Portland, 1988. Filmmaker Gus Van Sant shoots Drugstore Cowboy, the project that will bring he and his collaborators a formidable burst of mainstream attention. Starring Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, and Heather Graham, the film follows a roving quartet of drug addicts � and, consequently, drug thieves, especially from the businesses of the title � who wash up in Portland�s then-gritty Pearl District. A death among their own spooks the leader of the pack into trying to clean up, and an encounter with a sepulchral junkie priest does its part to convince him further. Or maybe we should call him a Junkie priest, portrayed as he is by a controversial cameo from writer William S. Burroughs. �I�m going back to the old days,� Burroughs says of his role early in the above documentary on the making of Drugstore Cowboy. �The old days when they used to give people morphine in jail. The old days before the methadone programs.�

Starring:

Matt Dillon, William S. Burroughs, Gus Van Sant

Genre:

Documentary