William S. Burroughs - The Final Academy ... (2002) - DVD

Love or loath him, the legacy of William Seward Burroughs is impossible to ignore. It is all around us, from popular music to advertising, magazines to cinema, his influence is everywhere. Where fellow Beat writer, Jack Kerouac opened up literature to a whole new generation, Burroughs changed how literature is perceived entirely. Not satisfied with deconstructing the novel, Burroughs then went on to re-examine the whole gamut of art forms and leave his stamp indelibly printed on painting, filmmaking and contemporary music. A rebel and a true revolutionary Burroughs was the first public figure to truly revel in the world of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll - the "Godfather of Punk" a "Marquis de Sade for the late twentieth century" - his lifestyle was as extreme as his prose. Yet this was no ordinary debauched old man, Burroughs was charismatic and eloquent and, above all, he was that rare animal, an adult intellectual that genuinely understood and never once lost touch with his predominantly youthful following.