Luca Guadagnino has been working on his latest film his entire adult life. The acclaimed director and producer has made some offbeat romantic films such as please call me by your name and challenger stick with this type queer, Adapted from the novella by legendary Beat writer William S. Burroughs, it delves into loneliness and longing, as well as a wild ayahuasca journey, while following the author in the 1950s ‘s Mexico City follows a cautious young American.
Guadagnino first discovered a copy Queer As he explained in a Q&A with stars Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkis after the film’s New York Film Festival premiere, as a teenager he lived in Italy While visiting a bookstore in Palermo, I was immediately attracted.
“In the store, I was immediately exposed to the unequal language of this wonderful writer whom I didn’t know,” he said of Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical book. “At the same time, the book revealed something about myself, a feeling that I’ve always felt, and that I’ve continued to feel since: desire, connection—to a very profound degree.”
That was in 1988, and Guadagnino has been trying to make a movie version ever since Queer At one point, he said, he even wrote a “terrible script.” But the rights to the book were not secured for years, Guadagnino said, so any thought of a production or a second try at the script seemed to make the project feel destined to fail. Fortunately, producer Lorenzo Mielli discovered that all that changed just as Guadagnino’s filmmaking career was starting to gain some momentum. The director’s popularity began in 2017 please call me by your name yes What follows is an eclectic mix of films, often using the same actors, led by the underrated Tilda Swinton and Dakota Johnson sigh Remake, romantic horror film bones and all With Timothée Chalamet and challengerStarring Zendaya, it grossed $96 million at the global box office.
That was on set challenger Guadagnino handed Burroughs a Queer To Kuritzkes, the screenwriter of the tennis movie, and tell him to read the short book that night. Soon the two were planning a second collaboration, with the first major challenge being adapting the Beat Generation author for the screen – a feat that had only been accomplished a handful of times.
QueerFull of longing and pain, a short semi-autobiographical sequel drug addictIn the film, William Lee plays a Burroughs double who struggles with heroin and morphine addiction. The story ends with the character living in Mexico City to avoid legal repercussions for his drug habit, and he and his wife separate and she returns to the United States with their children. , can achieve telepathy. Guadagnino’s film takes this as its jumping-off point, but not before Lee meets Eugene Allerton, a young, recently retired Navy man also hanging out in Mexico City.
Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey in Queer.
Yannis Drakulidis. Provided by A24
The two spend the first half of the film circling each other, surrounded by a breezy supporting cast of a bunch of drunken foreigners living south of the border, including Jason Schwartzman, Henry Zaga, and, in the early days, a raw love interest In the scene, singer Omar Apollo. Queer Craig and Allerton really take off when Lee and Allerton finally break the smoldering tension and have sex, in a much-discussed raw and realistic scene. Outer Banks Heartthrob Stucky makes up for Guadagnino’s infamous sex scene Please call me by your name. Andrew Garfield recently told hollywood reporter He found one of the film’s oral sex scenes that Guadagnino showed him “truly beautiful” and “so tender and full of desire.”
Soon, Lee asked Allerton to accompany him to Ecuador in search of ayahuasca, or ayahuasca as it is more commonly known.
“We were very aligned, and our language was very consistent in terms of how we paid homage to the book and how we moved away from it,” screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes said after a screening of “Burroughs” at the New York Film Festival. Consistently. “One of the main ways that was the most obvious departure from it was that, in the book, they didn’t get ayahuasca. One of the first real decisions we made together was, we wanted to know what would happen if they found it. What.
As Kuritzkes says, Burroughs’s novella opened a door and then closed it again. Wouldn’t it then be in the tradition of the source material’s surreal, unapologetic author that the script should finally walk through that closed door and see what’s on the other side? exist WhatIn the final act, the film’s romance ends in a way that avoids betraying the premise, taking the viewer on an ayahuasca journey and paying homage to the complex author of this novella.
“We looked for clues in the book, and one of them was that we wanted to have that Burroughs tone and really have this picaresque form of humor,” Guadagnino said. “But at the same time, we knew this was a true and deep love story about two people who were more out of sync than in sync.”
The script they collaborated on attracted Craig, and he was immediately accepted After reading their blueprints and making it his first gig instead of portraying James Bond or Draw the knife Seven years to become Detective Benoit Blanc. As Oscar season begins, his performance as the sad, obsessed, battered, morbid and hopeless romantic Lee is already being praised.
“The reason I wanted to get into theaters was because of movies like this. … Scripts don’t come around very often,” Craig said after a screening in New York. “Directors don’t come through this often. I don’t know what the end result will be, but I know the journey will be different. That’s what attracts me, to be able to work with such great people and some of the most creative people in the world. The most powerful, exciting people to work with. … I knew we could create something. We said to each other, ‘Whatever we do, we have to create something memorable and beautiful and make it with love. related.
Queer The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it received a nine-minute standing ovation. Starkey also won praise for his breakthrough role as the cold and unpredictable Allerton. His collaboration with Craig brings smoldering sexual tension to the screen.
“In a way, it was a process of osmosis,” Stuckey said of diving into Burroughs’ world to find his character while waiting for filming to begin. “It’s very rare that you get the opportunity to prepare for something for four or five months. I guess sometimes I feel like I’ve done nothing. But I’m just thinking about it.
The actor complemented his character. “He only reveals himself when he’s up against Lee, and that feels like his truest self and what he’s afraid of. So I think the real work starts from day one. [of filming with Craig]”.
For Guadagnino, Queer represents what he has been trying to convey in his films for years.
“This is not a story about unrequited love. This is not a story about someone trying to convince someone else,” he said. “[It’s about] The possibility of the reverse, I think is something I explore a lot in my work. But at the same time, I never [could] Consider this a real and profound subject. We found it in the book, which had so many beautiful clues that made us feel comfortable going there.
Queer Now playing in select theaters.
