The Fantasy Factory

“Hollywood,” by Charles Bukowski, 1989

Bukowski was one of the last of the romantic proletarian ‘starving artists.’  He drank, fought, was evicted frequently, slept on the streets of east Hollywood and ran with a crazed alcoholic girlfriend for many years, with only two bouts of long-term employment at the U.S. Post Office.  Finally at 65 he hit it big – he bought a BMW, a house, dined in fancy restaurants, had a wife who took care of him and started meeting big Hollywood stars.  Why?  The 1987 movie Barfly, for which he wrote the screenplay based on his early life.  This book is the story of the making of that movie.

Making Fun of the Funnable

It is absent Bukowski’s consistent male chauvinism (he does sympathize with fake tough guy Norman Mailer once in the book).  But it contains his theories of horse-betting – sort of a ‘moneyball’ approach to winning - and also his constant drinking.  Bukowski secretly admired other drunk writers like Hemingway, Faulkner and Eugene O’Neil, but his hermit’s distaste for humans led him to drink too.  Ironically, the success of this film led to Bukowski’s declining health due to the heavy swilling he wallowed in during production.  According to him alcohol, writing and Mozart was his way to relax.

This is a hilarious book, with Bukowski’s dead-pan and blunt humor competing with the ridiculous people he meets – some of which the Cohen’s must have borrowed for The Big Lebowski.  It reveals the odd characters that surround Hollywood – prima-donna actors, crooked production companies, weird hangers-on, artistic ‘geniuses’ – including the producer that actually got the film made, a real director and wild man named Barbet Schroeder.  Bukowski meets the stars of the film - Mickey Rourke, playing himself as Chinaski; and Faye Dunaway, the too-beautiful version of his disturbed and dead girlfriend Jane.  Along the way he meets people like Sean Penn, Dennis Hopper, Werner Herzog, Jean Luc Goddard, Francis Ford Coppola, David Lynch, Isabella Rossellini and Roger Ebert, all under pseudonyms.  But the book is more fond than foul.  It is no scoop on Hollywood as advertised, nor was Bukowski equipped to reveal much more than personal events due to his apolitical and solipsistic approach.

The biographer of Bukowski, Howard Sounes, claims that all the incidents in the book are true, including the most incredible one.  At one point Barfly’s pushy director threatens to slice off bits of his body with a Black & Decker electric saw, starting with his left little finger, until the cheapo production company’s lawyer signs a certain contract to let Barfly go forward.  The contract was signed.

Is Barfly a good film?  No.  I saw it years ago and it seemed mediocre, not funny at all, unlike this book.  Bukowski had never written a screenplay before, though his books rely heavily on dialog.  It does have the seedy, dark ‘look’ that Bukowski wanted, as the director actually followed the screen writer’s suggestions, unlike most directors.  I will watch it again, but this book is the real barfly.  Worth it for the laughs, unless you are in AA.

Other reviews on recent proletarian and lumpen fiction, use blog search box, upper left:  “Post Office” (by Bukowski); “Red Baker,” “Factory Days,” “Suttree” and “All the Pretty Horses,” (both by Cormac McCarthy); “Polar Star,” “The Football Factory.” 

  

The Kulture Kommissar

Commune di Cortona, Toscana, Italia

October 1, 2019