‘Nova ’78’ review: William S. Burroughs takes center stage in an immersive, arty New York time capsule – Locarno Film Festival
There’s not much explanation as to what the Nova Convention actually is, and, at the start of the film, Burroughs is asked to to describe it. He can’t, most likely because the film is very much a reflection of New York in that instant; at the age of 64, he’s just there, in the middle of this strange cultural moment, at a time when the country is experiencing an identity crisis and his more recent readers are finally starting to understand what he’s always been on about. In the’60s, his past heroin addiction was seen as rebellious and somehow even cool, but in the post-Watergate ’70s it had become a very chilling metaphor for societal control.
