"The Junky's Christmas" film

          The opening sequence is borderline surreal. Burroughs sitting down and opening a book, preparing to read it aloud, invokes the image of someone's grandfather doing the same around the holidays with the whole family gathering around to hear it. The sets add to the image, where we see many closeups of traditional holiday decorations including a Christmas tree complete with star-topper and gifts, wreaths, and stockings hung over a roaring fireplace.

          However, the movie itself is not like that at all. I described the story in another post as 'Hallmark-esque' and while the ending is uplifting, it is more dark than anything. The decision to have the film in black and white was very smart. It compliments the atmosphere and makes the appearance of color at the end have even more of an impact. Combined with the choir singing 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing', the feeling that Danny gets, the 'immaculate fix', can be further understood and appreciated as an experience of the divine. 

           

        Claymation was also an inspired choice. Just using live-action actors would not have had the same impact.  This style of animation allows for more exaggerated movements and over the top facial expressions. I think it makes Danny more accessible for an audience to sympathize with because animation is seen as a media for children so it's not seen as threatening, even though Danny is a junky and the story revolves around him trying to find drugs. There's also a lot more room to work with lighting, which would have been a lot harder to produce on a larger set or actors that would constantly be moving. Even when Danny is outside walking in the sunlight, there's still a gloom about the world and shadows are all over the place. We mentioned in class how a lot of Burroughs's stories had a noir feel to them, and the shadowy alleyways in the film really exemplify that atmosphere.

        For me, the film also helped me realize how sad the story is at times. The juxtaposition of all the Christmas music and Danny frantically searching for a fix is depressing. While Christmas is viewed as a time for being with family and friends, Danny instead is alone for most of the film, and at the end only really bonds with the man in the hotel room next to him after giving him drugs. His only thing to look forward to the entire day was obtaining his high.

      That brings me to the ending of the film. I thought that interpretation was interesting. A lot of the class had thought Danny had died at the end, the immaculate fix being the peace that death brings, which was his reward for a selfless act. The film however clearly has Danny alive at the end; he's seen breathing heavily in his sleep as the picture fades to black, with no indication that he's about to die. The film takes the immaculate fix as a feeling of euphoria that comes solely from generosity, with no strings attached.

Interesting tidbit: Francis Ford Coppola (director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now) who produced this, also produced the film version of On the Road.