| The
Charles Bukowski Tapes
a
film by Barbet Schroeder
“For
those of you interested in madness, yours or mine, I can tell
you a little about mine."
– Charles Bukowski
 When
Barbet Schroeder (More, General
Idi Amin Dada, Single White Female)
began work on the movie Barfly,
he had no idea that it would be such a struggle. During the
seven years it took him to complete the film, he turned his
cameras on its screenwriter, poet and novelist Charles Bukowski.
“I couldn’t stand the thought of not being able
to share the extraordinary evenings we spent together,”
said Schroeder. “I finally brought in a small crew,
friends of mine, with a high quality video set up. Whoever
was the least drunk took control of the camera.”
Bukowski,
legendary for his drunken excess and frank observations on
life, love, and survival, took no exception with Schroeder.
Barbet
Schroeder recalls, “I had no idea of what I might do
with the material, but I didn’t want those evenings
to be lost. As I don’t like formal interviews, I tried
to get him started on a topic and then keep from interrupting
him. The result was often a monologue of three minutes or
longer.”
Schroeder
eventually completed The Charles Bukowski Tapes,
a four-hour long study of the man and the music of his words.
“The ideal way to show this material was in short video-clips—a
new style of film. Once I had screened it this way, it seemed
twice as powerful.”
Available
for the first time in the world on DVD, Barrel Entertainment
is proud to present this exceptional portrait of one of America’s
most vital voices.
Special
Features include:
- The original, complete four-hour edition, with all 52
segments presented in two volumes:
- Plus: A 36-page booklet featuring essays by Barbet Schroeder
and Bukowski biographer Neeli Cherkovski, as well as a 1987
interview with Charles Bukowski.
“An
outrageously stimulating and unnerving all-night drinking
session with a gutter eloquent barroom philosopher ... One
of the most intimate, revealing and unsparing glimpses any
film or video has ever given us of a writer’s life and
personality.”
– Michael Wilmington,
Los Angeles Times
“Four
full hours of one of America’s most talented, no-bullshit
writers–pulling acidic humor and streetwise honesty
out of his lifetime of liquor... an incredible, one-of-a-kind
document.”
– Steven Puchalski,
Shock Cinema
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