
William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
"Death smells."
I mean, death
has a special smell...
over and above the smell
of cyanide, cordite, blood,
carrion or burnt flesh.
It's a gray smell.
It stops the heart
and cuts off the breath.
Smell of the empty body.
Smell of field hospitals
and gangrene.
Now, folks, if you'll just
care to step this way.
You are about to witness...
"the complete, all-American
deanxietized man."
[ Man Narrating ]
William Seward Burroughs,
heir to the Burroughs
Adding Machine Company
founded by his grandfather,
was born in 1914
in St. Louis, Missouri.
After graduating
from Harvard University
and traveling Europe,
he moved to New York City,
where he met his future wife,
Joan Vollmer,
and fell in company with
Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.
Experimenting with new forms
of literature as well as drugs,
the three friends
formed the vanguard
of a cultural phenomenon...
that would come to be known
as the Beat Generation.
"Thanksgiving Day,
November 28, 1986."
Thanks for the wild turkey
and passenger pigeons...
destined to be shit out
through wholesome American guts.
Thanks for a continent
to despoil and poison.
Thanks for Indians to provide
a modicum of challenge...
and danger.
Thanks for vast herds of bison
to kill and skin,
leaving the carcasses to rot.
Thanks for bounties
on wolves and coyotes.
Thanks for
the American dream...
to vulgarize and falsify...
"until the bare lies
shine through."
[ John Waters ] In the '50s,
anything opened up
a good avenue to thinking
because it was...
People talk about the '50s,
they see Happy Days
and they think it was fun.
It was horrible, the '50s.
It was the most terrible time.
It was the first memory I had,
and it was of you had to be
exactly like everybody else.
The Beat Generation
was crushing that.
It was an attempt
to bust out of that, man.
All of this was a big
rap on the knuckles...
of mainstream, white, staid,
pool-in-the-backyard America.
[ Burroughs ] "Kid",
what are you doing over there
with the niggers and the apes?
Why don't you straighten out
and act like a white man?
After all, they're
only human cattle.
You know that yourself.
"I hate to see a bright young man
f*ck up and get off
on the wrong track."
So what was the Beat Movement?
It was real.
The Beat Movement...
Well, of course it was.
It underwent many changes.
In the '60s, it became
quite political.
Yeah.
But as I've always said,
it's more sociological
than a literary phenomenon.
It was a sociological movement
of worldwide importance.
Unprecedented
worldwide importance.
A cultural revolution,
you might say.
Yeah.
So I would characterize it
as a spiritual liberation
movement actually...
like women's lib, black lib,
spirit lib or spiritual lib...
that began in the '40s.
First took shape
as a literary movement...
with a production of a number
of notable utterances.
Allen Ginsberg's
first publication...
was Howl.
It was published in 1956.
In 1957, Jack Kerouac's
On The Road.
And in 1959, Naked Lunch
by William Burroughs.
[ Waters ]
Beatniks were big.
Overnight, it was a huge...
Like a hula hoop.
Much to their embarrassment,
I think.
Because it started out pretty
much in North Beach and stuff,
like poets and...
So once it became so big
in the media, they were
embarrassed by that term.
All of those poets,
they couldn't fit what
the stereotype of Beat was.
That was a media hype
to sell papers.
And they pimped that, boy.
They pimped that bad boy,
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"William S. Burroughs: A Man Within" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2021. Web. 6 Mar. 2021. <https://www.scripts.com/script/william_s._burroughs:_a_man_within_23498>.