burroughs: Commissioner of Sewers
Overview: An hour-long interview with author William S. Burroughs in which he expounds on American culture, art and morals.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1991-01-01
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Thanksgiving Prayer
Overview: An indictment ballad of all the different political groups in America.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1991-01-01
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Destroy All Rational Thought
Overview: The great Beat Generation experiments took place in Tangier, the Moroccan city where William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and the Moroccan painter Hamri taught Jack Kerouac, Timothy Leary, and Allen Ginsberg how to live outside the law. This DVD features one of the last interviews with Burroughs and previously unseen vintage footage of him in his prime during the 50s and early 60s.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1998-01-01
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Coda I
Overview: Peter Gidal’s starting point for his 16mm film was a soundtrack that consists of three lines from a 1,000 word story written by Gidal in 1971, read by William Burroughs.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2013-01-01
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Coda I + Coda II
Overview: Peter Gidal’s starting point for his 16mm film was a soundtrack that consists of three lines from a 1,000 word story written by Gidal in 1971, read by William Burroughs. Gidal describes the film’s ‘so-called imagery’ as ‘a complex of barely visible cuts in space and time, the opposite of erasure, but nothing so much as visible’.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2013-10-09
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Naked Making Lunch
Overview: A 1992 documentary about the making of Naked Lunch.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1992-12-29
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Shamans of the Blind Country
Overview: A documentary epic on magical healing in the Himalayas.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1981-04-11
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Fried Shoes Cooked Diamonds
Overview: After World War II a group of young writers, outsiders and friends who were disillusioned by the pursuit of the American dream met in New York City. Associated through mutual friendships, these cultural dissidents looked for new ways and means to express themselves. Soon their writings found an audience and the American media took notice, dubbing them the Beat Generation. Members of this group included writers Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg. a trinity that would ultimately influence the works of others during that era, including the "hippie" movement of the '60s. In this 55-minute video narrated by Allen Ginsberg, members of the Beat Generation (including the aforementioned Burroughs, Anne Waldman, Peter Orlovsky, Amiri Baraka, Diane Di Prima, and Timothy Leary) are reunited at Naropa University in Boulder, CO during the late 1970's to share their works and influence a new generation of young American bohemians.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1979-10-01
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For No Good Reason
Overview: For No Good Reason a film about Ralph Steadman. Johnny Depp guides the visually stunning journey, smashing narrative conventions, moving seamlessly from interview to animation and in the finest Gonzo tradition questions of witness and authenticity are challenged. Steadman's art is for the first time animated, including illustrations from Hunter S Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vagas. Featuring Richard E Grant, Terry Gilliam, Bruce Robinson and with music from Slash, The All American Rejects, Jason Mraz, Crystal Castles, Ed Hardcourt and Beth Orton. A touching and at times funny film about honesty, friendship and the ambition driving an artist. This is a true record of the demise of the 20th Century counterculture and hipster dream with Ralph Steadman the last of the Gonzo visionaries.
Genres: Documentary History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2012-10-12
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Wanderlust
Overview: A look at the mystique of road movies, combining interviews, film clips, music, photography, literature and a narrative storyline featuring Paul Rudd and Tom McCarthy.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-07-12
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Fix: The Ministry Movie
Overview: Provides an insider's view of the groundbreaking, outrageous, creative juggernaut that was the band Ministry - during their world tour - as front man Al Jourgensen slips into drug addiction. Ministry made industrial rock mainstream, and along the way their music and take no prisoners lifestyle influenced the leaders of today's most important bands, many of whom are in the film.
Genres: Documentary Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2011-07-21
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Ah Pook Is Here.
Overview: A disturbingly organic-looking figure speaks to us of life, politics and death as the symbol of the common man toils away. Written and narrated by William S. Burroughs.
Genres: Fantasy Drama Animation
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1994-10-01
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The Beat Hotel
Overview: The Beat Hotel, a new film by Alan Govenar, goes deep into the legacy of the American Beats in Paris during the heady years between 1957 and 1963, when Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and Gregory Corso fled the obscenity trials in the United States surrounding the publication of Ginsberg’s poem Howl. They took refuge in a cheap no-name hotel they had heard about at 9, Rue Git le Coeur and were soon joined by William Burroughs, Ian Somerville, Brion Gysin, and others from England and elsewhere in Europe, seeking out the “freedom” that the Latin Quarter of Paris might provide.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2012-03-30
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Robert Wilson: The Beauty of the Mysterious
Overview: We look back at more than half a century of mysterious artistic creation while trying to crack a unique artistic code. Why are people moved to tears when Robert “Bob” Wilson puts minimalistic petrol pumps into a production of Shakespeare’s sonnets? Why does merciless repetition change our understanding of something? Together with Tom Waits, Willem Dafoe or Marina Abramović we trace back our own experience of Bob’s art. Is it true what Philipp Glass the collaborator of the milestone piece “Einstein on the Beach” laughingly and with apparent pleasure exclaims “what does it mean? It doesn’t mean anything!”?
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: de
Release Date: 2022-01-16
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Underground and Emigrants
Overview: In this film, outspokenly homosexual filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim has documented his encounters with friends in the New York "underground" arts movement, the better-known of whom are William Burroughs (who says nothing for the camera), Andy Warhol (seen in the distance) and Fernando Arrabal (who is interviewed in Spanish). The emigrants named in the title are notable Germans who left the country before World War II, such as Greta Keller and Grete Mosheim. Reviewers at the time of the film's release considered it to have been a sort of paid vacation for the filmmaker rather than a serious effort. (Clarke Fountain, Rovi)
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1976-10-25
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Pantelia
Overview: An abstract exploration of the number 10.
Genres: Documentary History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-10-10
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Burroughs: The Movie
Overview: An exploration of Burroughs’ life story, as told by Burroughs himself along with many of his contemporaries, including Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin, Francis Bacon, Herbert Huncke, Patti Smith, Terry Southern, and William Burroughs Jr.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1984-02-10
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Chelsea Hotel
Overview: This TV documentary shows some of the colourful residents of and people connected with the New York Chelsea Hotel. Some highlights include Andy Warhol and William Burroughs having dinner; Quentin Crisp pontificating in a blue rinse hairdo on his balcony and Nico forgetting what she is talking about halfway through a dour rendition of "Chelsea Girls". A number of lesser-known characters also appear, linked together by a tour guide walking around the building and some sub-Shining sequences of a child cycling round the landings on a rickety tricycle.
Genres: TV Movie Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1981-01-03
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Pirate Tape
Overview: Derek Jarman's film portrait of American writer William S. Burroughs was shot in September 1982 during his first visit to England to attend the legendary Final Academy events at the South London Ritzy Cinema. These were Burroughs-themed art and performance nights curated by Psychic TV. Jarman’s film shows Burroughs on Tottenham Court Road signing autographs with fans and inside a shop buying alcohol. The industrial soundtrack by Psychic TV features a sample of Burroughs repeating "boys, school showers and swimming pools full of 'em'". Additional footage shot by Jarman during Burroughs' visit is reported to have been confiscated by Scotland Yard in 1991 and remains lost. Jarman and Psychic TV would continue to collaborate (“magic bound us together” Jarman wrote), with Jarman directing the music video for Catalan and staring as the spokesperson in the Psychic TV video A Spokesman for the Temple of Psychick Youth.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1983-01-01
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Energy and How to Get It
Overview: Filmed in Wendover, Nevada, in early 1981, Energy and How to Get It combines documentary and fictional ideas. What began as a documentary film about Robert Golka, an engineer who was experimenting with ball lightening and the development of fusion as an energy force, was turned into a spoof on the documentary form, inserting fictional characters into the story such as the Energy Czar (William Burroughs), and a Hollywood agent (filmmaker Robert Downey). (mfah.org)
Genres: Comedy Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1981-08-10
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Une semaine dans la vie de camarades
Overview: A road movie whose journey intersects with and extends the events of the International Counter-Culture Meeting that took place in 1975 in Montreal. This meeting, at the heart of the film, features several important figures of the counterculture in Quebec. Throughout the film, these individuals, often through their creative endeavors, question the evolution of their society and counterculture itself.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1976-01-01
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Witchcraft Through the Ages
Overview: A seventy-six-minute version of Häxan, re-edited and re-released in the United States by Metro Pictures Corporation in 1968. It is narrated by author William S. Burroughs, with a jazz score and soundtrack featuring violinist Jean-Luc Ponty.
Genres: History Horror Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1968-01-03
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Drugstore Cowboy
Overview: Portland, Oregon, 1971. Bob Hughes is the charismatic leader of a peculiar quartet, formed by his wife, Dianne, and another couple, Rick and Nadine, who skillfully steal from drugstores and hospital medicine cabinets in order to appease their insatiable need for drugs. But neither fun nor luck last forever.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1989-10-20
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Thot-Fal'N
Overview: This film describes a psychological state "kin to moonstruck, its images emblems (not quite symbols) of suspension-of-self within consciousness and then that feeling of falling away from conscious thought. The film can only be said to describe or be emblematic of this state because I cannot imagine symbolizing or otherwise representing an equivalent of thoughtlessness itself. Thus the actors in the film, Jane Brakhage, Tom and Gloria Bartek, Williams Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Olovsky and Phillip Whalen are figments of this 'Thought-Fallen Process', as are their images in the film to find themselves being photographed.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1978-06-27
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Words of Advice: William S. Burroughs On the Road
Overview: A portrait of the American Beat Generation writer William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) based on never-before-seen footage from his visit to Denmark in October 1983, and from his later years in Lawrence, Kansas. After having spent more than a quarter of a century outside of the United States, in Mexico, Tangier, Paris and London, Burroughs returned to New York in 1974. Shortly after, he began touring and reading his work to new generations of readers and thus establishing himself as a cult figure. The film focuses on Burroughs' unique talent as a performer, and on his later work, especially what is known as The Last Trilogy. In addition to the historic footage there are new interviews with friends and colleagues.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2007-01-01
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William S. Burroughs: The Possessed
Overview: Thelema Now! host Frater Puck discusses William S. Burroughs, possession, synchronicities and chaos magick
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2015-01-29
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Cain's Film
Overview: A film about Alexander Trocchi. Scottish born poet, writer, translator and author of "Young Adam" and "Cain's Book". Part of the film was made at the old Arts Laboratory and includes a discussion with William Burroughs. A portrait of Alexander Trocchi, covering his history as a writer, his interest in drugs, his family life, and ‘Sigma’, the organisation he founded to bring together like-minded people.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1969-07-29
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Nova Express
Overview: An exhaustive examination of cut-ups, the control machine, and the algebra of need figure in this epic found-footage adaptation of Burroughs’s 1964 novel, which pits Inspector Lee and the Nova Police against the Nova Mob: Sammy The Butcher, Green Tony, The Brown Artist, Jacky Blue Note, Izzy The Push, The Subliminal Kid, Uranian Willy, and Mr Bradly Mr Martin, alias The Ugly Spirit. Features unreleased readings by Burroughs and voiceovers by Proctor & Bergman of the Firesign Theatre on such topics as hot crab people, language as virus, tape recorder warfare, death dwarfs, and Hassan Sabbah: the Old Man of the Mountain. “Minutes to go. Souls rotten from their orgasm drugs, flesh shuddering from their nova ovens, prisoners of the earth to come out.” (via cinema.indiana.edu)
Genres: Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2009-10-20
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Don't Blink - Robert Frank
Overview: The life and work of Robert Frank—as a photographer and a filmmaker—are so intertwined that they're one in the same, and the vast amount of territory he's covered, from The Americans in 1958 up to the present, is intimately registered in his now-formidable body of artistic gestures. From the early '90s on, Frank has been making his films and videos with the brilliant editor Laura Israel, who has helped him to keep things homemade and preserve the illuminating spark of first contact between camera and people/places. Don't Blink is Israel's like-minded portrait of her friend and collaborator, a lively rummage sale of images and sounds and recollected passages and unfathomable losses and friendships that leaves us a fast and fleeting imprint of the life of the Swiss-born man who reinvented himself the American way, and is still standing on ground of his own making at the age of 90.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2015-11-19
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The Battle for 'I Am Curious-Yellow'
Overview: A documentary about the film, I am Curious-Yellow (1967), and how it made it into the USA and changed film in USA forever by breaking the USA Obscenity Codes.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2003-01-01
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Poetry in Motion
Overview: More than 20 contemporary North American poets recite, sing, and perform their work. Early in the film, Charles Bukowski talks about the energy of poets and of a poem. These poets are the children of Walt Whitman and of Charles Olson, incantatory and oratorical, radical, sometimes incorporating contemporary political imagery. Black Mountain poets, the Beats, minimalists like John Cage, the wordless Four Horsemen, Tom Waits, and others capture aspects of poets as troubadours.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1982-09-17
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This Song for Jack
Overview: In 1982, Robert Frank was on hand at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, to film the Jack Kerouac Conference, a 25th-anniversary commemoration of On the Road in which poignantly aging Beats and fellow-traveling authors, activists, and composers (Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Michael McClure, Herbert Huncke, Anne Waldman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ken Kesey, Abbie Hoffman, David Amram) gathered on a rain-swept Chautauqua porch to recite poetry and raise a glass to their patron saint. Particularly memorable is Frank’s humorous encounter with a group of grizzled and well-lubricated onlookers. — Museum of Modern Art
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1983-10-01
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Heavy Petting
Overview: Celebrities and creatives -- including musician David Byrne, performance artist Spalding Gray, comedian Sandra Bernhard, radical activist Abbie Hoffman, and poet Allen Ginsberg-- recall their earliest sexual experiences.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1989-09-22
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Poem Posters
Overview: ... with real-life portraits of Jayne Mansfield, Frak O'Hara, Ruth Ford, Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson, Claes Oldenburg, Roy Lichtenstein, William Burroughs, Andy Warhol, Rudy Gernreich, Jonas Mekas and others.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1967-05-19
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It Don't Pay to Be an Honest Citizen
Overview: An ironic New York City thriller involving a mafioso and a restless, witty lawyer.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1985-02-01
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The Making of Drugstore Cowboy
Overview: Portland, 1988. Filmmaker Gus Van Sant shoots Drugstore Cowboy, the project that will bring he and his collaborators a formidable burst of mainstream attention. Starring Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, and Heather Graham, the film follows a roving quartet of drug addicts — and, consequently, drug thieves, especially from the businesses of the title — who wash up in Portland's then-gritty Pearl District. A death among their own spooks the leader of the pack into trying to clean up, and an encounter with a sepulchral junkie priest does its part to convince him further. Or maybe we should call him a Junkie priest, portrayed as he is by a controversial cameo from writer William S. Burroughs. "I'm going back to the old days," Burroughs says of his role early in the above documentary on the making of Drugstore Cowboy. "The old days when they used to give people morphine in jail. The old days before the methadone programs."
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1999-10-26
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Robert E. Fulton III Edit of Burroughs: The Movie
Overview: After two years of filming, director Howard Brookner brought inventor and photographer Robert E. Fulton III a trunkful of William S. Burroughs footage to see if Fulton could edit his film. The result was a decidedly experimental 23-minute cut. The director was looking for a more narrative approach, so Fulton’s edit was never used.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2015-12-15
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Gang of Souls: A Generation of Beat Poets
Overview: Maria Beatty's documentary exploring the insights and influences of the American Beat Poets. The film conveys their consciousness and sensibility through interviews with William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Diane Di Prima, among others. Also weaves in additional commentary from contemporary musicians, poets and writers such as Marianne Faithfull, Richard Hell, Lydia Lunch and Henry Rollins. Also expands upon how the poets reached new levels of creativity and inspired social change.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1989-01-01
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Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Overview: A girl born with enormous thumbs in the repressive era of the 1950s learns to turn her quirks into assets.
Genres: Comedy Drama Romance Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1994-05-13
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Uncle Howard
Overview: When Howard Brookner lost his life to AIDS in 1989, the 35-year-old director had completed two feature documentaries and was in post-production on his narrative debut, Bloodhounds of Broadway. Twenty-five years later, his nephew, Aaron, sets out on a quest to find the lost negative of Burroughs: The Movie, his uncle's critically-acclaimed portrait of legendary author William S. Burroughs. When Aaron uncovers Howard's extensive archive in Burroughs’ bunker, it not only revives the film for a new generation, but also opens a vibrant window on New York City’s creative culture from the 1970s and ‘80s, and inspires a wide-ranging exploration of his beloved uncle's legacy.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2017-03-10
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The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye
Overview: An intimate, affecting portrait of the life and work of ground-breaking performance artist and music pioneer Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV) and his wife and collaborator, Lady Jaye, centered around the daring sexual transformations the pair underwent for their 'Pandrogyne' project.
Genres: Documentary Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2012-03-08
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The Book of Life
Overview: New Year's Eve takes on new meaning when the Devil, Jesus Christ, and Christ's assistant Magdalena discuss and debate the End of the World.
Genres: Comedy Fantasy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1998-08-22
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Chicago
Overview: UCLA Student Film, Preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. A striking documentary shot cinema verite style of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, with contrasting film and audio inside the convention center and the protests outside.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1968-01-01
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William S. Burroughs in the Dreamachine
Overview: Jon Aes-Nihil's experimental documentary about iconic Beat author William S. Burroughs' experiences using a stroboscopic device, known as the dream machine, which simulates the electric pulses of the human brain to elicit hallucinations and dream-like imagery while the user's eyes are closed.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2015-04-14
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