“Uncle Howard” a Documentary film about Howord Brookner, Produced by Jim Jarmusch
Burroughs with Howard Brooker from “Uncle Howard”
BRINGING BACK HOWARD BROOKNER – AN ARTIST LOST TO AIDS
Born: April 30, 1954
Died: April 27, 1989 (age 34) in New York City, New York, USA
‘Uncle Howard’ Remembers NYC Filmmaker Howard Brookner
NYtimes (1989) Directors race with aids ends before his movie opens.
”Howard was kind of a weasel in figuring out how to get things done,” says Sarah Driver, who, along with the director Jim Jarmusch, was his closest friend at N.Y.U. ”Jim and I thought he would weasel out of his illness somehow.” ‘Wanted All the Gory Details’
Like many of his friends, Madonna is haunted by a specific memory: ”Long before I knew anything, Howard asked me if I had ever seen anybody die. He wanted all the gory details about a friend who had AIDS and I nursed him to the end and was in the room when he died.”
Earlier, when the disease had touched his body with lighter fingers, Mr. Brookner made a video diary of his sickness. Seeing himself as a film maker was so central to his identity that he was determined to stay alive for the opening of his movie. ”It was like that O. Henry story when a woman knows she will die when the last leaf falls off an ivy vine, and so a friend paints a leaf on the wall,” Mr. Gooch says.
Aaron Brookner (Howard’s nephew) and Jim Jarmusch at the Burroughs’ bunker.