Running time: 100 mins
Director: Barbet
Schroeder
Starring: Mickey
Rourke, Faye Dunaway, Alice Krige, Frank Stallone
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Country: USA
Henry Chinaski is a barfly. He
spends his time drinking, fighting and dancing with words in the twilight hours of 1980’s Los Angeles . Legendary writer Charles Bukowski lends his
incredibly distinctive voice to the screen in the roman รก clef styled narrative
of his alter ego and the life one lives in the pursuit of something more than
the consumer ideal.
Barfly is a film we’ve been wanting to feature on
Knifed in Venice
for some time now. The trouble was
figuring out how to confine discussion of someone like Bukowski into a few
thousand words. There comes a time
though when you have to let go and decide to commit, Hank of all people would
appreciate that. There are few writers
in history, and even the future of history that have or will ever have the kind
of effect that Charles Bukowski had. Barfly coming from his typer is the
closest, and most honest, thing you’ll ever see with regards to addiction and
adaptation. Granted it is not based on
any of his novels, short stories or even poems but it is based on the man, and
like all of his work it shines with humour and a matter of factness that can’t
help but be endearing.

protagonist you’ve picked the wrong
movie. This is a drop-in, you see
Henry’s life, you’re privy to his special brand of madness and after some time
alongside him you’re invited to leave.
There’s no great changes in character, no staggering realisation but
it’s as it is. That's life. The dialogue is so
incredibly rich, there are more clever and staggeringly beautiful lines than
any one notepad could contain and there are no characters that are thinly
drawn. I don’t know whether it’s because
the author of this world was on set and able to assist a lot of the performers
or whether it was just all there below the slugline but whatever the reason
it’s a masterclass in screenwriting, from a man who hated movies.
Visually Barbet Schroeder has crafted a mise-en-shot that is insanely
clever. The film opens like a book, each
scene is the turn of a page and when we close on the final scene of the film
it’s as though we’ve turned to the back cover to read the plaudits that barely
do it justice. There’s a theatricality
to the staging and many of the performances that, for the first few moments, is
somewhat off putting but it’s clear it’s an aesthetic that Schroeder has
intentionally opted for. It feels, in
places, like the behind the scenes documentary of a Douglas Sirk film, only everyone is
still in character. It’s wholesome America ,
or at least the illusion of wholesome America blown apart, exposed for the myth that it is. It’s clever, beautifully dysfunctional and
subversive in a way that only a non-American can be in an American genre, think
Leone.
The best way to enjoy Barfly is with a beer and a cinematic friend who knows how to keep
their mouth shut but if you really want to get the most out of this elegant and
wry film watch Barfly and then
immediately read Hollywood , which is Bukowski’s novel about
the making of the movie. He leaves
everything on the page, demonstrating the frustrating highs and lows of funding
and egos in a land that chases the almighty dollar. I could say more, but you’d have to buy me a
drink.
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