William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
Saturday, 23 January 2010 20:48
Director Yony Leyser talks about his documentary William S. Burroughs: A Man WithinBy Todd Konrad
Directed by filmmaker Yony Leyser, William S. Burroughs: A Man Within is a cinematic study of the most intriguing and culturally longest-lasting member of the Beat Generation. An investigation into the man’s life and work, the film touches on how one gay, drug-addicted writer came to influence much of the latter half of the twentieth century in terms of art and culture while attempting to come to grips with his own insurmountable loneliness and struggle for connection. Narrated by Peter Weller and featuring cameos by Patti Smith, John Waters, Genesis P-Orridge, Allan Ginsberg, as well as Burroughs’ own friends, neighbors and lovers, the documentary will be of interest to anyone whose life has been touched by the man’s literature. Speaking with him on his way to Slamdance for the official premiere, I had an opportunity to speak with Leyser about why he decided to create this film.
Yony Leyser: Well I got involved after I was in film school in Los Angeles. I got kicked out for an art piece I made and was interested in documentary film. So I had a sister that lived in Lawrence, Kansas and I knew that one of my favorite writers, William Burroughs, lived there. I’d watched documentaries on the other Beats but had always found gaps when it came to Burroughs and I decided on a whim to make a documentary on him. And slowly, a documentary turned into the documentary thanks to his friends. But that’s basically how it began, I was nineteen when we started.
VO: The film is greatly interested in the affect Burroughs had on our society as a whole, i.e. his openness with drugs, sexuality, etc. through his work. For you personally, how did Burroughs have a direct impact upon your own life?
YL: Well, I think just the influencers that he influenced; I know a lot of people, especially of my generation, were introduced to him through the people he influenced. For me, part of that was punk rock which kind of led the bridge to him. But I hadn’t read literature like that in my life; when I picked up Naked Lunch, I was a sophomore in high school, I was blown away that literature like that had been both written and published. And then when I found out it was written in the late Fifties, I was blown away. I think the fact that he created this real break away from structure really fascinated me; that you could break away to such an extreme, with both structure and content, and still have it accessible to other people as well as be able to do it in such a concise and funny way. His humor definitely also influenced me at that time, that dark comedy.
VO: I'm curious to know as well, over the course of your research and filming, if there was any particular story or aspect of his life that you hadn't known before and gave you a new insight into the man that you hadn't had before?
YL: There was no one single story like that but there were a bunch of small pieces that formed the schema of how I viewed him. There were more easily supplied anecdotes for Kerouac and Ginsberg because it almost seems like they’re caricatures of themselves but Burroughs was a very complex, multi-faceted person. So everything I’d learn from what one person said, the next person I met would say the opposite or something different. 
VO: The film spends a brief amount of time discussing Burroughs' son, whom I think most people may not even be aware that he had one at all. I'm wondering if you could touch on their relationship or rather lack thereof and how it affected both of them, since the film goes into it just a bit.
YL: Yeah, I mean it’s a sad story. There’s an excellent book on it called Cursed from Birth: The Short, Unhappy Life of William S. Burroughs, Jr. It was written by David Ohle and includes parts of his son’s works as well as letter correspondence from the son to Burroughs. You see at first he’s really trying to relate to his dad and be close to him, but he was an alcoholic and really drank himself to death. He got a liver transplant, which was one of the first even though they didn’t know what they were doing, but ended up drinking himself to death. And before that happened, you see in his letters he just tears his dad apart.
He (William Jr.) was hard to be around, but Burroughs wasn’t a good father; I don’t think anyone would argue that. He was a terrible father; he shot the kid’s mother, he neglected his son, he never encouraged him to write and he (William Jr.) was a pretty good writer, I like his books. So it is a very sad story; but if you look at Burroughs’ ability to relate to people as a human being, he is a very distant person. He had a very strange family in general. In the film, there’s a scene of Allan Ginsberg asking Burroughs if he wanted to be loved by anyone and Burroughs says “No, I don’t think so. But I guess it depends by who or what. My cats, I guess I want to be loved by my cats.” So he had a very complex relationship with that word. And he wasn’t able to care for a kid or even his mother in the end. He couldn’t care for her, his wife, or even himself for most of the time. But on his last day on earth, he was able to realize that love was part of the equation.
VO: Over the course of the film, you were able to interview quite a number of people from Patti Smith, John Waters, Peter Weller, to various other friends, neighbors, etc. How was your experience in getting all those people together in order to be able to learn more about Burroughs through their own exploits with him? What would you say was their most common impression or feeling for Burroughs? 
YL: I think a lot of what helped was being a young kid and being able to say “no, we’re not a big production company”. I started off with almost nothing and then they’d see the list of people I’d interviewed already, and with a lot of them I’d show them clips and they were impressed. People really like William; I found that in talking with other people making films about bands and this and that, it was like “yeah, people like them but they weren’t you know…”. Whereas with Patti, she was so inspired by William and said she wouldn’t be who she is as a singer without him; John was hugely inspired by him, William is almost a religious figure for them. So they feel like they owe it to him. Patti donated her music and made financial contributions to the film too. People want this film made and they’re happy that someone like me has had a chance to make it.
*To learn more about this film and filmmaker, check out www.burroughsthemovie.com
