More on Queer, Luca Guadagnino‘s film adaptation of William Burroughs‘ novella, opening this month (see last week). Last week we noted an approval rating of 78% drawn from 85 reviews… updating those figures – now 112 reviews, still 78.
Much, indeed most, of the attention has been on Daniel Craig and his potentially Oscar-winning role in the lead character, the Burroughs character, William Lee (tho’ notice has been given to Drew Starkey, playing Allerton, the object of his obsession, and, perhaps disproportionately, Omar Apollo, playing his first film role.)
In this spirit of turning our attention to other members of the cast, it might also be valuable to notice Jason Schwartzman (better known for his variety of roles in Wes Anderson‘s films) who plays the character of “Joe Guidry” in a fashion that most observers have acknowledged appears to have a more-than-passing resemblance to Allen
David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter:
“Played by an unrecognizable Jason Schwartzman, Joe could almost be an Allen Ginsberg surrogate, spinning low-key hilarious accounts of his sexual adventures. When a dalliance with a cop turns sour and he finds “El Puto Gringo” scrawled on an exterior wall of his home, he shrugs, “I left it there. It pays to advertise.”
Michael Ordona in The San Francisco Chronicle restrains himself to simply describing Schwartzman’s performance as “Ginsberg-y”
Manahola Dargis’ in her review for The New York Times goes one stage further calling it “a lampoon.. that borders on the offensive”.
and this “dumbing down” of Allen (we remember his non-presentation in Aaron Sorkin‘s 2020 Chicago 7 film), we would have to agree, is offensive.
But this, in the context of “Queer” is minor, peripheral, slight – mere kvetching. For more substantive, informed and nuanced analysis of the film, we recommend Ira Silverberg‘s observations in Vulture (quoted here last week) and Oliver Harris, the dean of Burroughs studies, (writing on the film this past week on Reality Studios). Oliver writes:
“Literary adaptations for the silver screen have always been a hit and miss affair, with some notable triumphs and many spectacular travesties. William Burroughs’ bête noire was The Snows of Kilimanjaro, which in 1952 ruined Hemingway’s short story about death by giving it a Hollywood happy ending. Whether the Beat field is especially cursed, I don’t know, but up until now you certainly can’t say it has been blessed. Not one of the films made from the holy trinity of texts written by the holy trinity of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs can be called a great success, despite good intentions, promising creative collaborations, and flashes of inspiration…like many people, I can’t help seeing cinematic adaptations as “translations” of the original – and badly translated texts badly misrepresent them…Does the film risk replacing the novel in the cultural imagination? Does the adaptation recruit more readers or does it mislead, confuse, or put them off altogether?”
“….Texts that are cultural landmarks as well as Beat classics”, he notes, “create a burden of hopes that set a high bar for adaptation – minor works with more modest expectations, (he connects Queer with John Krokidas’ Kill Your Darlings here), “may have more chance of making it.”
Harris goes on: ‘And on top of the question of fidelity – does the film do the text justice? – there’s the problem specific to Burroughs of how to avoid confusing the man with the myth
(a problem both Silverberg and Harris consider being one of the issues, problematic issues, at the root of David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch adaptation)
Harris, is, of course, the editor of the revised edition of the novella that came out in 2010 – and, as he declares, “My own critical and scholarly work turned crucially on making the case for Queer..”
“Putting Queer on the big screen represented, therefore, a unique opportunity to raise exponentially the profile of a work in which I had invested a great deal for over two decades. Ironically, that history made me the best and the worst possible viewer: desperate for it to measure up, could I watch this Queer without the other one always in mind, condemned to be the Man Who Knew Too Much to see the film on its own terms? Worse still – full disclosure – I had even more skin in the game having worked for Guadagnino as a research consultant, given feedback on a draft of Justin Kuritzkes’ screenplay, and chatted with Daniel Craig about his role…”
Happy to report, he could:
The film.. embodied my reading of Burroughs’ novel, which saw through its apparent realism – and remember: it is unique in his oeuvre for appearing to be the realistic narrative of a relationship – as a sham. Thinly fictionalising Burroughs’ real-life experiences of 1951, his Queer tried to pass itself off as realism, but it breaks down as his narrative falls apart together with his own identity as a coherent character. Accordingly, the film is set in a Mexico of the mind, a real-world geography reshaped by Lee’s agonising inability to engage with place or connect with people except through the all-consuming, shattering fantasies of his desire.”
Harris has only the highest praise for Daniel Craig’s “towering performance”:
“Daniel Craig .. gave expression to precisely the inner turmoil of Burroughs that was on show in his early novella but which had been hidden for decades behind his own icy cool iconic image…To use one icon to play another icon is one thing. To resurrect the actor’s own past as a way to annul the limitations imposed by his iconic identity, and to use that transformation to visualise a parallel transformation for the writer, exposing the queer man behind the cool junky secret-agent myth – it’s a remarkable thing.”
Harris concludes with a note about the necessary abiding dissatisfaction (for the viewer and also the Burroughs scholar):
“What I love about Queer is.. also what makes it a difficult film, a film that is queer in form as well as in content and name. “For the one thing that would make Queer untrue to its title,” as I put it myself in the 2010 edition of Burroughs’ novel, “would be to explain away all that makes it so mysterious and unsettling.” And that is why, enchanting and challenging in equal measure, the Queer of Luca Guadagnino does justice to the Queer of William Burroughs.”
The whole piece is essential reading and can be read here
Oliver will be joining Luca Guadagnino and Justin Kuritzkes in London on Monday, (7.00 pm BST, at the Regent Street cinema), for a preview screening and introductory panel/Q & A that will be hosted by writer and broadcaster, Ellen E Jones
News from the auction-houses (or, rather, bookstores), Boekhandel De Slegte, the De Slegte Bookstore in Antwerp, Belgium, has on offer, has put up for auction, a curious piece of Allen correspondence – to Belgian poet, Luuk Gruwez – (Grower, back in 1973, had sent Ginsberg an essay, in which he analyzed Ginsberg’s ‘Poem Rocket‘ – Allen replies to the enquiry with a 2-page letter!):
“Dear Luuk”, he writes, “While reading your essay I took following notes to help clarify affirm of straighten out yr – perceptions…. Death’s movie is life. Pythagoras – Everything we see when awake is death – when asleep, dream. A Buddhist view in a way – Life as an optical illusion, Maya – based on theory of 5 Skandas or 5 Heaps or aggregates forming the illusion. A good deal of the poem is humor & intelligent conjecture. The boldness of the action may be equated with ‘Visionary’ but I was experiencing ordinary humorous consciousness… I mean there was no instant psychedelic afflatus or illumination present during composition. Just freedom of imagination. However your essay looks very closely at the poem & understands it nicely. I had thought the meaning was obvious & needed less complex explanation. But thank you for your real understanding. Just write simpler! – Love Allen”
and concludes with the wry observation:
I can’t take time to comment much on my own poems or I wont write poems.”
Full details on the item here
This weekend (Sunday) at the Hoboken Historical Museum, another remarkable gathering convened by the indefatigable Danny Shot (see an earlier gathering at the museum for Allen, and a recent event for the poet Andy Clausen in Woodstock). This time it’s for Andy’s sometime partner, and companion for the last years of her life, “poet and feminist trailblazer”, Janine Pommy Vega
The event will be live streamed via their Youtube channel. Click that link and be sure to bookmark it.
“Roots Revisited” – the title comes from a poem of Pommy Vega’s with that name. Celebrating and honoring Janine on this occasion will be four Hudson County poets, Eliot Katz, Millicent Ansah, Yetvart (Ed) S. Majian and Vera Sirota.
Danny’s own book, Night Bird Flying (due out next year) is reviewed on Beatdom this week
Arthur Russell? – the legendary Arthur Russell – Christopher J Lee reviews Richard King’s Travels Over Feeling biography for PopMatters- see here (and see also – here)
Dylan? – We’re getting encouraging reports of Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. The movie opens this Christmas. Here’s a little taste of it
Even Dylan himself has good words about it:
“There’s a movie about me opening soon called A Complete Unknown(what a title!). Timothee Chalamet is starring in the leading role. Timmy’s a brilliant actor so I’m sure he’s going to be completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me. The film’s taken from Elijah Ward’s Dylan Goes Electric – a book that came out in 2015 .It’s a fantastic retelling of events from the early ’60s that led up to the fiasco at Newport. After you’ve seen the movie read the book
and Material Wealth – We haven’t mentioned that remarkable compendium in a while. Recently it received a lengthy review in El País , the most-read newspaper in Spanish around the world –
“Allen Ginsberg – imágenes y ecos de un gigante contracultural.Un nuevo volumen se sumerge en el archivo personal del autor de ‘Aullido….Del selecto inventario surge la figura monumental del poeta beat: valiente, divertido, vitalista y dialogante.” – (Allen Ginsberg – images and echoes of a countercultural giant. A new volume delves into the personal archive of the author of Howl…From the select inventory emerges the monumental figure of the Beat poet – brave, funny, full of life and open to dialog.’)
and did we mention Pat Thomas, the author, winning a prestigious 2024 Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award? – I believe we did.