mjp said:
This is a tough audience though. Heh.
You are so right there.
It seems a long time since I first saw Barfly. I think I had only read
Factotum,
Love Is A Dog From Hell and
Women when I watched it, but I liked it right off.
I like the feel of the film. The run down bars. The real barflies. I think the only thing that bothered me on first viewing was the bad stunt doubling in the alley fight scenes. The dialogue is classic Bukowski. Maybe Rourke plays it up a bit; 'All of a sudden I'm popular - MAYBE I OUGHT TO RUN FOR CITY COUNCIL!' - but the character (I think) benefits for it. I always read Chinaski as being a sonovabitch. He has bravado and guts. Playing this line low key, perhaps even just to himself might have been more how Bukowski would have done it, but in print, Chinaski would be more fuck-you about it. Mr Vanbilderass.
There's lots of quotes from Bukowski about his feelings towards Rourke, Schroeder, Dunaway and the Movie. My overall impression is that he was happy enough with his script, and the movie but found the whole hell of the movie business pure and unnecessary bullshit. He seems to have like Rourke a lot more than Dunaway which surely says something of the Chinaski he portrayed in the movie. I disagree with Brother Schenker about Schroeder and his motives. He may not be the best director, but with the camera work of Robby Müller and terrific soundtrack, this is (my opinion) probably his best work. He seems to have been thoroughly committed to getting Bukowski's script, whatever it might be, onto celluloid and into cinemas. I like the novel Hollywood. It give you a lot of insight into the 10 year history of Barfly, from meeting Schroeder to the film release.
Of course the hub of the film, location-wise is the Golden Horn, which seems to be modelled very closely on the Philadelphian bar of
Factotum's Chapter 22... a place that really encompasses a time that Bukowski seemed to frequently reminisce about with the utmost fondness. This fondness comes through in the writing, and I can't say that Rourke and Dunaway ruined the charm and subtlety of the dialogue because they didn't for me. They're both big name Hollywood stars - at least at the time Rourke was a very name to bring to the project - and consequently they both may have been trying to usurp every frame of the film. But you also have to wonder if anyone would really want to go and play a beat up, down on his luck, unknown and unpublished wannabe writer in order to promote themselves within Hollywood? It's a strange choice isn't it?
When Brother Schenker says that Rourke "played a mumbling, farting, slovenly, drunkard - and sometimes poet - and that weren't Buk by a longshot" he's mostly right. But think about the period of Bukowski's life that is the inspiration for this Chinaski. Barfly - like Factotum -takes place within "a few days out of a ten year period . . ." the lost years - where Bukowski was
almost not writing at all. Before Jane died. Before his own admission to the Charity ward and his 'near death' experience that seems to have helped rekindle his ambition to nail down the word. So isn't it correct - at least according to myth - that we should be presented with a slovenly drunkard, and maybe never poet? If you read Factotum and don't see some fire in the youthful yet work-shy Chinaski then you've read a different book.
Again, its probably just his myth getting the better of him, but in Barfly, Bukowski has written a story about a bum who might have some spark of writing ambition but mostly he wants to drink, fight and fuck his time away. To complain as Bukowski did that Rourke was too dirty is surely just his pride confusing his life with his art?
CB: "but it's supposed to be fictional anyway, right?"
I'm not saying that there aren't more interesting tales that might translate better to the screen, but I find the Chinaski played by Mickey Rourke a very interesting creation. Barfly benefits from the direct involvement from Bukowski, throughout its production.
Perhaps if they hadn't opened with Booker T and the MGs, I'd feel different...
Have become incoherent? :cool:
