{"id":11902,"date":"2015-07-28T20:34:34","date_gmt":"2015-07-29T00:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=11902"},"modified":"2016-03-11T12:39:24","modified_gmt":"2016-03-11T17:39:24","slug":"dvd-william-s-burroughs-in-the-dreamachine-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=11902","title":{"rendered":"DVD: William S. Burroughs in the Dreamachine (2015)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\"WilliamSBurroughsInTheDreamachine\"<\/a>Film<\/strong>: Weak<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Very Good<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: Standard<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong> Cult Epics<\/a><\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a00 (NTSC)<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0 April 14, 2015<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Documentary<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0Rather scattershot documentary on William S. Burroughs’ involvement in the creation of the Dreamachine device that reportedly invokes a dream-like state while fully conscious.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0 Still Photo Gallery (6:18) \/ Dr. David Woodward Dreamachine Installation at the Freud Museum of Dreams, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2007 (49:36).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

John Aes-Nihil\u2019s best-known work is the surreal re-enactment \/ faux home movies\u00a0Manson Family Movies<\/strong><\/a> (1984), which has its compelling moments and is fairly straightforward in structure, but this current documentary is kind of a mess that might challenge the patience of even experimental film connoisseurs.<\/p>\n

Ostensibly a documentary about a device which author William S. Burroughs uses to simulate a dream state while fully awake, what\u2019s really been assembled is a mish-mash of 1.33:1 footage gained from serendipity than good planning.<\/p>\n

Aes-Nihil was present at a book signing with Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, and later filmed additional material of Burroughs at home with his dreamachine <\/a>\u2013 a tall spinning cylinder with a bright amber bulb whose 10 kHz flicker supposedly induces dream-like hallucinations \u2013 plus a few snatches of poetry readings just prior to the author\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

David Woodward, who builds recreations of the dreamachine device originally conceived and designed by Burroughs and Brion Gysin<\/a>, respectively, appears with Aes-Nihil in the often blurry Burroughs-at-home footage, and in separate vignettes where he reads portions of historic background material on the device\u2019s creation, often in and around a ruined farm.<\/p>\n

The whole film is divided into parts that are really sections of what feels like raw footage stitched into prolonged vignettes. There is some salient info on the device, but the whole film rambles and sputters, and would\u2019ve worked in a shorter, tighter edit.<\/p>\n

In the at-home footage, Burroughs is badly miked (although what\u2019s discussed is largely banal), and the book signing sequence consists of meandering desaturated \/ B&W footage, with Aes-Nihil\u2019s camera hovering from a distance as Burroughs signs books for various patrons (including a briefly-seen Leonardo Di Caprio).<\/p>\n

The dreamachine is an amazing device, and to Aes-Nihil\u2019s credit there\u2019s plenty of flickering trippy shots of the gizmo, but at best his doc is purely for Burroughs fans wanting to see some of the final footage taken of the author and those interested in buying an actual dreamachine.<\/p>\n

Cult Epics’ DVD includes a still gallery featuring images from the film set to music, and a taped lecture in St. Petersburg where Woodward articulates the uniqueness of the Burroughs-Gysin gizmo after its \u00a0installation at the city’s Freud Museum of Dreams. Much of Woodward’s oration is interpolated with Russian translations for the audience, and the audio levels are often quite hot in an otherwise informative piece.<\/p>\n

Aes-Nihil also directed something called The Nova Convention Revisited<\/strong> (1998), which also includes footage with Burroughs, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, and Deborah Harry.<\/p>\n

The dreamachine was later the subject of a far superior (albeit Gysin-centric) feature-length NFB doc\u00a0FLicKeR<\/strong><\/a> (2008).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2015 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Aes-Nihil\u2019s best-known work is the surreal re-enactment film Manson Family Movies (1984), which has its compelling moments and is fairly straightforward in structure, but this current documentary, co-directed with David Woodward…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[3819,3829,3818,3830,3820,3831],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-35Y","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11902"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11902"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13256,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11902\/revisions\/13256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}