naked lunch is a 1991 science fiction drama film co-written and directed by david cronenberg and starring peter weller , judy davis , ian holm , and roy scheider .

it is an adaptation of william s. burroughs ' 1959 novel of the same name , and an international co-production of canada , britain and japan .

the film was released on december 27 , 1991 in the united states and april 24 , 1992 in the united kingdom by 20th century fox .

it received positive reviews from critics , but was a box office bomb , garnering only $ 2.6 million out of a $ 17 – 18 million budget due to a limited release .

it won numerous honours , including the national society of film critics award for best director and seven genie awards , notably best motion picture .

naked lunch has since become a cult film .

naked lunch ( film )

naked lunch ( film ) <EOT> title drop : naked lunch turns out to be a novel lee is writing throughout the film .

nippon film development and finance film trustees ltd . naked lunch productions recorded picture company ( rpc ) téléfilm canada ontario film development corporation pierson , heldring & pierson n . v .

the film is a remarkable homage to pulp fiction . the set décor , consumes and especially the music are all musings of a film noir , and that era of film . the film feels a lot like “chinatown” because it’s a merging of film and neo noir . as to where many feel that “chinatown” is a perfect film , i feel that “naked lunch” is a perfect film .

how loyal has cronenberg been to the william s . burroughs book naked lunch ?

2 thoughts on “deep cuts : “naked lunch” – 1991 . dir . david cronenberg”

naked lunch , peter weller , 1991 , tm & copyright ( c ) 20th century fox film corp . all rights reserved .

naked lunch , judy davis , 1991 , tm & copyright ( c ) 20th century fox film corp . all rights reserved .

naked lunch , judy davis , peter weller , 1991 , tm & copyright ©20th century fox film corp . all rights reserved .

naked lunch , peter weller , 1991 , tm and copyright ( c ) 20th century fox film corp . all rights reserved .

her prescience has been fulfilled by the pairing of these two idiosyncratic figures under the eye of david cronenberg in his film naked lunch .

how composer howard shore brought the sounds of tangier to william s . burroughs ' ‘naked lunch’

naked lunch , ian holm , peter weller , 1991 , tm & copyright ( c ) 20th century fox film corp . all rights reserved .

naked lunch , peter weller ( center ) , 1991 , tm & copyright ( c ) 20th century fox film corp . all rights reserved .

if you wanna be cool you gotta read naked lunch . that ' s a cool book .

something old , so . . . : may 2015 - naked lunch by william s . burroughs

naked lunch @ 50 : anniversary essays , southern illinois university press , 2009 . 293 pp .

naked lunch by william s . burroughs hardcover , 320 pages grove press list price : $ 24

labels : david cronenberg , judy davis , naked lunch , peter weller , william s . burroughs

hello naked lunch sound like a original movie i want to see it cause it looks spooky .

how composer howard shore brought the sounds of tangier to william s . burroughs ' ‘naked lunch’ - noisey

an excerpt from william s . burroughs comic / noir / experimental masterpiece ' naked - lunch ' .

movies : out to lunch with the guru of gross - out : david cronenberg says the only way he could be faithful to william s . burroughs ' celebrated ' naked lunch ' on film was to betray it

looking for movie tickets ? enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing naked lunch near you .

not the answer you ' re looking for ? browse other questions tagged book - adaptation naked - lunch .

watch : david cronenberg & william s . burroughs discuss the making of ‘naked lunch’ in 40 - minute documentary

naked lunch by william s . burroughs hardcover , 320 pages grove press list price : $ 24 . 00

comparison to “chinatown” is absolutely , absolutely spot on . where that film is suffocatingly pessimistic this film is joyously optimistic .

movies : out to lunch with the guru of gross - out : david cronenberg says the only way he could be faithful to william s . burroughs ' celebrated ' naked lunch ' on film was to betray it - latimes

naked lunch , david cronenberg , william s . burroughs , peter weller , 1991 , tm & copyright ( c ) 20th century fox film corp . all rights reserved .

how loyal has cronenberg been to the william s . burroughs book naked lunch ? - movies & tv stack exchange

henry threadgill , denardo coleman and charnett moffett rehearsing for ' naked lunch ' in ornette coleman ' s studio .

i love naked lunch the movie ( haven ' t read the book ) . great blog you have here .

* picture : " life is sweet . " runners - up : " naked lunch , " " bugsy . "

“naked lunch” brought to social notice themes of drug use , homosexuality , hyperbolic violence , and anti - authoritarian paranoia .

on lincoln center ' s ornette coleman festival , and the ' naked lunch ' event that kicks off the series .

watch : david cronenberg & william s . burroughs discuss the making of ‘naked lunch’ in 40 - minute documentary | indiewire

we’d love your help . let us know what’s wrong with this preview of naked lunch by william s . burroughs .

book and film will return in january 2015 . have a suggestion for a book and film feature ? leave it in the comments !

lost & found : howard shore and ornette coleman ' s naked lunch - fact magazine : music news , new music .

" one of the finest film journalist’s in the business… the acidemic film journal is a must for anyone who loves cinema . . . "

the howard shore / mondo collaborative editions of naked lunch , dead , ringers , and crash will be available through mondo’s website .

even moreso than dead ringers , most of naked lunch ‘s toronto locations are long gone , save for cinespace studios , whose facilities were used to represent north african markets and a host of other weird locations . naked lunch is a film that , even for people used to cronenberg’s fondness for icky things , really ups the ante .

author avatar : william lee is the avatar of william s . burroughs . throughout the movie he ' s actually writing naked lunch .

" naked lunch " : music from the original soundtrack ; by howard shore , ornette coleman and " the london philharmonic orchesta " .

take a deep dive into the creation process of the film score for david cronenberg’s groundbreaking 1991 film naked lunch . in conversation with denardo coleman , composer howard shore recalls how he incorporated ornette coleman’s unique voice into the film’s soundscape in order to create an alternate , interzone universe . lincoln center festival 2017 will include a screening of naked lunch with live accompaniment performed by ensemble signal and featuring ravi coltrane , henry threadgill , charnett moffett , and denardo coleman . for more information , visit lincolncenterfestival . org .

all month , i have been looking at the life and works of william s . burroughs . this month concludes with the regular “book and film” feature focusing on his seminal work naked lunch and its 1991 adaptation .

i want to know which parts and concepts in the movie naked lunch are based on the book and which parts are added by cronenberg .

in 1966 burroughs and gysin worked together to create the short film , the cut ups . whilst filmed before they began plotting a movie of naked lunch , the cut ups nonetheless came from their collaboration in the aftermath of the publication of naked lunch and thus may be able to tell us a little about what we could have expected from the doomed project .

david cronenberg released a 1991 film adaptation of naked lunch that used very little of the book ' s material , claiming a literal adaption would be not only impossible , but " banned in every country in the world " .

theme crafted by george e . frog . film music reporter wordpress theme by :

this summer , howard shore’s teamed up with mondo to release vinyl editions of three of his scores from cronenberg films : naked lunch , 1988’s dead ringers , and crash ( 1996 ) . we spoke with shore about his work on naked lunch , including how he used the music of morocco and the jazz of famous ornette coleman to transport the film’s audience into the “interzone . ”

i can think of at least two things wrong with that title . - - nelson after watching " naked lunch " , " bart on the road "

while naked lunch wasn’t likely to redirect the course of soundtracks , it did allow coleman’s distinctive saxophone and compositional styles to be heard by yet another audience .

to date , naked lunch has sold more than 1 million copies ; a 50th anniversary edition of the novel is due out next month from grove press .

some might find cronenberg’s approach both a butchery and a concession to homophobia . in truth , his refusal to make naked lunch a “gay film” ( whatever that is ) fits well with burroughs and the beats conception of sexuality and its meaning .

i feel like this was false advertising . i was expecting naked ladies . instead it ' s all weird . love me some peter weller . i have watched some bad movies that had him . he seems enigmatic . since you can ' t really film ' naked lunch ' , this is a pretty good substitute .

peter weller , who portrays burroughs , describes cronenberg’s effort as being a film about the subtext of naked lunch rather than the novel itself . at its heart , he says , pulses the sadness that created the art . as cronenberg notes , burroughs often described his art as a way to defeat “the ugly spirit” , the shadows of a strange and violent night in 1951 that never left him . naked lunch the film probes these dark places and lets the ugly spirits come out to play .

* cinematography : roger deakins , " barton fink . " runners - up : peter suschitzky , " naked lunch " ; allen daviau , " bugsy . "

naked lunch copyright 1959 by william s . burroughs , reprinted with the permission of the publisher , grove press , an imprint of grove / atlantic , inc .

furthermore , naked lunch isn’t comprised of a traditional narrative that would adapt well to the screen . the story jumps around wildly through time and space , with characters rarely developing , if at all . its fragmentary composition would surely baffle film - goers .

denardo was speaking in his father’s loft , in the garment district of manhattan , during a recent rehearsal for the naked lunch performance . against one wall , a large flatscreen monitor had the film playing on mute , with a time code in the corner .

with the headline : review / film ; drifting in and out of a kafkaesque reality .

naked lunch - together with the rare prospectus , william s . ( novel ) ; southern burroughs , terry ; seldon , e . s . ( essays ) - captain ahab ' s rare books - specializing in first editions of modern literature and books into film

pragmatic adaptation : cronenberg ' s adaptation of the unfilmable naked lunch took story elements from the book and melded them together with parts of william s . burroughs ' biography .

movie director david cronenberg was a gutsy guy , asking ornette coleman to play on the soundtrack for his inspired but ultimately flawed realisation of crusty old bill burroughs’ naked lunch .

homer and lisa get lunch , courtesy of one of snpp ' s vending machines .

the film of the book : naked lunch is un - adaptable , for a variety of reasons . ( chief among them ; semi - obscene , no coherent plot . ) cronenberg ' s solution when doing the film adaptation was to graft a few scenes and ideas from the novels onto a roman à clef version of author william s . burroughs ' life .

it seemed unlikely , then , that naked lunch would one day become a feature film . yet , not long after the obscenity trial that declared the book of enough social value to be unleashed upon the public , william s . burroughs was plotting its way into cinema .

* supporting actress : jane horrocks , " life is sweet . " runners - up : juliette lewis , " cape fear " ; judy davis , " naked lunch . "

* director : david cronenberg , " naked lunch . " runners - up : mike leigh , " life is sweet " ; jonathan demme , " silence of the lambs . "

this film is not currently playing on mubi but 30 other great films are . see what’s now showing

it would appear that the film that resulted from this too - perfect match of sensibilities has fulfilled even its grander expectations . " naked lunch , " which opened last month in manhattan and los angeles , the film that even burroughs believed could never be made , is about to appear in the nation ' s multiplexes on friday - - whether the nation is ready for it or not .

the movie naked lunch is not only an adaption of the book ( which is already considered highly autobiographical ) , but also about what drove burroughs to write it in the first place .

in 1963 burroughs , gysin and balch collaborated on the short film towers open fire . directed by balch , the film featured moroccan music performed by gysin , and voice - overs by the unmistakable sardonic burroughs .

naked lunch’s music takes the viewer into a jazzy - beat - poet - headspace . what was your approach for this film ? naked lunch is set in a world called “interzone , ” and from william s . burroughs novel , i knew it was somewhere in north africa . the score’s a combination of north african music by the master musicians of jajouka , and ornette coleman—who was a contemporary of burroughs . i tried to put the idea of new york bebop and moroccan music together .

of the published primary sources , naked lunch will , of course , be the central text used in this thesis . naked lunch originated as a series of “routines” , the seeds and early versions of which can often be found in burroughs’ letters in the 1940s and 50s , written mainly to allen ginsberg from tangier , and now published in viking penguin . this is an invaluable source in clarifying and contextualising many of the ideas put forward in naked lunch . some of burroughs’ previously unpublished “routines” from the naked lunch period can be found in the interzone collection , which is also of use . excerpts from burroughs’ body of work , some previously unpublished , are collected in word virus : the william burroughs reader , which contains perceptive essays by ann douglas and james grauerholz .

1991 saw the release of naked lunch , cronenberg’s long - gestating adaptation of william s . burroughs’ supposedly unfilmable novel ( an irritating epithet : nothing is unfilmable ) . the film , though far from perfect , succeeds as a love - letter to burroughs – cronenberg interprets his textual source material as loosely as wild bill interpreted life , and seeks to further blur the distinction between the author and his protagonist , william lee ( played by peter weller ) . the resulting film is , of course , crazy – no adaptation of naked lunch could fail to be , even if richard curtis were in the director’s chair – but this craziness is tempered by cronenberg’s gift for suspense and storytelling . though it has numerous experimental flourishes , naked lunch is not an experimental film . like all cronenberg’s mature work , it’s bound by hollywood conventions , which only serves to make its underlying subversiveness more potent .

the three men formed a production company in 1970 , called friendly films limited . they reviewed screenplays , treatments and ran through ideas together on how to make naked lunch work as a movie .

naked lunch was not a box office success — despite wide theatrical release , it only grossed about $ 2 . 6 million , a fraction of its roughly $ 17 million budget — but it has acquired the aura of a cult classic . still , even by the standards of cronenberg , the unrivaled auteur of body horror , the film retains its potential to shock . ( try an image search for “mugwump , ” or “ naked lunch typewriter , ” and you’ll get the idea . )

i am a big fan of david cronenberg , and due to the fact that barnes and noble was doing their 50 % off criterion collection sale , i picked up “naked lunch” and watched last night . as a body of work , i think that cronenberg has made very good films , and i think he’s a very good auteur – but as for “naked lunch” , it’s cronenberg’s masterpiece .

last edited : 19 may 2006 13 : 11 : 20 © new line cinema / cannes film festival .

" . . one of the most talented and creative writers on film working in the world today . "

william s . burroughs’ naked lunch is his most well - known work and a key work in the counter - culture moment . its then controversial elements make for great satire , holding up a mirror to 1950’s american society . the novel’s graphic sexuality , explicit violence , and the non - linear , cut - up method used makes it difficult for a film adaptation . but david croneberg smartly opted not to aim for a straight - forward adaptation of naked lunch for his 1991 film . rather , he took key themes from burroughs’ novel and incorporates them with important aspects of burroughs’ life , namely the development of naked lunch and his motivations for becoming a writer . in this regard , naked lunch is an excellent take on this hard to film novel . the cast is game for the weirdness cronenberg is aiming for , and his experience on his previous films ( especially scanners , videodrome , and the fly ) helps in developing the surrealistic atmosphere burroughs achieved in the novel . fans of burroughs’ work will appreciate the elements from burroughs’ life and will surely appreciate cronenberg’s audacity and enthusiasm in taking on this great novel .

the first of many startling reveals in naked lunch , the 1991 david cronenberg film , occurs five seconds into the opening title sequence . an orchestra has just struck its first chords , foreboding and tremulous , when ornette coleman’s alto saxophone goes skittering into action , like an errant flashlight beam across a velvet curtain .

shore is a highly prolific film composer : in addition to his close association with cronenberg , he is known for his work on the lord of the rings movies , and on several martin scorsese epics ( including the departed and gangs of new york ) . but naked lunch represents a special convergence for him .

i’m thinking about the book both because burroughs is a character in my novel - in - progress turing & burroughs , and because i watched david cronenberg’s naked lunch via netflix instant - watch last night .

g - rated drug : the drug - fueled , hallucination - laden madness that is naked lunch ( the film , at least ) revolves around lee ' s addiction to . . . extermination powder ? granted , it was meant as an indirect adaptation of the original novel , in which heroin was the culprit .

in 1991 naked lunch was finally committed to film by the director david cronenberg , and with burroughs’ permission . cronenberg acknowledged the book’s label of being “unfilmable” , saying that a straight forward adaptation would “cost 100 million dollars and be banned in every country in the world . ” indeed , that’s not hard to imagine .

best film editing ( awarded in memory of karen schmeer ) - daniel p . hanley and mike hill for rush

provocative , but never as clever as it thinks it is , cronenberg ' s film is ultimately a misfire .

* screenplay : david cronenberg , " naked lunch . " runners - up : james toback , " bugsy " ; agnieszka holland , " europa , europa " ; calder willingham , " rambling rose . "

if you look carefully at these words , you ' ll realize that i ' m actually saying something else . i ' m not actually telling you about the several reasons why i enjoyed watching naked lunch - about the impeccable writing , the film ' s strange sense of humor ; about the metaphors , the social commentary .

" and it ' s our ticket to the best spring break of our lives ! " , bart announces . and it begins with a ticket to an r - rated movie - - " naked lunch " .

first published 50 years ago , william s . burroughs ' novel naked lunch is a dark , wild ride through the terror of heroin addiction and withdrawal , filled with paranoia , erotica and drug - fueled hallucinations .

bookstores in film : a list of movies with at least one scene set in a bookstore . books and bibliophiles .

by time burroughs was actually living in tangier , he was well past the transition , constantly writing about boys in his letters , so in that sense the film is historically inaccurate . but we’re not talking about true history in the movie naked lunch . we’re talking about attaching the images and dialog of an author’s fantastic novel to a mythologized version of the author’s life . and in some ways the transitional state is a good choice to use for the film . in any case the character is , as burroughs remarked to cronenberg re . the film , “queer enough . ”

there is something about noir that begs genre - blending , i am convinced . whether it ' s sci - fi in blade runner , comedy in who framed roger rabbit ? , or surrealism here in naked lunch , there is just something about noir and neo - noir that make it so much the chameleon of genres , working with and for so many other types of films . for me , it worked perfectly in naked lunch .

in fact , one could view the movie less as an adaptation of the book than as a biopic with elements of naked lunch thrown in to represent the perpetual junk haze in which burroughs spent most of his life .

this week lincoln center is honoring coleman , who died in 2015 , with a festival of music and film organized by his son , the drummer denardo coleman . the kickoff event , on tuesday night , is a screening of naked lunch with live orchestral accompaniment and not one but two eminent soloists , the saxophonists henry threadgill and ravi coltrane .

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as an important text in the counter - culture movement , naked lunch puts american culture under a microscope and points out flaws in a harsh , blunt way . its groundbreaking style , smart style , and infamous graphicness are part of the reasons why it became as popular as it was notorious . the draw towards adapting it for film is certainly tantalizing . burroughs himself attempted to try to adapt it into a film , but funding fell through . it would take thirty - two years after its publication before someone would have the wherewithal and vision to take on the novel and turn it into a film .

the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans . it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .

this essay by novelist , playwright , and culture critic gary indiana originally appeared in the 1992 book everything is permitted : the making of “naked lunch . ” burroughs’s work tends to affect people like a rorschach test . it separates cultural …

othing is true ; everything is permitted . ” welcome to interzone , the hellish playground of william burroughs’ ‘naked lunch’ . along with jack kerouac and allen ginsberg , burroughs was among the central figures of the beat generation . over a frenzied decade bridging the 1950s and ’60s they were instrumental in reshaping america’s cultural landscape , tearing up their elders’ starchy doctrine and blazing the trail for the counterculture that followed . as dynamic , brilliant young things they seemingly make for ideal cinematic subjects , but only one film managed to capture something of the essence of its author and the beat generation at large : david cronenberg’s naked lunch .

with the release of cronenberg’s naked lunch , burroughs distanced himself somewhat from previous attempts to film the “unfilmable . ” he said that “the late brion gysin and antony balch , set out to adapt it for film , ” failing to mention his own input . also , gysin’s screenplay had been “long on burlesque . . . a series of music - hall comedy songs that he composed . ” he appeared content with the result of a twenty year pursuit for a silver - screen version of his literary classic .

story : with little in the way of coherent narrative , naked lunch takes the form of disconnected episodes describing the activities of bizarrely imagined figures - junkies , agents , " faggots " - who inhabit interzone , a fantastical urban melting pot . certain characters recur - bill lee , dr benway , the mugwumps - in convoluted , often gruesomely obscene scenarios . the author described naked lunch as " a matter of catharsis , where i say the most horrible things i can think of " .

by 1991 , burroughs had been involved in a few films , mainly as cameos . his most significant role prior to his involvement in naked lunch was a role as tom the junkie priest in gus van sant’s drugstore cowboy . as well , none of his works had really been adapted for the screen , mainly because they were thought to be unfilmable . but david cronenberg , an admirer of burroughs’ , decided to take on the herculean task of adapting his most famous work naked lunch . having already directed films such as scanners , videodrome , the fly , and dead ringers , cronenberg had made a name for himself as a director with an eye for the strange and surreal , and a master of “venereal horror . ” with burroughs’ blessing , cronenberg set out to film what is more an adaptation of burroughs’ life and novels than it is an adaptation of naked lunch .

how book and film compare : burroughs ' s book is merely the starting point for cronenberg ' s film , which operates more as a profile of burroughs ' s perverse imagination . the real life shooting of joan is the film ' s opening scene ( though cronenberg shifts its location to new york ) and merges burroughs ' s character with interzone agent bill lee and another briefly glimpsed figure , the exterminator .

* foreign film : " double life of veronique . " runners - up : " the vanishing " ; " europa , europa . "

for the purposes of the film , cronenberg created what wikipedia terms a “ metatexual adaptation . ” that is , he blended elements of the novel with the by - now - legendary story of burroughs’s life—the shooting of his wife , the expatriate years in tangier , typing the pages of naked lunch high in his tangier room , jack kerouac and allen ginsberg helping him assemble the manuscript . all of this material is outlined in burroughs’s letters , and in the reminiscences of his beat friends—the transreal oeuvre is blended together to produce the transreal film .

film - makers : david cronenberg ( b1943 ) emerged in the mid - 1970s with a string of perverse low - budget horror films , in which disease and mutation figured strongly . he made the switch to the mainstream with the stephen king adaptation the dead zone ( 1983 ) . his subsequent hit , the fly ( 1986 ) , gave him the clout to make the supposedly unfilmable naked lunch .

so bill and joan perform their " william tell act , " just as mr . burroughs and his wife , joan vollmer burroughs , did on one drunken evening in mexico city in 1951 . as bill shoots and kills joan , the film makes one of its many allusions to the real events of mr . burroughs ' s life . soon afterward , he either physically or psychically flees new york for interzone , a tangier - like exotic setting in which the film ' s nightmarishness escalates to new levels ( although " naked lunch " is so thoroughly hallucinatory that it ' s difficult to know exactly where its characters are , literally or figuratively ) . in interzone , the suffering gets worse and the bugs get bigger as bill attempts to write what will be " naked lunch , " the novel .

”the title means exactly what the words say : naked lunch - - a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of the fork . ” the book title was suggested by jack kerouac . if not for the intervention of william s . burroughs friends , naked lunch would have never seen the light of day . peter orlovsky , allen ginsberg , and jack kerouac decided to visit burroughs in tangiers and see if they could salvage any of the fragmented writing that had been dripping from the mind of burroughs while he was nurs

i sort of resisted the idea of being a writer . . . . but jack [ kerouac ] definitely did encourage me . and he said that i would write a novel called . . . ' naked lunch . ' that ' s his title , kerouac .

favourite because it staunches the guff about the tortured imagination that fills the rest of the movie . for cronenberg ' s naked lunch , it soon transpires , is yet another film about the interior life of the writer to join steven soderbergh ' s forthcoming kafka and the coen brothers ' s barton fink . in placing him in a dilapidated hotel it links arms with both the latter and kubrick ' s the shining .

coleman is more than a featured soloist in howard shore’s original score for naked lunch : his quizzical , bracing cry also provides something like a point of view in the film , which was adapted from the landmark novel by william s . burroughs . the chiming polytonality of the music shows an affinity with coleman’s language , and he takes to the orchestrations as naturally as he does to the odd interlude with his trio .

so cronenberg , with burroughs ' blessing , avoided literal adaptation , fashioning , instead , a story about a heroin - addicted writer named william lee ( a name burroughs frequently uses for a fictitious alter ego ) who accidentally shoots his wife to death and expatriates himself to tangier , where he fights through his many demons to write a book called " naked lunch . " aspects of burroughs ' own life , including the accidental murder of his wife joan , are mixed together with pieces from " naked lunch " and burroughs ' other novels .

burroughs ' ' naked lunch , ' still fresh at 50 once the center of an obscenity trial , william s . burroughs ' novel is a dark , wild ride through the terror of heroin addiction and withdrawal , filled with paranoia , erotica and drug - fueled hallucinations .

burroughs described the novel as " a frozen moment when everyone sees what is at the end of every fork . " poet anne waldman says that at the time it was published , naked lunch offered a stark contrast to the prevailing vision of reality during the eisenhower years :

the single disc included in this set contains the same special features as criterion’s previous dvd release . but these are an outstanding set of features , a treat for burroughs and beats fans as well as cronenberg aficionados . the “making of” feature includes interviews and readings by burroughs . the disc also includes burroughs reading selected passages from naked lunch ( especially the segments dealing with the film’s philosophical themes of social discipline and punishment ) .

note : this year ' s awards are dedicated to the memory of robin dougherty , a former boston phoenix film critic who passed away this summer .

anyway , they seems to be good releases , and an oportunity for all film score fans discover the music that howard shore has composed for cronenberg .

more than a film about hallucinations , is a film that hallucinates , incorporating in its filmic matter the forms of unreality , that , by a magic trick - in a film that uses the studio like the two versions of " the thief of bagdad " - is transmuted into a hyperrealism of the senses . writing is an act that follows the sacrifice and mingles with the loss , while shooting is the figurative fulfillment of this " petite morte " .

naked lunch represents that most unfilmable of all unfilmable projects . salinger may have been right that the catcher in the rye could not be captured on celluloid . he probably meant by this that the book conveys a level of angst and yearning that likely couldn’t be matched on screen .

" i sort of resisted the idea of being a writer , " he said . " but jack [ kerouac ] definitely did encourage me . and he said that i would write a novel called . . . naked lunch . that ' s his title , kerouac . "

" it ' s not the woman with her kelvinator refrigerator , opening the door to show you how crisp the lettuce stays , " says waldman . " it ' s the ' naked lunch ' . . . where you see reality clearly , you see the lettuce decomposing . "

william burroughs’s novel naked lunch has been rattling literary cages since it was published at the end of the repressive fifties . though nothing in david cronenberg’s free - form , $ 15 million film is as jolting as the poetically eroticized violence of the book , there’s plenty to scare off the uninitiated , including a giant centipede that rapes and devours a gay boy in a bird cage . a crash course in the pertinent works of burroughs ( exterminator ! , junky , queer ) and cronenberg ( the brood , scanners , the fly ) couldn’t hurt , but the film stands on its own metaphors .

" the ballad of narayama " is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice , telling a story of startling cruelty . what a space it opens…

this film is built around paranoia and mystery , it’s very incoherent with its flow and intention and the film is the perfect metaphor about the writing process . as lee dives further into the underground world of drugs and being a secret agent cronenberg builds the paranoia which at times feel sort of polanski - esq .

the group ' s best screenplay award went to " naked lunch , " david cronenberg ' s freewheeling adaptation of william s . burroughs ' s novel , a film that will not open until next week . the cinematography prize went to roger deakins for his work on " barton fink , " joel and ethan coen ' s droll , nightmarish look at hollywood in the 1940 ' s . judy davis was named best supporting actress for a total of three performances in these two films . she plays two different women in the hallucinatory " naked lunch . " samuel l . jackson was voted best supporting actor for his performance as a drug addict in spike lee ' s " jungle fever . " ' europa , europa ' a winner

that aspect of burroughs is celebrated at feature length in “naked lunch , ” the new david cronenberg film in which peter weller gives a performance as evocative as it is depressing , as a fictional character obviously meant to be taken as the author . the film opens with “ william lee ” making one of his periodic attempts to go straight . he has kicked drugs , he claims , and is gainfully employed as an insect exterminator . but his wife ( judy davis ) is addicted to the bug powder , and so is bill , to such an extent that millions of cockroaches owe him their lives .

but the key to the film’s longevity is the union at its rotten core : cronenberg and burroughs . they share a flair for the grotesque , met with perfect nonchalance and bone - dry wit . in naked lunch , cronenberg invites the audience to dine in hell . the intense imagery of his body - horror – nightmares of flesh and metal , lust and infection – finds an equal in burroughs’ prose . but crucially cronenberg’s adaptation is a fusion of the two artists’ minds , as if they crossed in the fly’s telepods . keeping the title was key , though . as burroughs put it , “the title means exactly what the words say : naked lunch , a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork . ”

special commendation to george mansour - the " repo man award " to the film booker for the nickelodeon cinema , for repossessing repo man from consignment to television .

ruritania : in the brief bit of it we see in the film , annexia ' s border guards are wearing little fur hats and speak in russian accents .

like many of the best comedies and tragedies , this weimar - era silent film understands how each mode is often a hair ' s breadth from the other .

the criterion release of david cronenberg’s naked lunch offers the closest to this experience we are likely to ever get . burroughs’ himself says in the disc’s “making of” feature that he never expected more than a fraction of the book to make it into the film . in fact , this is something other than a filming of a book , an adaptation . in fact , it’s not really an adaptation at all . it’s a collaborative project , something entirely new .

) , ' and now they try to swallow ` naked lunch . ' this movie was , from what i heard , a highly surreal trip into the mind of a junkie - - or something like that . certainly , it ' s not as much fun as the title suggests . "

but it’s a least possible to imagine holden caulfield slumming around manhattan . how do you picture the flumes of bodily excrescence that explode in naked lunch , its alien interrogators and masters of control hovering over bodies in pain and pleasure , the inward ecstasies and torment of bodies on a perpetual high ?

this book is beautiful in a sick - grotesque - wild - hilarious - creative - mind - bending - outlandish - drug - filled - dirty - brave kind of way . if i could use one word to describe it , it would be “bizarre” ; although “hilarious” and “important” could work , too . in naked lunch you are taken into the mind of william s . burroughs - - a twisted , drug addicted man , who also happens to be genius . when considering its content , it’s no wonder naked lunch was banned and railed against when it was first released ; it’s also

part of cronenberg ' s successful strategy is looking beyond the single book at the whole of burroughs ' work and also his biography . he drapes the entire film in literary fabric , with the reference to kafka in regards to the narcotic high the film ' s characters get from bug powder dust being a fairly telling allusion . the plot of the movie is kafakesque with interwoven lines of paranoia , labyrinthine bureaucracies , and the self - replicating puzzle that the film ' s hero finds himself in .

the flaw of the 5 - star rating system is in trying figure out whether you should award stars based on how much you liked a book , or based on how " good " you think a book is . these two criteria are often distinct from each other , and naked lunch , at least for me , is a perfect example of this . i think that naked lunch is a brilliant book , an that burroughs is one of our century ' s great literary geniuses . so , that makes it a five star book . but did i enjoy reading it ? sometimes very much , sometimes n

found this file i started on my computer june 9 , 2007 : hypertext reading of naked lunch reading naked lunch as it was intended : open the book at any page and just read what is there . keeping track of pages read , so that there is no duplication and each page is given its consideration . am a bit anal about these things , so i ' m not going to cut in the middle of a chapter . . . going to read nearest chapter from where i pry open the book . the book is never meant to end , because it ' s an immortal junky ' s ni

these elements , plus a lot of attention to the addictive powers of the black meat of the giant brazilian centipede , insure that mr . cronenberg ' s version of " naked lunch " is no more suitable to the fainthearted than mr . burroughs ' s was . and the film , while very different from the book , is every bit as impenetrable in its own way . by the time it reaches a repellent fever pitch , with one character literally tearing its body open to reveal someone of a different sex inside ( a simple yet extravagantly weird evocation of the author ' s thoughts on sexual identity ) , " naked lunch " has become too stomach - turning and gone too far over the top to regain its initial aplomb . yet for the most part this is a coolly riveting film and even a darkly entertaining one , at least for audiences with steel nerves , a predisposition toward mr . burroughs and a willingness to meet mr . cronenberg halfway .

: burroughs always said that he would never have become a writer if not for joan ' s death . this is portrayed in the film . . . sort of .

no celebrities were harmed : lee is an obvious stand - in for burroughs himself . the film also includes two characters who are pretty clearly jack kerouac and allen ginsberg .

naked lunch is a symphony of smut ; a fever - dream of filth ; a hallucination ; a work of art . this is not a novel that charts an easy course . it is wild , erratic , crude to the extreme , and largely incomprehensible but for occasional moments of clarity . there is genius in these naked pages , a raw and fractured genius , the voice of the depraved and drug - addled , mainlined , unfiltered , directly into the vein . this lunch is opulent , sumptuous , but excessive , tainted , vomit - inducing . burroughs ' s masterpiece is certainly an experience , though not a pleasant one .

" stay until you finish the book , but then come back to us , " bill ' s friends say about his sojourn in interzone . but if the terror so slyly and sickeningly rendered in " naked lunch " is representative , it ' s a miracle that artists ever survive the creative process to come home .

but then this is true to the spirit of burroughs , whose naked lunch was first published in paris in 1959 , and sparked an american obscenity trial several years later . a hallucinogenic novel steeped in drug addiction , exaggerated violence and sexual depravity , it inhabits a kind of post - beatnik paranoia , sharp and curdled .

" naked lunch , " adapted by the dauntless david cronenberg from william s . burroughs ' s 1959 landmark novel , represents a remarkable meeting of the minds . it ' s hard to imagine another film maker who could delve so deeply into the monstrousness of mr . burroughs ' s vision , in the end coming up with a bona fide monster movie of his own . yet while mr . cronenberg ' s ingenious approach to his material matches mr . burroughs ' s flair for the grotesque , it also shares the author ' s perfect nonchalance and his ice - cold wit . seldom has a film maker offered his audience a more debonair invitation to go to hell .

in 1962 , grove press issued a promotional booklet to accompany the november 20 , 1962 american publication of ' naked lunch , ' a scarce and desirable piece of ephemera . publisher barney rosset printed the prospectus with an obscenity trial in mind , with the entire document reading like a legal argument to establish ' naked lunch ' s ' literary merit before a courtroom . the pamphlet opens with a short essay by terry southern , followed by a critical piece by e . s . seldon . the remainder of the pamphlet contains an eight page selection from the novel . a terrific piece of ephemera that is rarely offered together with the novel , and one that is essential to understanding the early publication history of ' naked lunch , ' the establishment of the book ' s critical reception , and the novel ' s many court battles over the years . to the best of our knowledge , the two essays contained within have not been printed in any other format . a superior copy of this beat generation cornerstone , and basis for the bizarre 1991 david cronenberg film starring peter weller , judy davis , and ian holm . maynard & miles a2 . b .

documents still exist in the archive of terry wilson – a friend of burroughs , gysin and balch – that let us see what the three men had in mind for filming the “unfilmable” project . through letters , screenplays and storyboards it is possible to examine the vision they had in attempting to bring naked lunch to the screen .

i personally favor the interpretation that the pages that the william lee of the movie writes on his typewriter are the pages of the real - world book naked lunch . just as burroughs was lost in a state of drug - induced hallucination , paranoia and guilt when writing the book , so is the william lee of the movie .

that shocking reality caused a furor when excerpts were published in the university of chicago ' s literary magazine in 1958 . a paris pornographer took note and published naked lunch in france the following year . then in 1962 , grove press issued the first american edition . a year later , a boston bookstore owner was arrested for selling it .

critical reception to burroughs has been varied . herbert gold , in an early assessment of naked lunch , wrote “many will be disgusted , snobs will says it’s a masterpiece , but they miss the relevance to our times . ” 2 this concisely sums up many of the problems associated with the critical reception and studies of naked lunch since — and even before — its publication , and also points towards the aims of this study : to establish the relevance of naked lunch . early objections focused on the obscenities , and the graphic sexual descriptions within the book , and the publication of the book in america prompted an obscenity trial in 1965 . 3 one of the most famous hostile responses to naked lunch was the review which appeared in the times literary supplement in 1983 . entitled “ugh…” it captured the disgust with which many greeted the work , and the reluctance to look beyond this initial first impression with impeded its reception . some have attacked it because they find the character of william burroughs himself difficult to come to terms with : being addicted to heroin for most of his life , never conforming to any normal codes of sexual conduct and the fact that he shot his common law wife perhaps make it difficult for many to consider him as a social philosopher . he is seen as representative of decadence , and therefore not an appropriate character to criticise western society .

i found this post through io9–and i was thinking , it must be st . williams burroughs week . or month . i’ve found myself obsessing over naked lunch ( and other burroughs material–like ‘the job’ ) , over the past few weeks and specifically how cronenberg deftly handles burroughs material . i’ve streamed the film several times in the past fortnight and it is standout science fiction . so is the rest of burroughs life–his tussles with scientology , cut - up methodologies , obsession with reich / orgone… what other genre could this life be ?

naked lunch was due to be shot in tangiers until the gulf war made it impossible so they recreated interzone on a canadian film set . as cronenberg rationalised , ' interzone , is , of course , a state of mind ' and exteriors never made good metaphorical stand - ins for that anyway . the cool aquamarine of bill lee ' s hotel room is a typical cronenberg interior . these are invariably lit like an operating theatre or an aquarium ( crimes of the future even had a soundtrack of dolphins and water ) .


sometimes a great notion ( a.k.a. never give a inch ) is a 1970 american drama film directed by paul newman and starring newman , henry fonda , michael sarrazin and lee remick .

the cast also includes richard jaeckel in an academy award-nominated performance .

the screenplay by john gay is based on the 1964 novel of the same title by ken kesey , the first of his books to be adapted for the screen .

filmed in the summer of 1970 , it was released that new year 's eve .

sometimes a great notion ( film )

sometimes a great notion ( film ) <EOT> the 1971 film “sometimes a great notion” remains a cult classic in the pacific northwest .

sometimes a great notion essays are academic essays for citation . these papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of sometimes a great notion by ken kesey .

" sometimes a great notion " is the other oregon movie made from a ken kesey novel .

sometimes a great notion $ 19 . 97 ( blu - ray ) , shout ! factory

the big o saloon boasts a full bar and is a great setting to watch “sometimes a great notion , ” a film about logging , thursday , feb . 26 .

the question and answer section for sometimes a great notion is a great resource to ask questions , find answers , and discuss the novel .

to ask other readers questions about sometimes a great movie , please sign up .

paul newman and his wife , joanne woodward , enjoy themselves at the wrap party for the filming of “sometimes a great notion . ”

paul newman with a chainsaw on location in the woods near agate beach . this was during the filming of " sometimes a great notion . "

washington release ( jan . 2014 ) sometimes a great movie : paul newman , ken kesey and the filming of the great oregon novel

newman took over direction of " sometimes a great notion , " which is based on a 1964 ken kesey novel . jaeckel richly deserved his oscar nomination .

with its breathtaking scenery , naturalistic acting and compelling story — not to mention its fascinating depiction of the logging industry — " sometimes a great notion " ( 1971 ) falls a mere peg or two short of being a truly great film .

sometimes a great notion study guide contains a biography of ken kesey , literature essays , quiz questions , major themes , characters , and a full summary and analysis .

writers on the edge , inc . : sometimes a great party—the lincoln county filming of a ken kesey novel

sometimes a great notion began shooting on 22 june 1970 , with richard a . colla as director . after five weeks of filming , as noted in a 23 july 1970

yet another piece of evidence comes from the mpaa , who ' s database indicates that sometimes a great notion received its [ gp ] rating in 1971 and was given certificate number 22982 . comparing again , dirty harry received its rating in 1971 with certificate number 23049 , not long after sometimes a great notion .

so invested am i in the belief that sometimes a great notion would make an excellent mini series that i have gone to the trouble of assembling a dream cast .

thirty - five years ago , hollywood came to this small lincoln county town to film scenes for " sometimes a great notion , " ken kesey ' s novel about an oregon logging clan .

we’d love your help . let us know what’s wrong with this preview of sometimes a great movie by matt love .

“sometimes a great notion , ” adapted from ken keseyþäôs epic novel about a defiant family of loggers , starred paul newman and was filmed on the central oregon coast during the summer of 1970 .

that’s the plot of sometimes a great notion . there’s logging , the union , bar fights , prostitutes , and death . but the real story is three generations of sexual obsession .

nestucca spit press announces the release of sometimes a great movie : paul newman , ken kesey and the filming of the great oregon novel , by oregon author matt love .

sometimes a great notion is a good , if plot - sprawling , outdoor action film set in northwest lumber country , about a family of individualists fighting a town and a union . paul newman directed , produced , and stars as the crown prince to family patriarch henry fonda .

after the publication of sometimes a great notion , kesey’s literary efforts fell off for a number of years . the 1964 trip to new york in the further bus to celebrate the publication of notion and also visit the world’s fair took kesey’s prankster sideshow on the road , and this period of frenetic energy followed by his exile to mexico on drug charges left little time for serious writing . in an interview with the paris review in conducted in 1992 and 1993 , kesey said of sometimes a great notion :

and from the very beginning of sometimes a great notion , ken kesey ' s second novel and eagerly - awaited follow - up to his acclaimed one flew over the cuckoo ' s nest , we are hooked .

" the ballad of narayama " is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice , telling a story of startling cruelty . what a space it opens…

urltoken sometimes a great notion : paul newman , henry fonda , lee remick , richard jaeckel , linda lawson , cliff potts , roy poole , joe maross , john c . foreman , john gay : movies & tv

matt love , the author or editor of eight books on oregon history , has written about the production in " sometimes a great movie : paul newman , ken kesey and the filming of the great oregon novel . "

sometimes a great notion is a good , if plot - sprawling , outdoor action film set in northwest lumber country , about a family of individualists fighting a town and a union . paul newman directed , produced , and stars as the crown prince to family patriarch henry fonda . john gay’s adaptation of ken kesey’s novel tries to balance the intellectual [ … ]

in june 1970 , the biggest movie star in the world traveled to the oregon coast to film an epic novel about a defiant family of loggers written by a home grown counterculture hero . the star was paul newman . the author was ken kesey . the story was sometimes a great notion and it has a fanatical following in the pacific northwest .

because , as sometimes happens , despite a poor critical reception , a lot of people simply love it .

" sometimes a great movie " is , perhaps , author matt love at his best . as in " vortex i " , he ' s done his research and presents it in an entertaining and enlightening manner . " sometimes a great movie " focuses on the informal and sometimes wild encounters between the hollywood film professionals and coastal oregonians . lavishly illustrated with photos , black and white as well as color . recommended for west coasters and paul newman fans .

in sometimes a great movie : paul newman , ken kesey and the filming of the great oregon novel , author matt love documents the legend of that magical summer and presents over a 125 never - before - seen photographs , including many in color .

according to a 1970 article from newport ' s " news - times , " 130 people came to lincoln county to work on " sometimes a great notion , " and an equal number of residents were involved in the production , which lasted from june through september .

“sometimes a great notion” is set in the remote lumber country of the pacific northwest and has to do with the patriarchal stamper family , which is continuing to run its small , independent logging operation while the other loggers in the area are frozen by a , strike against a huge lumber combine .

in the summer of 1970 , out on the central oregon coast , paul newman and company filmed a cinematic adaptation of ken kesey ' s epic 1964 novel , sometimes a great notion . matt love ' s new book ( and the final installment in his newport trilogy ) , sometimes a great movie , chronicles the film ' s production with an array of first - person accounts , photographs , and newspaper clippings of the time . a large portion of the book is composed of these local stories wherein coastal residents recall their interacti

on wednesday december 30th the sou’wester will host a rare public screening of sometimes a great notion . the movie , adapted from ken kesey’s epic novel about a defiant family of loggers , starred paul newman and was filmed on the central oregon coast during the summer of 1970 . the film was released in 1971 to an indifferent nationwide audience but remains a cult classic in the pacific northwest .

paul newman experimented with that formula in 1970 by making a film with only one . in sometimes a great notion , richard jaeckel played the trusting , loyal joe ben who drowns as his cousin hank tries and fails to keep him alive . jaeckel was oscar nominated for a performance which culminates in that one scene , but what happened to the rest of kesey’s masterful epic ?

a tile mural built this summer outside city hall - the largest of its kind in the northwest - shows scenes from toledo ' s history , including newman and fonda being filmed , and " sometimes a great notion " on the marquee of the downtown ross theater , which was torn down years ago .

it ' s not a great film , nor is it what the trade likes to describe as an east side film , that is , something that exhibits a kind of white‐collar starchiness towards the idea of manual labor or sweaty physical efort of any sort .

ken kesey’s novel , sometimes a great notion ( 1964 ) , is a complex and integrated historical background and relationship study of the stamper family , a prideful logging clan living in wakonda , oregon . this big story involves a man , his family , a town , the country , a period of time , and the effects of time . all of the elements of the novel including its characters , events , settings , symbols , and so on , are integrated and oriented toward the themes of independence , individualism , and self - sufficiency . the novel teaches that a person should have the right to try to be as big as he believes it is in him to be . sometimes a great notion was made into a 1971 film directed by and starring paul newman . in britain this film about generations of loggers was called never give an inch .

last year , i approached dale and shawrron searls , owners of the big o , about screening the film in the bar to promote my book about its production , “sometimes a great movie : paul newman , ken kesey and the filming of the great oregon novel . ” they enthusiastically agreed , and we staged the event on a thursday night in late january .

not long after the great day - glo man died in 2001 , i found myself drinking beer in the bayhaven , an ancient tavern on newport’s bayfront . there i noticed hanging on a wall a framed poster of promotional stills from sometimes a great notion the movie . it was filmed in and around lincoln county in 1970 and includes scenes shot in the bayhaven , which stood in for the snag saloon from the novel .

when kesey wrote sometimes a great notion , jocks were winners . much of the plot concerns the courage the lanky , underdeveloped lee must summon to continue seducing the wife of his violent , physically powerful half brother . the better lee knows hank , the more he realizes how dangerous his plan is .

next , i attempted to contact newman directly via emails to several of his high profile business ventures . i never received a reply . i then perused three newman biographies and learned that he once drank to binge and blackout excess . the biographies also reported that the independent production of sometimes a great notion experienced major problems .

“sometimes a great notion” is an extremely interesting , , if impure ( happily impure , i might add ) example of a genre of action film that flourished in the 1930 ' s in movies abont tuna fishermen , bush pilots , high‐wire repairmen and just about any physical pursuit you can think of with the possible exception of tolltaking , which ( except on some thruways ) lacks the necessary element of danger .

paul newman makes his directorial debut in the sweeping saga sometimes a great notion . based on the best - selling novel about a two - fisted oregon lumber family , the story focuses on a family that bucks their close - knit timber community in order to deliver a shipment of logs in defiance of a strike . in the process , one man is killed , the family patriarch henry ( henry fonda ) is injured , and the eldest son hank ( paul newman ) almost loses his wife ( lee remick ) to his half brother ( michael sarrazin ) . filled with complex characters and issues that still resonate today , sometimes a great notion is an intense portrait of life set against the backdrop of logging .

astoria writer matt love , author of sometimes a great movie : paul newman , ken kesey and the filming of the great oregon novel , will introduce the movie and take questions after the screening . he will also discuss new revelations about the legend of whether newman cut the legs off a tavern pool table with a chainsaw during the production .

on thursday , feb . 26 , the big o saloon will reprise its public screening of “sometimes a great notion . ” the movie , adapted from ken kesey’s epic novel about a defiant family of loggers , starred paul newman and was filmed on the central oregon coast during the summer of 1970 . the film was released in 1971 to an indifferent nationwide audience but remains a cult classic in the pacific northwest , particularly in logging / timber communities .

three days after hearing this fantastic story , i set out to corroborate its veracity . first i made a day trip to the toledo area , hit every bar and tavern and asked around about sometimes a great notion , the movie , and the alleged newman madness . no one had heard of it , but they all thought it could be true .

it can also be said that kesey’s life became his art . after notion he gravitated more to public performances , often in collaboration with various pranksters . the spontaneous creation of art through theatre and music had a great appeal for him .

in any case , sometimes a great notion was not registered for copyright by universal pictures and newman - foreman co . , inc . until 17 december 1971 . if it had actually opened in december 1970 , universal and paul newman would not have let a $ 4 million major production go without copyright protection for nearly a year while it played around the country for all of 1971 .

last month , the center held a gathering to recall the film . twenty - five people attended .

what better place to watch the greatest movie ever made about logging than in a real logger bar decorated with chainsaws and saw blades ? well , “sometimes a great notion” is that movie , and the big o saloon in olney is about the best logger bar i’ve ever patronized . it certainly has the biggest chainsaw i’ve ever seen . rumor is : it still works .

at the age of 46 paul newman , then arguably hollywood’s biggest star , produced , directed and starred as the logger hank stamper in sometimes a great notion , one of the first high profile , independent american films . in addition to newman in the lead role , the film featured henry fonda , lee remick , michael sarrazin , and richard jaeckel , respectively as hank’s domineering father , unhappy wife , estranged brother and cousin .

restoring indian jenny to the plot would make an honest miniseries out of a sometimes a great notion , and communicate both the novel’s social and psychological complexity , and its epic sweep . i propose irene bedard to play the beautiful small town prostitute who falls in love with the young logger henry stamper , and whose thwarted union with him provides the narrative engine for the rest of the plot .

what ensued was a wild working vacation between hollywood and oregonians involving beer , sex , scotch , loggers , beaches , and perhaps , a spectacularly vandalized pool table . in sometimes a great movie : paul newman , ken kesey and the filming of the great oregon novel , author matt love documents the legend of that magical summer and presents over a 125 never - before - seen photographs , including many in color .

news item stated that the film might be shot in canada . by may 1970 ,

the incidents in the film were generally faithful to those in the book ; however , many aspects of the book were not included in the film . as noted in the

and i am also here to claim that i will write the book that captures all the madness . it will be called sometimes a great party and hope to find enough of the home movie footage i know the locals shot to make a documentary to include as a dvd with the book .

thus opens ken kesey ' s sprawling , drenched , riffing , old growth dense , beautifully flawed , lsd flavored , masterpiece of a novel , sometimes a great notion , set on the oregon coast , about a gyppo logging family , published in 1964 , and undeniably the greatest oregon work of fiction of all time . if you live on the northwest coast and haven’t read it , you have no business living on the northwest coast .

i enjoyed love ' s look at the filming of " sometimes a great notion " on the central oregon coast . he blends stories from locals , background on the novel , and the film ' s legacy ; in the process , love shows what it was like to live in a quiet community and in the midst of hollywood stars . the film isn ' t a well - known part of oregon history , so to hear stories from the set was a real treat . love shared a ton of fascinating stories , anecdotes , and reflections from that surreal era in oregon history , and the story about paul newman and the pool table added a fun layer of intrigue to the book .

this film was the first movie ever shown on hbo when the service premiered in 1972 .

it seems like being around or involved in the filming of " notion " was a big deal in a lot of people ' s lives and they were eager to talk about it .

never have i read a work that captures the true community feeling that inhabits the small costal town of newport , oregon better than in matt love ' s sometimes a great movie : paul newman , ken kesey and the filming of the great oregon novel . the book itself is a testament to the greatness of the oregon coast . between the locally written stories about personal experiences and the author ' s personal stories of discovering what really happened with paul newman , the saw and the pool table , love ' s passion and dedication to uncovering and relaying the unique story of hollywood celebrities forming bonds with lincoln county locals is evident in every sentence . it ' s impossible to not become passionate about both sometimes a great notion and the greatness and beauty of the oregon coast and it ' s inhabitants while reading this book .

a miraculously non pc film from liberal paul newman that captures the feel and look of keseyland . richard jaeckel ' s death is a classic scene within a . . .

the best director award was presented to william friedkin ( with his first nomination and win ) for his first major feature the french connection - a tough , suspenseful crime film that preceded the similar cop film dirty harry by a few months .

when lee chooses to remain behind with hank , the brother he both loves and hates , we understand he has chosen death . he had his chance at life . viv = vitality = life . as viv watches the two men struggle to bring the logs down the river from the window of her greyhound bus out of town , she is ishmael escaping the unholy vortex of moby dick . kesey’s understanding of viv as a whole person , not a plot device , is entirely , but entirely , absent from the 1970 film adaptation of sometimes a great notion .

to make matters worse , he broke his ankle while riding a motorcycle for the film , which delayed production for weeks .

the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans . it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .

he did publish other works after sometimes a great notion , but nothing of the same caliber . but anyone who has added great novelist , pioneering counterculture icon , and friend of neal cassady to his list of life accomplishments can be said to be a true artist of the highest order . he proved that art , literature and ideas can come in the form of the solitary composition of a work of literature , or in the form of a [ sychedelic bus crossing the country , blasting the new music , and taking the new reality to the masses . ken kesey was resolutely anti - establishment until the end of his days .

but then newman starts tunneling under the material , coming up with all sorts of things we didn ' t quite expect , and along the way he proves himself ( as he did with " rachel , rachel " ) as a director of sympathy and a sort of lyrical restraint . he rarely pushes scenes to their obvious conclusions , he avoids melodrama , and by the end of " sometimes a great notion , " we somehow come to know the stamper family better than we expected to .

as i drank in the bayhaven , asking patrons their opinions on sometimes a great notion , the novel and movie , a thickly bearded man wearing a baseball cap emerged from an alcove sheltering the video poker machines and moved toward me holding a hamm’s can . he sat next to me at the bar and said he had a story about the movie . a story about paul newman . would i like to hear it ? yes , i would . i ordered him another hamm’s . he appeared anywhere from 40 - 70 years old , or what i call ota , oregon tavern age .

" sometimes a great notion " is no classic . filmed five years earlier than " cuckoo ' s nest " in newport and elsewhere along the oregon coast , it is best known for an incredible scene in which joe ben stamper ( richard jaeckel ) is trapped by a log and the incoming tide despite the best efforts of his cousin hank ( paul newman ) to rescue him . the movie is also the answer to a trivia question : what is the first program to be broadcast on hbo ?

the oregon press offered uniformly positive reviews when sometimes a great notion came out , but to me , it is a mediocre movie , unimaginatively adapted . newman and screenwriter john gay obviously read the novel and tried to conjure a coherent theme from a biblical work of fiction punctuated with manic stretches of stream - of - consciousness and multiple narrators ( including a dog ) . but they failed . the movie is also marred by a terribly dubbed audio track and murky cinematography . if any scene remains memorable , it’s the harrowing sequence where jaeckel’s character is pinned under a log as a rising estuarine tide drowns him while newman tries to cut him free .

was based on the ken kesey novel of the same name , the first of his books to be adapted into a film . the

love has " sometimes a great notion " events scheduled around the state over the next few months . at 7 : 30 p . m . may 25 , he ' ll be at powell ' s city of books , 1005 w . burnside st . , along with a chain saw . at 6 : 30 p . m . may 26 , there will be a screening of the movie at the hollywood theatre , 4122 n . e . sandy blvd . a question - and - answer session will follow . for more appearances , see urltoken

the unmistakable cover , the book ' s aesthetics fit for display , the photos worth cutting out to mount , and the author ' s passion for making any topic , especially about oregon , interesting , are just a few reasons you should pick up a copy of sometimes a great movie for your next read . you ' ll hardly believe the stories in this book , and that these things happened in a small town on the oregon coast . sometimes a great movies makes a perfect gift for anyone , oregonian or not . any reader will have to see the movie afterward , and probably visit lincoln county . sometimes a great movie is well - written , including personal accounts from folks that were in the film and around during the filming that are interesting ; stories that make this history lesson one worth remembering and keeping alive . this is exactly what the author does with this book , matt love has a way of keeping the fun in oregon history , his passion for this is apparent . if you haven ' t seen him read yet , you ought to catch one of his upcoming shows . did i mention that he prints his books locally ?

this film was the first movie ever shown on hbo when the service premiered in 1972 . see more »

farrington thought people in new york or some other metropolis wouldn ' t understand the oregon the film captured .

33 . tangerines : this is estonia’s nomination in the foreign film category , though the film takes place in georgia , where , we are told , estonians emigrated once , only to return to their native land when armed conflicts began besieging the former soviet republics . tangerines is an interesting blend of new trends in the foreign film category ( toward tougher , bleaker films ) and old ones ( it wraps itself in a poetic ending that is maybe a little pat ) . nomination : best foreign language film

an interview with writer / director boots riley about his incendiary new film , " sorry to bother you . "

i liked this film . got to see it on uk tv in mid 70s . it rarely airs now .

22 . ida : many years , a foreign film is so acclaimed that it manages to get some spillover attention in the other categories . and while ida’s black - and - white cinematography was lovely , i wish this film had followed in amour ’s footsteps and garnered a best actress nomination for either of its leading ladies , agata kulesza and agata trzebuchowska . it’s their performances—one all sheltered curiosity , the other boozy , weary , and wise—that make this film special . nominations : best foreign language film , best cinematography

23 . our curse : i’d love to be able to go into detail about this short film , a look at a pair of new parents whose child suffers a rare condition that requires a ventilator every night or else he will stop breathing and die , but if i think about it for too long , i’m just going to start sobbing again . the miserablism of the doc shorts is sometimes made fun of ; there are years where the list reads like “cancer , holocaust , suicide , euthanasia , holocaust again . ” this year’s nominees could certainly fill out a similar checklist . but this heartbreaker of a film is a reminder that reducing these films to their subject matter is a great way to miss out on some intimate , disarming filmmaking . nomination : best documentary short

the big o will offer a hank stamper olympia and meatloaf sandwich special , free popcorn , the warmth of crackling woodstove fire to enjoy the film , and a special musical guest .

my husband had been searching everywhere for this movie , and i was like . . amazon ! amazon has everything ! so i ordered it for him friday , and it arrived tuesday = thanks to the perks of free 2 day shipping , through amazon prime ! my husband is a logger , in oregon - and some of the guys he works with recommended this movie . we really enjoyed it . it shows a good true side to oregon loggers , even the process of the equipment , which many don ' t get to see . it is not like the t . v show that ' s full of drama . sometimes a great notion , is a wonderful movie featuring paul newman . it ' s got a great story line behind it , with great acting skills . looks like it was filmed right in our oregon mountains as well , but i ' m not sure . i highly recommend this movie !

review , the film ' s final cost was considerably higher than its original budget of $ 3 . 66 million .

great movie for the time it was made . i was super excited to finally watch the movie that was filmed in my county and now .

i met ken kesey at a book signing in 1993 , and he signed my battered copy of sometimes a great notion , which i consider to be one of the best american novels , along with moby dick and on the road . kesey struck me not so much as a countercultural icon , but as an archetype of the old west : his still - powerful frame from his wrestling days , his calloused hands from hard work on his farm , and his sideburns . the sideburns and the jut of his jaw – suggesting that he was , in fact , hank stamper .

46 . parvaneh : the story of a young afghan woman seeking asylum in switzerland . a sweet , generous film that doesn’t make a very big impact , relative to its competition . nomination : best live - action short

given the fact that shooting did not end until early october 1970 and that newman had difficulties editing the film , it ' s highly improbable that the film was completed and scored in only 11 weeks , for release by 31 december 1970 .

thanks for that . it ' s a magnificent book . i wish i had been fortunate enough to have gotten my copy signed . i believe it is the great american novel .

paul newman ' s " sometimes a great notion " tells sort of an old - fashioned story about prideful clans carving empires out of the wilderness . the characters seem a little familiar , too . take the three most important . henry fonda is the proud old patriarch , paul newman is the son who stays at home but makes up his own mind , and michael sarrazin is the kid brother who comes back to the land with all sorts of half - baked notions and scores to settle . so far , the relationships remind us of " hud . "

magic trip , a new film by alex gibney and alison ellwood , tells the story of novelist ken kesey ' s 1964 road trip across america in a painted bus with a troupe of fanciful hippies and legendary beatnik neal cassady at the wheel .

36 . the phone call : every once in a while , you get a short film with some star power . so it is here , as former oscar nominee sally hawkins ( plus the voice of oscar winner jim broadbent ) lend their talents to this story of a crisis hotline worker and a call that really shakes her up . the familiarity of an actress like hawkins is a huge boon to a movie that is really just one extended phone conversation , though a “name” actress can sometimes feel like an unfair advantage in the shorts categories . nomination : best live - action short

newman , already the star and co - producer of the major film , became the director after the original one resigned . a third of the movie already had been shot .

memories of the film have resurfaced thanks to toledo ' s focus on history during the town ' s year - long 100th birthday celebration .

“it’s my best work , and i’ll never write anything that good again . it’s a question of time spent on it . i worked on notion for two years without interruption , exploring symbols and characters and letting the narrative take its own way . ”

that imdb date of a 31 december 1970 u . s . release is highly suspect . according to the american film institute catalog , the film did not generally open in the u . s . until november 1971 . ( no specific date is given . ) certainly , my recollection is that it opened late in 1971 .

still , it ' s a treat to see saldana in a movie in which she ' s not operating a rocket launcher or equipped with a blue tail .

noted that richard a . colla had been set to direct the film , which would be a jennings lang presentation . lang , the then - vice - president of universal films , was not listed in the onscreen credits .

50 . white earth : if you’re looking to dispel the notion that oscar - nominated documentary shorts are all sad looks at bleak lives told through a filter of bittersweet perseverance , white earth is maybe not the short for you . nomination : best documentary short

i missed a great novel . i mean , i had the thing decades ago when raw and real young and began to give it a go but couldn ' t continue . subsequently over the years i never really ever got a clue what i ' d missed out on until now . . .

when the film cuts away from the family soap opera dramatics and shows the macho men at work wielding their chainsaws at the logging camp among the giant trees , it has a buzz .

in the book , love blends reportage , memoir , primary documents , oral history , film criticism , and photographs to produce a unique , entertaining , visually rich work of non fiction .

the movie doesn ' t seem very sure of what it thinks about the fonda character ' s fierce and stubborn pride . the character himself believes all that matters is getting up for another day , and working , and eating , and sleeping , and getting on with life . another character , a brother - in - law , played by oscar nominee richard jaeckel , has been " saved " at the local fundamentalist church and has a sort of sweet simplicity that seems out of place - - until the scene where he dies . he dies in a way that is truly filled with grace and humor , and the scene is one of the several things in " sometimes a great notion " that make it worth seeing , even if its overall design is murky .

then in the spring of 2007 , i found myself in the tiny toledo historical museum on a teaching errand completely unrelated to the sometimes a great notion story . on a lark , i asked the museum’s director if the archives held any material about the movie shoot . yes , the archives did . would i like to see them ? yes , i would . a few minutes later i held an approximately 100 - page file containing newspaper and magazine clippings of local , state and national stories about the film’s production . there were even articles from the los angeles times and a trade publication called chain saw age , which featured newman on the cover wielding a mcculloch beast with what looked like a 60 - inch bar ! the museum director told me that someone had compiled this file back in 1970 - 71 and turned it over to the museum years ago . to her knowledge , no one had ever looked at it . i paid her $ 50 on the spot to copy the entire file for me . i read it all later that night .

42 . a single life : the elasticity of styles that can be found among the animated shorts every year makes it one of my favorite categories . with a single life , you get a cute little story about a woman who finds she can advance her life forward and backward with the needle on a record player . the entire film is two and a half minutes long . nomination : best animated short

a tribute to the late tab hunter , a gay matinee idol and hollywood trailblazer .

32 . butter lamp : it takes a while to get used to what’s going on in butter lamp , which depicts a photographer setting up group shots of tibetans in front of various backgrounds . the poignancy , humor , and thoughtfulness of the setups ( the great wall , disney world ) add up to something more like a conceptual art project , reminiscent of the far heavier the missing picture , nominated in foreign language film last year . nomination : best live - action short

a member of british intelligence assumes a fictitious criminal identity and allows himself to be caught , imprisoned , and freed in order to infiltrate a spy organization and expose a traitor .

in his spare time , henry fonda sketched watercolors and collected agates . he bought himself a tumbler to polish his rocks . he also worried about the “sensibilities” of old trees cut down for the film .

someone is going to lose an arm , or worse , but we keep reading , sometimes afraid of what is going to happen , but unable to stop . the story builds relentlessly from its initial image .

shifting the action of the story to a completely different character as well as a different locality in just a short piece of dialogue .

52 . the imitation game : for a while there , people really thought harvey weinstein was going to be able to muscle this one to a best picture win , through his usual mix of chutzpah and blunt - force marketing . better luck ( with a better film ? ) next year . nominations : best picture , best director , best actor , best supporting actress , best adapted screenplay , best film editing , best production design , best original score

after i introduced the film , we all settled in with food and drink and watched a movie containing incredible scenes of logging and log drives of the type that will never happen again because environmental regulations and industry changes disallowed or precluded them in the subsequent decades . forty - five years ago , that wasn’t part of the film’s inherent appeal , but it is today .

review mistakenly list the character of " joe ben " as " henry stamper ' s " son . in 1977 , the film was released on television under the title

barbara harris ( with her sole nomination ) as allison - an aspiring singer ( co - star dustin hoffman ' s girlfriend ) in who is harry kellerman , and why is he saying those terrible things about me ? [ the film has the remarkable distinction of having the longest title of any nominated film in academy history . ]

35 . wild tales : if wild tales had been an english - language movie , there’s no way it would even get close to an oscar nomination . this series of vignettes—most of them darkly comedic , most of them circling a theme of vengeance—plays like lesser tarantino and would probably be brushed off as a popcorn movie and nothing more . but in a foreign language film race where so many entries are solemn , thoughtful , slow affairs , wild tales plays like a hugely refreshing change of pace . nomination : best foreign language film

in june 1970 , the biggest movie star in the world traveled to the oregon coast to film an epic novel about a defiant family of loggers written by a home grown counterculture hero . the star was paul newman . the author was ken kesey . the story was

a radio station in the deep south becomes the focal point of a right - wing conspiracy .

21 . still alice : throughout awards season , this movie has been treated solely as a julianne moore vehicle . a car service , in particular . one that picks her up from the airport and drives her directly to the best actress oscar she so richly deserves . but it’s too bad the rest of the movie couldn’t get a little love , for its smart and sensitive storytelling , or for its great supporting performances from kristen stewart and alec baldwin . moore still towers over the film , but it’s a shame that the academy couldn’t look beyond her . nomination : best actress

25 . two days , one night : jean - pierre and luc dardenne have never once been nominated for a foreign film oscar . not even this year . but through a clever bit of noncampaigning ( every time marion cotillard didn’t show up at a precursor event , some critic would write about what a shame it was she was being passed over ) , their film managed to snag a mention in one of the big four categories . that’s not bad . hopefully it leads to more people seeing this quiet , powerful movie about a woman going door to door in her community to try and save her job . nomination : best actress

8 . begin again : writer / director john carney’s follow - up to once didn’t receive the acclaim that its predecessor did , though it ended up getting the exact same oscar nomination . ( “lost stars” probably won’t win like “falling slowly” did . ) i spent much of this film marveling that i wasn’t more irritated by this story of a down - and - out music producer ( mark ruffalo ) who discovers a sad singer - songwriter ( keira knightley ) in a bar and decides to produce her record . but the film walks a difficult tightrope between sentimentality and a kind of process story about making music off the grid , and in the balance it finds an unvarnished sweetness . also amazing : the nominated song sounds so great , despite being performed by adam levine . nomination : best original song

sometimes a grnat noticin , ” ken kesey ' s second novel , adapted by john gay and directed by paul newman opened at 22 theaters here yesterday , which probably means that it will be in and out of town so quickly that a lot of people who might like to see it won ' t have the chance .

mr . love has captured a slice of oregon - american pie at a pivotal time in [ relatively ] recent history . that he has managed to do so without ken kesey , paul newman and the original director of this film is now small feat . manage he does , however , and readers of mr . kesey , along with film buffs everywhere , are in for a treat as they delve into this tall true - tale . well - worth the $ 30 . 00 price tag .

the film barely managed to open in los angeles in time to qualify for the 1971 academy awards ( awarded in 1972 ) . the film received two 1971 nominations - - best actor in a supporting role for richard jaeckel and best music , original song , for henry mancini ( music ) , alan bergman ( lyrics ) , and marilyn bergman ( lyrics ) for the song " all his children " .

10 . timbuktu my favorite of the foreign - language nominees this year comes from mauritania , a first - time nominee in this category . it’s been heartening to watch the category expand over the last decade or so , branching out from the usual haunts of france , italy , and sweden to cover a more comprehensive vision of foreign film . timbuktu couldn’t be more vital , telling a story about an islamist takeover in west africa . that it tells such a story without extravagance and with a careful focus on its characters makes it worthy of winning , though it probably won’t . nomination : best foreign language film

since i knew nothing about the book by ken kesey nor the movie , i got both ( audio book ) to prepare for this new book by matt love ( i ' m a fan of all of his books and knew that this one would be good ) . i only got halfway thru the audio book and watched the movie before reading sometimes a great movie . matt ' s book does a wonderful job of making this reader want to finish the audio book , watch the movie a few more times , read the novel and visit oregon . i look forward to attending some of his book promotions as he will undoubted have much more say .

brit - born peter finch ( with the first of two career nominations - he won best actor for network ( 1976 ) ) as dr . daniel hirsh - a middle - aged , homosexual doctor involved in a three - sided love story in the british film sunday , bloody sunday

q . it seems like " notion " was one of those movies that fell through the cracks - - different versions of different lengths , changed title , etc . what is the critical consensus on it , and where does it stand in the history of oregon culture ?

38 . the tale of the princess kaguya : in a typical year , the animated feature lineup contains a pixar slot , a disney slot , and a dreamworks slot . looks like now there’s a slot for studio ghibli , which has nabbed nominations for the wind rises and howl’s moving castle , not to mention a win for spirited away . isao takahata’s first film in 14 years is undeniably beautiful , like a watercolor come to life , but at the risk of heresy . . . it kind of drags . nomination : best animated feature

within days , i received about a dozen leads connecting me to friends , parents , and relatives who had some role in the film’s production or servicing the hollywood people . and frankly , the stories were incredible—better yet , totally unreported .

29 . leviathan : the big story here is that a movie this critical of the russian establishment—the way government corruption filters down to destroy the lives of ordinary , good families—was selected to be russia’s official foreign submission to the oscars . the film itself certainly makes an impression , with its whale - skeleton metaphor about how the cross - contamination of government and business is too big a monster to fight . i’m pretty sure i got it . nomination : best foreign language film

but somehow , this bomb of a movie took in $ 133 million in its opening weekend . not only does that total beat the better - reviewed deadpool ( 84 percent on rotten tomatoes ) , which i loved , it smashed the august box office records previously set in 2014 by guardians of the galaxy , which i really loved . and this doesn’t seem to be a fluke : deadline reports suicide squad is posting great weekday numbers , beating even the vaunted captain america : civil war for a tuesday box - office record . hence my confusion . how could such a poorly reviewed film make so much money ?