New Bukowski Movie – Factotum
AP carries an article about Factotum, the latest adaptation of a Charles Bukowski novel for the big screen. Matt Dillon stars, which will be interesting - I always thought he pissed his career away after the brilliance of Drugstore Cowboy. (Don't even get me started on how much I hated Crash which spent 90 minutes telling us "People can be bad and good - at the same time!". Fuck, really?).
It'll probably be another noble failure (indeed, AP's film reviewer slates it and the Factotum DVD is already available) - Bukowski's stuff just doesn't translate to the screen precisely because the screen just makes it literal - here's a drunk guy trying to score with scarlet women for, er, 90 minutes. The screen destroys the voice of Bukowski's work, the narrator talking to the reader, and reduces it to a series of events which therefore completely loses what makes Bukowski great. The booze and the women are the props that Bukowski's books hang on, but they are not the essence of them. Which is what Steve quotes John Banville talking about recently. Although Banville wasn't talking about Bukowski, natch.
Factotum is one of Bukowski's best books. The first of his I read because I couldn't find Post Office.
I saw it a few weeks back and quite enjoyed it. But I would.