Barfly at 30 – Bukowski, booze and battling… | Little White Lies

In Praise Of

Barfly at 30 – Bukows­ki, booze and bat­tling Hollywood

03 May 2017

Words by William Carroll

Three people sitting in a dimly lit bar, two women and one man, engaged in conversation.
Three people sitting in a dimly lit bar, two women and one man, engaged in conversation.
Mick­ey Rourke is per­fect­ly cast as Hank Chi­nas­ki in this down-and-dirty pic­ture from 1987.

Writ­ing was nev­er work for me. It had been the same for as long as I could remem­ber: turn on the radio to a clas­si­cal music sta­tion, light a cig­a­rette or a cig­ar, open the bot­tle. The typer did the rest.”

Charles Bukows­ki, emi­nent drunk­ard and racon­teur, made a career out of immor­tal­is­ing America’s down-and-outs in all their ine­bri­at­ed glo­ry. A fig­ure that stalks the per­pet­u­al Amer­i­can barscape, Bukowski’s name is, for most peo­ple, syn­ony­mous with blue col­lars, grit under the fin­ger­nails and whisky on the breath. He became a deity for the dis­pos­sessed, and his writ­ing endures in all its pre­cise, min­i­mal beauty.

In 1987, Mick­ey Rourke assumed the role of Bukows­ki on the big screen, star­ring as Hank Chi­nas­ki in Barfly. With a screen­play by the lit­er­ary lout him­self, and a pro­tag­o­nist that smacked of his dive-bar charm a lit­tle too potent­ly, Rourke trans­formed him­self into Bukows­ki and assumed his place in the LA noc­turne with­out miss­ing a beat.

Based on Bukowski’s own expe­ri­ences as a washed-up screen­writer in the hazy pool halls and dingy cock­tail lounges of Los Ange­les, Barfly traces Hank Chinaski’s strug­gle to earn a liv­ing as a free­lance writer and full-time beer enthu­si­ast. His nights are spent in the alley behind Eddie’s bar, his usu­al haunt, fight­ing the own­er in a bloody and futile quest for place and pur­pose. Hank is an intel­li­gent, if reck­less, exam­ple of wast­ed tal­ent, and no one is more keen­ly aware of his dire straights than he is.

The only solace he finds in a life filled with half-for­got­ten twi­light dreams of star­dom is Faye Dunaway’s Wan­da, who he meets prop­ping up a bar look­ing as deject­ed and lost as he is. Their rela­tion­ship, as tur­bu­lent and hos­tile as the sin­gu­lar lives they led before meet­ing, is the film’s – and Bukowski’s – offer­ing of hope in a neon-world of has-beens, would-haves, and never-mores.

Rourke’s per­for­mance is wry and know­ing, his rogu­ish smile for­ev­er adorned with a split lip. His enun­ci­a­tion emu­lates Bukowski’s, gruff yet eccen­tric with con­stant inflec­tion, and he walks with a per­pet­u­al stoop as if he’s just awok­en from the door­way of some down­town store­front. He con­vinces us not sim­ply to believe in him, a fig­ure of low moral but high charis­ma, who makes being unwashed and dis­pos­sessed look simul­ta­ne­ous­ly repel­lent and appeal­ing, but to trust that he knows what he’s doing. Noses turn at his des­ti­tute, flop­house lifestyle, but his sheer lack of care and free spir­it keeps his char­ac­ter, and our inter­est, alive.

A man with long hair gesturing enthusiastically behind a bar counter, surrounded by bottles and glassware.

Some peo­ple nev­er go crazy. What tru­ly hor­ri­ble lives they must lead.” Bukowski’s screen­play is, for all intents and pur­pos­es, the life and soul of this film. Tom Waits sang in the decade pri­or about the heart of Sat­ur­day night”, and it’s hard not to see Bukowski’s ren­der­ing of this heart in Hank and his end­less pil­grim­age through West Coast nightlife. The Beat gen­er­a­tion hangs heavy over all of Bukowski’s writ­ing, with this screen­play attest­ing to the roman­tic lives of drifters and dream­ers that drank heav­i­ly, smoked dai­ly, and nev­er stopped search­ing for their own heart of Sat­ur­day night.

Bar­bet Schroeder’s direc­tion gives Bukowski’s won­der­ful script cen­tre stage, cap­tur­ing the sleaze and licen­tious­ness of Los Ange­les in the cosy locales that give it that post-sun­set glow. In the nov­el­i­sa­tion of his expe­ri­ences writ­ing the screen­play, and becom­ing a part of the Hol­ly­wood lifestyle, Bukows­ki presents a trou­bling bal­ance between stay­ing true to his every­man writ­ing rit­u­als and down-to-earth men­tal­i­ty and the glam­our of work­ing beneath the world’s most famous sign. In the nov­el Barfly’, he writes All is fair in hate and Hol­ly­wood’, and it’s hard not to imag­ine a smil­ing Hank Chi­nas­ki in some cor­ner booth, smok­ing and writ­ing that lit­tle sound­bite onto the back of a beer coaster.

Bukows­ki lived and breathed a side of LA that exists in the shad­ows, down back alleys and behind dump­sters. Barfly may be the clos­est any of us will ever will­ing­ly come to being des­ti­tute and alone, in a city that delights in break­ing the dreams it man­u­fac­tures as a mat­ter of course.

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