The Charles Bukowski Tapes 2
Courtesy of YouTube user woodychaos. From the Wikipedia description:
The Charles Bukowski Tapes are an altogether more than four hours long collection of 52 short-interviews with the American cult author Charles Bukowski, sorted by topic and each between one and ten minutes long. Director Barbet Schroeder (Barfly) interviews Bukowski about such themes as alcohol, violence, and women, and Bukowski answers willingly, losing himself in sometimes minute-long monologues. Amongst other things, Bukowski leads the small camera team through his parents’s house and his former neighbourhood, but the largest part of the interviews takes place in Bukowski’s flat or backyard. The documentary includes a scene in which Bukowski reacts violently toward his wife Linda Lee.
Related: The Charles Bukowski Tapes 1
AuthorScoop
February 23rd, 2010 at 3:33 pm
He seemed a mix of arrogance and seediness, two qualities that don’t pair up very often in nature. And utterly self-conscious. It looks like work (and overtime) to pull off his schtick.
February 23rd, 2010 at 5:23 pm
except that it wasn’t schtick.
February 23rd, 2010 at 5:30 pm
You don’t think? His answers seem very engineered to me. I don’t mean to imply that there wasn’t depth to his views - I think there was a great deal of interesting perspective he plotted out. And I’ve really grown to appreciate some of his work. But watching him, hearing him speak, it sounds inverted to me, like he articulated a point before he actually believed it.
In a way, it’s admirable. Talk about the self-made man.
February 23rd, 2010 at 5:54 pm
perhaps. doubtless, he has had similar conversations and answered similar questions many times before; so in that regard, i suppose it could be regarded as schtick. so restating ideas previously articulated, perhaps; but i would argue against the contention that they were contrived for effect without root in his personality and psychological makeup.
February 23rd, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Oh, I definitely think it was his personality and psychological makeup, and the somewhat manufactured tone that I feel is there is probably reasonably common, in writers most particularly. (I know I have a weakness for it, so it feels familiar, if not really very noble. Or maybe I’m just showing my own faults mirrored back at me for some deeper reason than I’ve yet realized.)
I’m so glad that you ran that film of him a while back and this series now. It’s been a very moving experience in the weirdest way and I wrote about it after the last videos we ran of him. Every time I’ve seen him, it has confirmed for me that I probably wouldn’t like him. I think he’s very often a jerk and I know not everyone perceives him this way, but he seems (seemed?) a very calculated contrarian, even though I don’t doubt that his sufferings had organic and sincere roots.
All this and yet he still had something to say that pulls at me (when I get it, of course.) His talent was undeniable and very exciting. It kicked me right in the ass to be so impressed by something I didn’t necessarily want to hear from someone I could never particularly like. I loved that lesson.
So please don’t think I’m Bukowski-bashing. I gave up that hobby, courtesy of your posting his interviews.
February 23rd, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Bukowski was a jerk! Berryman was best!
He wrote like wet papier mache, went the Heming-way
weirdly on wings and with maximum pain
We call upon the author to explain
- nick cave, “we call upon the author to explain”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQtsO2m1fNk
February 23rd, 2010 at 6:57 pm
Ha! That’s a great quote.
As much as I say I think Bukowski was a jerk, I realize he’d be disgusted by me. All’s well.
February 23rd, 2010 at 7:04 pm
he was indeed a jerk. and though it’s no defense, he earned it honestly throughout an adolescence plagued by torment and derision. he withdrew from his tormentors and basically said, “fuck it. if you see me as a monster, i’ll be a monster.”
February 23rd, 2010 at 7:14 pm
It’s a hard thing to reconcile. I just rewatched it and I have a difficult time with a certain type of perpetual melancholy that sits in judgment of anyone who finds pleasure outside wine and rape (by which I assume he means sex, but the words ’sex’ or ‘fucking’ weren’t shocking enough) is a mental deficient.
But at least his poetry is now compelling to me, so it’s not a wash.