William Burroughs: Commissioner Of Sewers

A topical and absorbing documentary about one of the most extraordinary and uncompromising figures of American culture. Maeck’s access to Burroughs is good and he is interviewed on many of the subjects which have tormented and obsessed him. Intercut with this, is footage from his collaborations with experimental film-maker Anthony Balch in the 1960s, Burroughs last (and almost certainly last ever) European public reading and excerpts from Gus Van Sant’s hilarious and shocking film of Burroughs reading his own version of a Thanksgiving Prayer. Pessimistic as Burroughs’ world view is, his macabre and ferocious humour is seldom absent.