The one thing that bothered me. (2 Viewers)

I don't know if someone else already brought this up. For someone as down and out as Hank was, he sure had a nice and neat beard. You'd think a trim would be the last thing on his mind.
 
If you look at Bukowski's history, he was really
rather fastidious about his appearance.

That's one of the gripes he had about Barfly.
He thought that the Mickey Rourke character was
really rather a slob, and quite different from how he
pictured all of it.

For the most part? My experience is that Bukowski,
while not vain, was particular about his appearance.
 
One other possibility. If your are drunk yet well groomed not many will notice. He did like to be left to himself, correct.

His complextion made things tough enough as it was.
 
One other possibility. If your are drunk yet well groomed not many will notice. He did like to be left to himself, correct.

His complextion made things tough enough as it was.

factotum isn't a bad movie at all! its quite good, actually.
but there's just something in mickey rourke and his dirty, slovenly ways that is endearing.

If you look at Bukowski's history, he was really
rather fastidious about his appearance.

That's one of the gripes he had about Barfly.
He thought that the Mickey Rourke character was
really rather a slob, and quite different from how he
pictured all of it.

For the most part? My experience is that Bukowski,
while not vain, was particular about his appearance.

he should have at least washed his hair, eh?
or changed his underwear!

funny you guys should mention it. my grandpa likes to drink it up (he's far from being an alcoholic but the polish blood in him won't let him say no). and he's always got to have clean, polished shoes, wear a different shirt every day, have his hair washed and his face shaved.
 
In reference to his physical appearance; the Bukowski that people know via Barfly is not the Bukowski of reality. Barfly, like other books by Buk is SEMI-autobiographical. Henry Chinaski is Buk's alter ego, but that does not mean that he Chinaski and Bukowski had to be exactly the same. This is the problem with a movie like Barfly, that a was popular and introduced Bukowski to the masses. It was GREAT for him as far as gaining readers worldwide, but set the image of Bukowski as a sloppy, dirty pitiful drunk stick in people's minds, when in fact that was the Mickey Rourke portrayal of Chinaski.

So, when a movie like Factotum comes out, some people criticize it for cleaning up Bukowski from his Mickey Rourke Barfly "reality", when the truth lies somewhere in between. Chinaski, and Bukowski looked no more like Dillon than he did Rourke (although I thought that Rourke had his verbal mannerisms and spirit really down, where I thought that Dillon did not...

Bill
 
Where's that part in Women...

On getting of a plane for a poetry reading:
"I had on my dead father's overcoat, which was too large. My pants were too long, the cuffs came down over the shoes and that was good because my stockings didn't match, and my shoes were down at the heels. I hated barbers so I cut my own hair when I couldn't get a woman to do it. I didn't like to shave and I didn't like long beards, so I scissored myself every tow or three weeks. My eyesight was bad but I didn't like glasses so I didn't wear them except to read. I had my own teeth but not that many. My face and my nose were red from drinking and the light hurt my eyes so I squinted through tiny slits. I would have fit into any skid row anywhere."

p. 167 of the Virgin 2004 ed.

I love that. I think of it often. (Only "semi-autobiographical" of course, but) A great description.
 
I don't know if someone else already brought this up. For someone as down and out as Hank was, he sure had a nice and neat beard. You'd think a trim would be the last thing on his mind.

The soundtrack to Factotum bothered me... the instrumental scores were good, but the soundtrack seemed not to fit Buk at all. I was suprised at how well I enjoyed Dillon's portrayal of Chinaski - though, I still prefer Rourke's because I liked Barfly better. It didn't really bother me how either of the actor's looked aesthetically, because that wasn't the point. The point was, to me, that they both had the spirit of Buk down cold. That's what made them both good, even great films. One whose read Buk and is familiar with his work will obviously have an opinion different from those who aren't, and I think those who aren't and those who are, alike, couldn't've given a shit how he dressed.
 
The soundtrack to Factotum bothered me...

At the end of the day, or some crap, all that matters about Buk is the word. Barfly made him popular to more people, and for the most part, the other films just made other people money (well, Linda too, so that's a good thing). I've only seen Barfly once or twice and I didn't care for it all that much (it wasn't him, you know; just his portrayal of him, and it lost too much). As for the others, never cared to try.

It's all about the word to me. Oh, and all those lovely BSP books and...
 
At the end of the day, or some crap, all that matters about Buk is the word. Barfly made him popular to more people, and for the most part, the other films just made other people money (well, Linda too, so that's a good thing). I've only seen Barfly once or twice and I didn't care for it all that much (it wasn't him, you know; just his portrayal of him, and it lost too much). As for the others, never cared to try.

It's all about the word to me. Oh, and all those lovely BSP books and...

On that note... is it the word that makes the man or the man that makes the word? If it's the latter, then Buk himself, the "essence of Buk" if I'm to be horribly corrny, has a great deal to do with his words, right? For me, I thought Rourke gave off the Buk-essence that I got from the short stories and novels. Dillon gave off the more sensitive Buk I got from the poems.
 
May I make a silly distinction:

Rourke played Bukowski the literary persona.

Dillon played Bukowski the man.

Olaf: I think you're onto something there.

For me, Dillion didn't feel like Bukowski at all. Rourke felt half way like Buk. He was a bit too goofy, too clownish and ape-like (notice how he walks like a damned gorilla at times, swinging his arms, hunched over ... it's odd and forced and all wrong.) But in spirit, Rourke is much closer to the real Bukowski than Dillon. Rourke's portrayal has grown on me over the years. At first I hated it. Now, it's not half bad. I'm waiting for some actor to nail it, like Robert Downey Jr. nailed Chaplin. That hasn't happened yet.
 
Olaf: I think you're onto something there.

For me, Dillion didn't feel like Bukowski at all. Rourke felt half way like Buk. He was a bit too goofy, too clownish and ape-like (notice how he walks like a damned gorilla at times, swinging his arms, hunched over ... it's odd and forced and all wrong.) But in spirit, Rourke is much closer to the real Bukowski (snip....).

Like Popeye.
 

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