Not a film for everyone, but the unrelieved squalor of BARFLY offers its own peculiar fascinations. Director Barbet Schroeder (REVERSAL OF FORTUNE) positions the grungy world of cult writer Charles Bukowski under a cinematic microscope, affording titillating glimpses of lowlife.
Rourke plays Henry Chinaski, a slovenly, hard-drinking, fistfighting scribe who's taken with Wanda Wilcox (Dunaway), a haggard but attractive drunk he meets in a bar. Chinaski's work is admired by wealthy, pretty, self-assured publisher Tully Sorenson (Krige), and that provides the film with a
romantic triangle as Wanda and Tully battle for Henry's attentions. Rourke, who turns in the finest performance of his career to date, takes a character who could be seen as pathetic and despicable and makes him, if not a likable hero, at least an understandable one. Dunaway gives an exceptional
performance, and Krige is perfect in her role.
The making of BARFLY was nearly as extreme as anything in the film. Producer-director Schroeder had originally commissioned Bukowski to write a screenplay for $20,000, then struggled for years to get the project filmed. Finally, he entered the office of Cannon president Menahem Golan and
threatened to cut off a finger unless Cannon made the film. After initially refusing, Golan realized Schroeder's obsession with BARFLY and eventually gave the project the go-ahead. The kind of film people are likely to disagree about strongly. leave a comment
