Gus Van Sant, one of the most interesting queer film directors, having read a Burroughs essay called “The Discipline of DE” back in Providence, looked William S. Burroughs (which himself preferred the word queer to gay) up in the New York City phone book, called him, and paid him a visit — not just because Kerouac’s characters did it, but because he wanted the rights to turn the story into a film.
It was 1978. The resulting nine-minute short puts images to Burroughs’ words. “DE is a way of doing,” says its narrator Ken Shapiro. “DE simply means doing whatever you do in the easiest most relaxed way you can manage, which is also the quickest and most efficient way, as you will find as you advance in DE.”
Lucky, we can see the film today.
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