Product Description

Downtrodden writer Henry (Mickey Rourke) and distressed goddess Wanda (Faye Dunaway) aren't exactly husband and wife: they're wedded to their bar stools. But they like each other's company - and 'Barfly' captures their giddy, din-soaked attempts to make a go of life on the skids.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55869 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-09-03
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 99 minutes

Amazon.com
The script for this movie was written by outrageous poet-author-alcoholic Charles Bukowski. But director Barbet Schroeder makes it into an oddly amusing story of a pugnacious drunk writer (Mickey Rourke) based on Bukowski himself. Rourke spends almost all of his time at the bar, struggling with sobriety (he's against it) and, occasionally, having fistfights with the bartender (Frank Stallone). He meets another souse, a formerly attractive woman (Faye Dunaway), and gets involved with her, which means they drink copious amounts of liquor and try to have sex. Not much happens beyond that, yet this film is strangely entertaining, for all of its bottom-of-the-barrel humanity. Maybe that's the secret: "Oh, the humanity...." --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews

I Love This Film and Watch It Over and Again -- A CLASSIC
This is an excellent film. Nonconformists and those who like to look at things differently than the "regular consensus" might appreciate this film the most.

Yet it is not strange or uncommon. It is brilliantly honest and truthful in a way few films are. It is (somewhat) based on a portion of the life of Charles Bukowski who wrote the screenplay and claimed not to feel the film portrayed what he was really like. It actually probably flattered him a bit much, as Rourke was incredibly attractive somehow in this role. Cinematic magic indeed. Faye Dunaway was also par excellence in her role as an over-the-hill female drunk barfly.

However this movie is WAY too expensive no matter how good it is. Therefore it really needs to be re-released. With the release of the DVD of this film in 2002 the company that released it make way too few copies. They did not realize what a TRUE CLASSIC they have on their hands. They need to realize this and re-release it so that the common folk can afford to buy a copy too. You can sign an online petition to this effect by Googling "barfly dvd petition." That will take you there. Please do sign it. I did!

By the way, I did not list all the reasons I love this movie. Kind of running short on time but believe me I could go on and on for QUITE a while about all the reasons I LOVE this film. ESPECIALLY for the "thinking wo/man."

Bukowski's Only Screenplay is a Masterpiece
Anyway who criticizes Mickey Rourke's performance in BARFLY has never really been really drunk. Even if Bukowski himself never wanted Mickey Rourke to play the role, it doesn't mean much. Bukowski would of hated anyone who played the role of his alter ego Hank Chinaski. I don't think he would of cared much for Matt Dillon in that role either.

The Charles Bukowski novel "Hollywood" chronicles the disastrous making-of this film as well as the haphazard screen writing assignment of BARFLY. The novel Hollywood is indeed as another reviewer described a must read after or prior to watching the film. Not to spoil the book "Hollywood" but in the end even Bukowski comes around to Rourke. Describing him as the only Stand-up guy involved in the film at the end of the day.

The film was produced by the same producer of DEATH WISH 4 which should give you an idea of what the director and cast had to deal with to make this film.

BARFLY is a testament to the times when you realize that the real drunks and real writers who had populated the outskirts of the Hollywood landscape are all gone. Leaving us with only posers like Sean Penn who ride the coat tails of genuine artists like Charles Bukowski.

20 Years Later: Not nearly as good as I remember.
Barfly (Barbet Schroeder, 1987)

When I was a young poet, like most people who became young poets in the seventies and eighties, one of my idols was Charles Bukowski. So when Barfly came out, I rushed to see it, and was awed. I've carried the nostalgia for it around for twenty years, and finally decided to see it again. Somewhat to my surprise, I found I'd been looking at it through rather rose-colored glasses all this time.

Watching it now, the biggest problem with the movie is Mickey Rourke, whose hipster-wannabe portrayal of Bukowski's alter ego Henry Chinaski draws far more from Arthur Fonzarelli than the Beats (not that Bukowski ever identified with the Beats). When he's on his game, Rourke is a fantastic actor, but here he overacts the role to death, creating a thoroughly unbelievable character.

While critics of the film during its original release were quick to point out that it mirrors Bukowski's writings ("depressing and pointless", my mother's favorite radio talk show host called it), and I took that at face value twenty years ago, I'm not so sure it's the case now. While the atmosphere is certainly close enough for jazz, and all the little quirks that make Bukowski's life filmable pop up, the major contradictions of which those quirks were symptomatic don't put in much of an appearance. People in the film address the central concept that Buk was, in fact, a whole lot smarter than everyone around him, but Rourke's portrayal never brings that to light. A lot of people ask why he chooses to live as a bum, but neither Rourke nor Schroeder is quick to offer an answer. To be fair, Buk might not have had one, but his writings and interviews from the period during which he wrote the screenplay would suggest otherwise. I think the film was meant as an answer, and it simply didn't come through.

As usual where nostalgia is concerned, the product doesn't match the memory of the product. **