Sundance ’16: Uncle Howard

Howard Brookner only completed three films, but he was no one-hit-wonder. Nor did he suffer a sophomore slump. Aaron Brookner pays tribute to the director of the classic cinematic profile Burroughs: The Movie with his own documentary, Uncle Howard (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.

Howard Brookner was always a natural playing the role of favorite uncle. Even though he was not always around, he developed a special relationship with his future filmmaking nephew. Clearly, Aaron Brookner will use his film to celebrate “Uncle Howard,” but it also becomes part of a bigger effort to preserve Howard Brookner’s work. Although previously considered lost, Brookner discovers his uncle’s outtakes from Burroughs, as well as the rest of his archives were stashed away in “The Bunker,” Burroughs’ in/famous subterranean Bowery apartment.

When Brookner finally gains access, along with his uncle’s old technical collaborator Jim Jarmusch, they discover (and duly incorporate into the film) sequences that reflect the extent to which the Burroughs circle embraced the elder Brookner as one of their own, all of which is confirmed by the emotional remembrances of James Grauerholz, Burroughs’ editor, caretaker, and literary executor.

Obviously, there is an awful lot of Burroughs in Brookner’s film, because that is what ninety-nine percent of the audience for Uncle Howard will be primarily interested in. Still, Aaron Brookner spends a good deal of time on his uncle’s under-screened second film Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars, nor does he ignore Brookner’s Hollywood debut, Bloodhounds of Broadway. Wilson, the theater director, also offers some affectionate memories of Brookner, but apparently Randy Quaid was not available to wax nostalgic over Bloodhounds.

Uncle Howard is an unflaggingly nice film. Frankly, it is probably more sentimental than its subject and Burroughs might otherwise prefer. However, it really offers us a full sense of the postmodern-Beatnik world they inhabited. If it does not open before October, it is a cinch to get programmed at this year’s New York Film Festival, which screened Burroughs: the Movie when it was new and again as a restored retro selection in 2014. Having festivals favorites Jarmusch and Sara Driver on-board as executive producer and co-producer, respectively, looks like a further guarantee—and why not? The film is highly watchable, even if you are not a Burroughs fanatic.

Uncle Howard is an inescapably personal film, but Aaron Brookner maintains a healthy balance of family business and specialized cultural history. Consequently, it just plays considerably better than you would expect. Recommended for fans of Burroughs and the vintage 1980s downtown scene, Uncle Howard screens again today (1/29) and tomorrow (1/30) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

William S. Burroughs: A Man Within

He was the world’s most dapper junkie. William S. Burroughs raised self-destructive living to a form of high performance art, yet somehow lived to the ripe old age of eighty-three. Many things to many people, documentary profiler Yony Leyser attempts to delve beneath the surface of the writer’s well-established public image in William S. Burroughs A Man Within (trailer here), which airs next Tuesday on most PBS stations as part of the current season of Independent Lens.

At one point in Within, Burroughs’ biographer argues the Harvard-educated Beat icon might have been the most important novelist of the late Twentieth Century. This seems like quite the overstatement (Nabokov springs more readily to mind here), but there is no denying his influence on hipster subcultures. Rock & roll for instance, is strewn with Burroughs references, like “heavy metal,” “Steely Dan,” and “Soft Machine.”

In his attempts to find Burroughs’ elusive true self, Leyser revisits the notorious episodes from the novelist’s life, including the “William Tell” incident that “accidently” cut short his wife’s time on Earth. He was not much of a parent either, indirectly contributing to his son’s fatal drug habit through neglect and by example. However, the rather problematic aspects of Burroughs’ final romantic relationship with a then seventeen year-old boy are entirely glossed over.

Frankly, Leyser tries too hard to find that redemptive Rosebud moment, ultimately only delivering a bit of off-hand sentimentalism notable only for being so out of character for the lifelong cynic. In contrast, the film is much more successful when reveling in the extreme manifestations of the Burroughs persona. Perhaps most enlightening is the segment on Burroughs, the Second Amendment defender, who even incorporated guns into his abstract painting.

Throughout Within, there are a number of telling anecdotes coming from a diverse cast of talking heads, including Peter Weller (the star of David Cronenberg’s adaptation of Naked Lunch), who also does double duty as the film’s narrator. Even if viewers never really meet sensitive soul presumably buried beneath Burroughs’ acerbic exterior, at least Leyser captures his wit and provocative spirit. An entertaining and somewhat revealing work of cultural history, Within airs this coming Tuesday (2/22) on most PBS outlets (check local listings).