Howard Brookner

Burroughs: The Movie

Burroughs: The Movie

Made up of intimate, revelatory footage of the singular author and poet filmed over the course of five years, Howard Brookner’s 1983 documentary about William S. Burroughs was for decades mainly the stuff of legend; that changed when Aaron Brookner, the late director’s nephew, discovered a print of it in 2011 and spearheaded a restoration. Now viewers can enjoy the invigorating candidness of Burroughs: The Movie, a one-of-a-kind nonfiction portrait that was brought to life with the help of a remarkable crew of friends, including Jim Jarmusch and Tom DiCillo, and that features on-screen appearances by fellow artists of Burroughs’s including Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Huncke, Patti Smith, and Terry Southern.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1983
  • 90 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.33:1
  • English
  • Spine #789

Special Features

  • New, high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • New audio commentary by filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, who was a sound recordist on the film
  • Audio interview with director Howard Brookner from 1985, conducted by William S. Burroughs biographer Ted Morgan
  • New interview with Brookner’s nephew, filmmaker Aaron Brookner, who oversaw the film’s restoration
  • Rare outtakes
  • Footage from the 2014 New York Film Festival premiere of the film’s restoration, featuring a Q&A with Jarmusch, Aaron Brookner, filmmaker Tom DiCillo, and Burroughs’s friend and fellow writer James Grauerholz
  • Thirty-minute experimental edit of the film from 1981 by inventor and photographer Robert E. Fulton III
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Lucy Sante and collage artwork by artist Alison Mosshart

    Cover photograph by Kate Simon

Purchase Options

Special Features

  • New, high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • New audio commentary by filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, who was a sound recordist on the film
  • Audio interview with director Howard Brookner from 1985, conducted by William S. Burroughs biographer Ted Morgan
  • New interview with Brookner’s nephew, filmmaker Aaron Brookner, who oversaw the film’s restoration
  • Rare outtakes
  • Footage from the 2014 New York Film Festival premiere of the film’s restoration, featuring a Q&A with Jarmusch, Aaron Brookner, filmmaker Tom DiCillo, and Burroughs’s friend and fellow writer James Grauerholz
  • Thirty-minute experimental edit of the film from 1981 by inventor and photographer Robert E. Fulton III
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Lucy Sante and collage artwork by artist Alison Mosshart

    Cover photograph by Kate Simon
Burroughs: The Movie
Cast
William S. Burroughs
Terry Southern
Jackie Curtis
William S. Burroughs Jr.
Allen Ginsberg
Patti Smith
Brion Gysin
John Giorno
James Grauerholz
Francis Bacon
Credits
Director
Howard Brookner
Produced by
Howard Brookner
Cinematography
Tom DiCillo
Sound mixing
Amit Bose
Sound recording
Jim Jarmusch
Produced by
Alan Yentob
Editing
Ben Morris
Editing
Scott Vickrey

Current

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By Lucy Sante

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