Bukowski - Born Into This
List Price:
Our Price: $9.50
You Save: $10.48 (52%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $6.99 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Charles Bukowski, FrancEye, Harry Dean Stanton, John Bryan, Tom WaitsBrand: Magnolia Pictures
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 130 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-03-21
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Model: 10006
Studio: Magnolia
Product features:
- This documentary looks at the life of poet and author Charles Bukowski (1920-1994), whose bibliography includes "Notes of a Dirty Old Man", "Love is a Dog from Hell", as well as the screenplay for Barfly. Bukowski earned a cult following attracted to his graphic and brutal stories of a life (often his own) lived amidst alcoholism, poverty and violence. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTAR
Movie Reviews of Bukowski - Born Into This
Movie Review: The Postal Worker Who Thought He was a Writer
Summary: 5 Stars
Frankly, I thought I'd outgrown the beatniks, my high school heroes who motivated me to be a geek without apologies. I was initially thrilled to hear and meet in person the likes of Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, William Burroughs (never caught Kerouac, though he of course was #1). But by the time I got to graduate school, the primary appeal of the beats was their attraction to jazz and their aesthetic passivity (T. S. Eliot's definition of art--if it moves you to "do" something, it's propaganda), all of which distinguished them from the "group-think" of the '60s flower children, the Dylan (Bob) acolytes, the Woodstock generation--a lot of hair covering empty heads filled with little knowledge of art, literature, the past. Still that distinction didn't earn for their predecessors, the Beats, the respect I'd developed for Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, the Romantics and the "Lyrical Ballads," Keats, R. Browning and Pound.
But Bukowski is a seducer, a curious combination of utter, disarming honesty and fascinating, even charming "performance artist." He's not an unattractive man, and he possesses just enough of a lisp to muffle, elevate, and lend a touch of playful mischief to the brutality, sexism, tough talk--and frequent resorting to the scatological and the bottle (the latter an escape, an excuse, a "prop" essential to his "act" when reading in public performance). Like Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, he was a heavy drinker, but had any of America's literary alcoholics been capable of living up to their reputations as drunks, it's unlikely few would have produced the body of work we associate with their names.
The film makes clear that, far from a free spirit, Bukowski was a highly disciplined machine when his survival depended upon it. He could work interminable hours at a mindless post office job. It comes as no surprise, then, to learn about his obsession with writing, his prolific output despite mountains of rejections to match it. Like most writers (and orchestrators) he forced himself through countless hours of writing--unshowered, ungroomed, subsisting on"Payday" candy bars as nourishment--quickly adopting the self-description "dirty old man" (a phrase that seems tailor-made for writers). The man pre-dates and outwrites the beats (forget about the hippies) because of his work ethic, unflinching honesty, and freedom from all illusions. Asked when he "realized" he was a writer, he answers: "You don't realize you're a writer. You think you're writer."
For the amateur psychologizers, Bukowski's insecurity and its possible sources are all too apparent, from his extremely pock-marked face, near-diminutive stature, and frequent beatings suffered at his father's hands (or whip). In one sense, he answered the brutality he had received with his own version of it--a facade that most viewers (and listeners) should have no trouble penetrating. Bukowski mocks the American dream and the illusions it fosters, especially among the young--or the parents of all those gifted children. Life is exceedingly tough in Bukowski's world. He acknowledges it, but then dares you to deal with it. Unlike Steinbeck and the Romantics (including their descendants, the Beatniks, who retained a Whitman-like wanderlust and mysticism toward nature), Bukowski doesn't appear to have left the bars and gutters long enough to discover the world of nature--followed by the inevitable disillusionment. He simply has no illusions.
He likes to reduce life's complexities, including love/sex, to a power game, but the viewer senses it's a game for him, a role he's expected to play and is good at. (Good enough to make the viewer hate him for a few brief moments during the film.) What the film fails to do is reveal the work habits of the writer--from conception to implementation (pen? pencil? typewriter? revisions? time of day? Did he, like Faulkner, go into an alcoholic stupor upon completion of a manuscript?) On the other hand, the movie, despite lots of fuzzy and non-cinematic images, also has lots of Bukowski--and that's enough. None of the acquaintances, friends, women, wives, publishers who are interviewed seem very interesting--but probably because they suffer by comparison with Bukowski himself. And though it tries to fulfill viewers' expectations of Bukowski the filthy animal, the evidence argues to the contrary. The man's "poetry" is admittedly prosaic (the comparison of him, in the movie, to Wordsworth is not completely off the mark), but it's original, imaginative, and it's more about straight-talk and truth than self-aggrandizement. Which is not to say that he doesn't come off as potentially dangerous--especially to women seduced not by his vulnerability (that's Chet Baker) but by his power and apparent virility along with his capacity to be self-aware and, yes, vulnerable as well (we hear him singing to his beloved the old standard "Mean to Me").
If you want the story of a sexual libertine, go to Lord Byron or Larry Flynt; if you want the scatological, check out "The Aristocrats." For Bukowski, sex is a metaphor--moreover, it's his only one, allowing him to avoid the painful subject of love. At one point, the metaphor fails him. While reading a poem about a woman, he chokes up and curses the interviewer for getting him to read it. He also cries at his wedding. And by now he at least has the good sense not to blame the officiating minister.
One caveat, or warning: Best ignore the sophomoric attempts by some of the film's talking heads to explain Bukowski's "art." The film's director attempts to bring closure through the use of a scrap of a poem, a didactic one at that, representing Bukowki as significant because, above all, he somehow liberated spirit from the restrictive limits of poetic form (tell that to Shakespeare or Keats). But putting the scrap of paper aside, the movie allows us to see that Bukowski himself was, no less than his published works (or, in his case, his "effluence") an avatar, a work of art by virtue of his not merely writing about life but living it. It's unlikely the viewer will find much that's "spiritual" in the film or its subject. But you will meet a spirited man--carnal, profane, scrappy but also courageous, unflinchingly honest, and inarguably talented. I'll risk one last thought that came to mind while watching Bukowski in this film: he's the common man's Henry Miller.
Summary of Bukowski - Born Into This
BUKOWSKI:BORN INTO THIS - DVD MovieDirector John Dullaghan's biographical documentary about infamous poet Charles Bukowski, Bukowski: Born Into This, is as much a touching portrait of the author as it is an exposé of his sordid lifestyle. Interspersed between ample vintage footage of Bukowski's poetry readings are interviews with the poet's fans including such legendary figures such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Joyce Fante (wife of John), Bono, and Harry Dean Stanton. Filmed in grainy black and white by Bukowski's friend, Taylor Hackford, due to lack of funding, the old films edited into this movie paint Bukowski's life of boozing and brawling romantically, securing Bukowski's legendary status. Born Into This relies on interviews with Bukowski for biographical information instead of cheesy voiceovers, bringing the viewer even closer to the author. For example, in one amazing sequence, Bukowski rides the viewer around in the backseat of his car, telling us through his rearview mirror of his stint as a post office worker which inspired the novel, Post Office. Scenes splicing interviews with Bukowski's ex-wife, Linda Lee, and R. Crumb's comic strip panels portraying Bukowski as a sex-crazed maniac, set the tone for bawdier parts of the film. Occasionally the film displays lines of Bukowski's poetry on the screen, as reminders that he was not only a raging alcoholic with a fierce sense of humor but also a talented and beloved writer. With so much hilariously shocking footage of "Hank," Bukowski: Born Into This presents Bukowski as a troubled but classic genius. --Trinie Dalton
Similar DVD Movies
The Last Night of the Earth Poemsby Charles Bukowski
Ecco; Published: 2002-05-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.19
Price in other shops:
You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Senseby Charles Bukowski
Black Sparrow Press; Published: 2002-05-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.05
Price in other shops:
Notes of a Dirty Old Manby Charles Bukowski
City Lights Publishers; Published: 2001-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.25
Price in other shops:
post office: A Novelby Charles Bukowski
Ecco; Published: 2007-02-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.82
Price in other shops:
Charles Bukowski - There's Gonna Be a God Damn Riot in HereInfinity; Release date: 2009-09-07; DVD
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops:
Love is a Dog From Hellby Charles Bukowski
Ecco; Published: 2002-06-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.47
Price in other shops:
Charles Bukowski Box Set: One Tough MotherInfinity; Release date: 2010-10-19; DVD
Best price: $17.79
Price in other shops:
FactotumGPI; Release date: 2006-12-26; DVD
Best price: $1.99
Price in other shops:
BarflyRelease date: 2009-06-30; DVD
Best price: $17.45
Price in other shops: