Cool News
William S Burrough's Biographer Comments Upon The Factual Integrity of the Sundance film BEAT
Hey folks... Harry here. Well, while we are running the inside skinny on this whole DISNEY thing... It seems we are also going to get the inside skinny today on the events in the recent SUNDANCE film "BEAT" concerning William S Burrough's life according to his biographer... James Grauerholz. Personally this is exciting and interesting as all hell. Read... become impassioned or outraged... And voice your own reaction.
What follows below is a statement from James Grauerholz on the film,
"Beat," I told him that the list was having a discussion on the film and
the truth/fiction of the Joan/Lucien relationship. In my opinion, no one
is better qualified than he to unravel the truth from the fiction. This
is his response. Everything below this line is written by James.
DC
___________________________________________________________________
GARY WALKOW'S NEW FILM "BEAT" IS NOT A "TRUE STORY"
Statement by James Grauerholz, companion and biographer of William S.
Burroughs
February 1, 2000
Concerning the film BEAT:
BEAT, a film written and directed by Gary Walkow and premiered at the "Beat is a true story. The events depicted in the screenplay are entirely Unfortunately, judging from two drafts of Walkow's screenplay which I Furthermore, Walkow did not discuss this movie with William Burroughs. I do not know whether Walkow ever met the late Herbert Huncke, but if he I have admired the acting work of Kiefer Sutherland and Courtney Love Walkow has no right to claim that BEAT is a realistic portrayal of these In August 1944 Lucien Carr killed David Kammerer, without premeditation, Burroughs did not speak to Carr about the latter's relationship with Walkow's most irresponsible invention is an imaginary love affair between Carr did not proceed, as shown in BEAT, immediately from the scene of By summer 1951, Burroughs and Vollmer were living in Mexico City. While Neither Healy nor Woods--the real-life models of bartender "Heard" and The BEAT shooting script has Ginsberg, referring to Burroughs, telling When Burroughs and Marker return to Mexico City, Ginsberg and Carr have When the story of BEAT reaches its melodramatic climax, Vollmer and The sheer inanity and lack of realistic motivation in Walkow's script can ------------ ------------ Talk about "milking the moment"--! A "tableau," indeed. The actual It should be noted that Walkow and the film's producers did not ever show Walkow wants to utilize the actual, famous-name Beat characters, and the In particular, I want interested parties to know, on behalf of the ============= P.S. to statement: Andrew Lampert posted Jan. 28: Andrew's intelligent comments contain a small but significant error: P.P.S. Please note that the "beatmovie" website offers an email address to which
Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2000, purports to be a true story
from the lives of William S. Burroughs, Joan Vollmer, Lucien Carr, David
Kammerer, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, et al. The production's
official website (at
as these:
factual and based on extensive research. In writing the script, Gary
Walkow read all the available published material and examined the source
materials held in Columbia University's Rare Book Library. Before they
died, Walkow met and talked with William Burroughs and Herbert Huncke,
the man who introduced Burroughs to heroin and lived with Bill and Joan
in Texas. [...] The events depicted in 1951 Mexico are also entirely
factual. [...] From all accounts there was a romantic undercurrent and
sexual aspect to the Lucien/Joan relationship."
have in my possession (one of them the final shooting script), the story
of BEAT is falsified and distorted. Far from "distinguish[ing] the real
from the myth," it merely adds another layer of myth to the biographical
record. The _real_true story of the origins of the "Beats"--beginning
with a circle of friendships in New York in the mid-1940s--is quite
dramatic enough, without being "dramatized" in this way.
In July 1996, on the way back to Kansas from the "Ports of Entry" museum
show in Los Angeles, William and I were approached at L.A. International
Airport by a man who said he was a filmmaker, but we did not talk with
him, because he seemed to be a creep. The entire encounter lasted about
three minutes.
did, SUBS listmember Laki Vazakas would certainly know about it, because
while working on his documentary film about Huncke's (and Louis
Cartwright's) last years, Laki and his friends were Huncke's continual
companions. I don't believe any substantial Walkow-Huncke meeting ever
occurred.
(who play the characters called "Bill" and "Joan"), and I don't think it
is an actor's job to verify the historicity of a screenplay--but with the
best intentions toward them and the rest of Walkow's cast, I do think it
is my job as a scholar to point out this kind of historical falsehood.
events and relationships. His understanding of the real-life models for
his melodrama is appallingly superficial. Walkow is free to make up any
sort of movie he pleases, but when he claims that movie is "a true
story," he ought to be called to account for his perversions of the
facts.
at the end of a six-year relationship that began when Carr was thirteen
and Kammerer was twenty-seven. According to William Burroughs--who had
been best friends with Kammerer since 1926--Carr never slept with
Kammerer, although they both somehow kept the "pursued/pursuer" scenario
going for six years. The death permanently marked Carr's life, and
strongly impressed Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs. These were indeed
"real people" with real sufferings, and it is inhumane to toy with their
true stories; any dramatization of this should have been written with
care for the truth, and with compassion for the subjects.
Kammerer, as shown in BEAT; to the contrary, he remonstrated with
Kammerer about it. Quoting Burroughs from an interview with biographer
Ted Morgan, on July 12, 1983: "[Kammerer] became obsessed with Lucien
Carr. I told him ‘This is silly, this is awful.’ I said ‘It’s also
completely selfish, you’re not really interested in him, you’re
interested in some idea of him that you have. And what you’re trying to
do is not at all to his advantage.’ Which it sure wasn’t. He just
couldn’t see it." Burroughs' relationship with the much-younger Carr was
not such that he would have chided Carr about the matter.
Carr and Joan Vollmer, a young woman who was at the center of the early
Beat circle. Vollmer had many loves, and she ended up involved with
Burroughs, becoming his wife in 1946. Carr had a steady girlfriend in
New York from late 1943 to summer 1944. He did not pursue Vollmer at
all. This is verified by the unpublished mid-1940s journals of the
teenaged Ginsberg, by Vollmer's letters to her best friend Edith Parker,
by Kerouac's journals, and by what I have been told by Burroughs,
Ginsberg and Carr himself. And yet, Walkow makes this "romance" the
mainspring of his movie.
Kammerer's death to the Upper West Side apartment of Vollmer, to confess
the killing to her. In reality, he went first to the Greenwich Village
apartment of Burroughs (who was Kammerer's best friend in New York), to
relate the tragedy to him. Later, Carr found Kerouac, and they spent
some hours together. By the time Vollmer learned of Kammerer's death,
Carr had already turned himself in to the police. Walkow must have
created this lie so as to bolster the fictional "Carr-Vollmer romance."
Burroughs was in South America with Lewis Marker, a young Army veteran
whom he was pursuing, Ginsberg and Carr arrived for a visit. They spent
a week with Vollmer, drinking in the Bounty Bar and making a car trip to
Guadalajara and back. At the Bounty they met the bartender, John Healy;
the childhood friend of Marker, Edwin Woods, Jr., a fellow veteran,
arrived from Florida just after Ginsberg and Carr left town. Burroughs
and Marker also returned around the same time, but they were traveling
separately at that point.
bar patron "Dwight" at the Bounty Bar in Mexico City--would have had any
amorous designs on Vollmer, as shown in BEAT. ("Heard" says he had been
hoping to "get Joanie alone tonight.") Healy was sleeping with an older
woman--Juanita Penaloza, the landlady of the building where the Bounty
was located--and he was good friends with Burroughs. I interviewed Healy
for six hours in the early 1990s, and he told me that he found Joan
Vollmer unattractive. As noted, Woods was not even there when Ginsberg
and Carr were.
Vollmer: "It's kind of funny, but we've both been involved with the same
man." A moment later he adds: "I didn't stay with Bill because he was
sucking me dry. He was a psychic vampire—his phrase." This is based on
nothing but Walkow's imagination. Burroughs was not at all attracted to
Ginsberg during the early period of their friendship, in 1943-1946; his
romantic attraction to Ginsberg did not develop until two full years
after Vollmer's death.
already left. According to Walkow's fantasy, Carr has made a final,
all-out effort to bring Joan back with him to New York. A phony dialog
scene between "Bill" and "Joan" has them arguing about this, and sets up
the false dynamic of "Bill's jealousy" over "Joan and Lucien's romance."
Burroughs are shown in "Heard's" apartment with "Lee" (Lewis Marker, the
young man who had just spent six weeks with Burroughs in Ecuador--not
"Guatemala") and "Dwight" (Edwin Woods, Jr.). "Joan" rudely taunts and
needles "Lee" and "Dwight"--although in reality, according to numerous
eyewitness accounts of the period, it was Burroughs for whom Vollmer
reserved her taunting and teasing.
only be illustrated by quoting what happens next:Bill fiddles with the gun, unhappy with the gloomy party.
JOAN: "Well ..."
BILL: "Well ... "
JOAN (annoyed): "I"m so bored."
BILL (taunting): "Shall we show them our William Tell act?"Joan is initially surprised, but smiles at his dare.
JOAN: "Okay, William. Show them our parlor trick."She finishes her drink. Joan stands and puts the empty highball glass on
her head. Dwight looks startled. Lee, used to Bill"s outre behavior, is
more blase. Bill raises the gun, milking the moment. He points the gun
just above her head. Out of the corner of his eye he watches Lee,
hopeful of impressing him. Joan is annoyed by Bill"s coquetry.
Joan smiles skeptically at Bill, daring him. Joan glances at Lee, with a
contemptous smile. Dwight looks more afraid than Joan. His muscles
tense, as if he is about to grab for the gun. But he is also embarrassed
about seeming uncool, and so stays tensely seated.
Nobody says anything.
Bill takes careful aim. But he seems to be waiting for something--for
Joan to call it off.
Joan is silently taunting Bill--it"s up to him to stop.
A tense tableau: Joan--Bill--Lee--Dwight.
The moment stretches with unbearable tension, the silent dare neither
Joan nor Bill will back down from.
eyewitnesses, Marker and Woods, both told biographer Ted Morgan that the
incident happened very, very fast--the way such things usually do, in
real life. Marker remembered that he had only a split-second to wonder
if he should deflect the gun, and before he could decide that it might
just make things worse, Burroughs fired ... inadvertently creating an
enduring myth, one that seems irresistible to melodramatists.
the courtesy of any approach whatsoever to the estates and survivors of
Burroughs and Ginsberg, et al., nor most tellingly, to my friend Lucien
Carr--who is alive and well, leading a private life that the lies of this
film are sure to invade. But for Carr to attempt to punish Walkow and
his producers in court for this onslaught would force him to abandon the
very privacy that he seeks to protect. BEAT is a callous abuse of this
man's situation in his retirement years--and William Burroughs, having
died in 1997, can no longer protect himself from the opportunistic
piracy of this movie.
true-to-life fascination that they still exert fifty years later, to
illustrate a wholly made-up love affair. But it is easily demonstrable
that the real people, living and dead, whose personalities he is
hijacking did not act or feel as he makes them do in his screenplay.
Walkow starts from the actual facts, but then he gratuitously adds a
great deal of pure invention that obscures the truth.
William Burroughs Estate and my own biographical scholarship, that I did
not cooperate in any way with this film. Watson writes (p.145) that during Lucien Carr's visit to Mexico (August
1951) he "helped Joan marshal her diffuse marital discontent, for she
and Carr shared romantic feelings (perhaps never acted on sexually),
and after he left she petitioned for a divorce in Cuernavaca."
Lucien made two trips to Mexico -- in August 1950, with Liz Lehrman (AKA
Liza Williams, see the Rolling Stone Book of the Beats) -- and again in
August 1951, with Allen Ginsberg. I'm not sure where Steven Watson
(whose book, The Birth of the Beat Generation, is extremely good, by the
way) got this idea about a "divorce" -- Joan and William were never
legally married. There is, however, a brief mention in one of the
contemporary 1951 Mexican newspaper accounts of something like this, in
Cuernavaca in September 1950. Note that if Lucien was "carrying a torch"
for Joan, he would not have brought along his girlfriend, Lehrman, for
their 1950 reunion in Mexico. His 1951 trip with Allen was undertaken
for the occasion of the wedding of a UPI friend of Lucien's in Mexico.
comments from the Public may be sent: it is one of the producers, an
experienced Hollywood fellow named Alain Silver, and the address is
alainsil@aol.com.
-
+ Expand All
-
WSB is part man part chemist....in fact they should make an X-man of him....if his molecular structure hasn't been altered by the amount of excess he's had, then he's a mutant already.....
-
Fascinating stuff. I've read the Literay Outlaw biography, sorry can't remember the author off the top of my head. Burroughs' life is incredible enough why the need to enter this dynamic of a fictional romance into a story that as is demands telling. Have been intrigued by word of this movie for some time although i'm not sure i can picture anyone playing Burroughs, he is such a strong presence, check out his cameo in Drugstore Cowboy. It just seems such a waste that a project about one of the most original voices in modern literature has to be bastardised in this way. But hey, wouldn't Junky make a great film?
-
I'm fed up with people milking the beat myth for all it's worth 50 years on. I'm fed up with Burroughs' writing being lumped together with that of his immediate circle, when in actual fact it is so distinctive that it deserves to be regarded with an open context, FREE of its historical period. I'm fed up with filmmakers who lack the imagination to bring a piece of writing to life, and have to focus on the lurid biographical details of its author instead. And although I think it was cruel of David Cronenberg to insert the death by shooting of Burroughs' wife Joan into his film Naked Lunch (twice!), at least he decided to treat Burroughs' life in the context of a FICTIONAL framework, which is the only correct attitude - after all, it's what Burroughs did in his books. Cronenberg's Naked Lunch is the only biopic of Burroughs we need. Ironically, its bug-infested, otherworldly portrayal of the man is far more accurate than any modern attempt to recereate the 1940s and 1950s, which are seen through the haze of myth and idolatry. EXTERMINATE ALL RATIONAL THOUGHT.
-
Mickey Finn's is absolutely right... when you write about someone like William there's only one way way you can do it which is by writing about them within the context of their own works. This is why Naked Lunch is a good and honest piece of work. I can understand why people close to the real characters might want to point out inaccuracies but really, when you're dealing with the far out it's best to stay far out... I mean I don't want to find out after all this time that William Burroughs lived a boring normal life with a nice fixed rate mortgage - I like him just the way he is...
-
...to write in. Quite a fascinating article and a great head's up on the movie. The first time I heard Kiefer Sutherland was playing Burroughs in a movie, I couldn't imagine what kind of movie that would be. It's sad that this is happening, but not surprising. Sounds like Walkow has something in common with Nick Broomfield in his interviewing "style." What's funny is that I have a copy of the "Points of Entry" catalog that was made as well as copies of a lot of things Mr. Burroughs put to paper. I think that it would be more interesting to see a movie based on "Cities of the Red Night" than a movie glamourizing, exploiting, and, to use your word, "hijacking" the truth. It reminds me of when I watched "The End of the Affair" last week with their depiction of Bendix/Graham Greene. How soon until a movie is made out of "Zuckerman Unbound" that insinuates itself to be a Philip Roth autobiography? Just a thought.
-
All of this could have easily been avoided by the filmmaker simply saying that the story was 'inspired by real events'. What he has done by claiming 'it's all true' is irresponsible and unprofessional. Perhaps the families of the people portrayed in Beat should sue for libel. Personally, I'm not one to get my historical information from a movie, but on the other hand, a movie shouldn't claim to be complete fact unless it's a documentary. It sounds to me like this filmmaker is just hoping to cash in on the myth of the Beats. It's too bad that he couldn't have made a more responsible movie.
-
A movie that claims to be factual but isn't? My God! The horror! Never in the annals of history has such injustice darkened mankind! Anyone thinking that they'll get truth or even straight facts from a moovee, or even from one person's mouth, is naive. If you REALLY want to learn about these guys, read their work. Burroughs, Kerouac, and Ginsberg poured themselves out onto the paper. They'll open up worlds for you. Every jerk who latches onto the Beats claims to have some special understanding of them, claims to be giving the last word on them, claims to have tapped their spirit, or to have some special inside track. I tell you it's all in their work.
-
Goodbye Mr. Burroghs, you left us so soon. It's a sad day when someone so young and vital is snatched from life.
-
Actually I'm straighter than an Oak tree in October.... but neverthless, reading Soft Machine at the tender age of sixteen made me feel like a membrane had been peeled off my brain.... he opened up my mind to a whole new level of thinking and for that I will always hold old B-man in very high regard. As far as the flic goes, sounds like another case of low class hucksters taking the life of a genius and focusing almost solely on their sexual exploits and "relationships" in a bid to apeal to a wider audience. Like SURVIVING PICASSO, TOTAL ECLIPSE, WILDE, THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE or even that NOSTRADAMUS movie with CHeky Caryo.... these films focus on the debauchery of the geniuses instead of their perceptions and creative process or state of mind as they should. Some films that did justice to the men they were about are VINCENT AND THEO; BASQUIAT; NAKED LUNCH; LOVE IS THE DEVIL (which despite it's flaws made me twist in my seat under the claustorphobic hand of it's dark vision). Well I'll see this movie and judge for myself.... but it sounds like it'll be another direct to video soft core porn flic badly disguised as the account of a geniuses life.
-
Feb 02, 2000 5:44:54 PM CST
Who wants to see a falsified story like this? Why not make it h
by gsolo
-
I would quite like to see this movie, but I don't expect it to alter my opinion of the guy.
I think Junky is the only WSB novel that could stand a chance of being filmed AND have a chance remaining faithful to the text.
What others could be filmed - Cities of the Red Night, The Place of dead Roads, Queer, etc?
Far too extreme as a movie (I seem to recall Cronenbourg saying that if he was to film Naked Lunch exactly as per the book then it would have cost bucketloads and landed all concerned a lengthy prison sentence).
BTW, didn't Coppola direct a short film based on the Junkie's Christmas? -
An otherwise fine article setting the record straight in many important respects is marred by the phrase, in the context of discussing the "William Tell trick": "... inadvertently creating an enduring myth, one that seems irresistible to melodramatists." Wrong.
Discharging a loaded firearm in the immediate direction of a person's head is, of course, inordinately reckless, and tragically may contribute to "an enduring myth" but there is nothing "inadvertent" about the act, its foreseeable result, or its equally predictable appeal to "melodramatists." Beyond this, enjoyed the article which highlights the importance of using caution when labelling a film "a true story" and claiming that "events depicted ... are entirely factual". Much better to say "based on fact" or some such weasel words favored by lawyers to avoid libel, etc. Credit due to films which approach real events in an artist's life, yet don't claim to be "entirely factual" (this is the movies, after all): VINCENT AND THEO, KAFKA, I SHOT ANDY WARHOL. Enough for now; it's almost lunchtime at the office, whizkid's gotta go. -
I've been researching the Carr/Kammerer incident for my own project and came across this old story.
I just wanted to note that most of what is listed as inaccurate in the above was corrected in the final version of the film. The William Tell Act is still overdramatic and Carr still has an affair with Joan.
Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg all wrote versions of these events, all changing details to suit their own tales. The film-maker, right or wrong, has done the same.
It should be considered another telling of the tale, not documentary.
Readers Talkback
User Login
Top Talkbacks
- THE DARK KNIGHT RISES TV Spot Has New Footage And Dialogue! UPDATED To Add Second Spot! -- 286 total posts 286 posts
- G.I. JOE: RETALIATION Delayed Nine Months...Thanks To A Force More Sinister Than Cobra!! -- 273 total posts 272 posts
- UPDATE!! What The Hell Happened With G.I. JOE: RETALIATION?! -- 157 total posts 157 posts
- Remember when I said I’d kill The Behind the Scenes Pic of the Day last? I lied. -- 147 total posts 147 posts
- Gary Oldman Joins The ROBOCOP Remake! -- 141 total posts 141 posts
- THE EXORCIST Is Being Remade... -- 114 total posts 113 posts
- Quint has seen the brand new Jaws restoration and demands that Universal do a wide theatrical rerelease this summer! -- 95 total posts 95 posts
- Cats Beware!! An ALF Movie May Soon Come Our Way... -- 161 total posts 80 posts
- Who Is The Voice Of Batman In WB's Animated Two Part THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS? -- 172 total posts 77 posts
- The day we've all been waiting for has arrived...IN THE ARMY NOW II is in the works! -- 51 total posts 51 posts