Looking into The Face of the Ravaged Lion On 'Bukowski: Born Into This'

In the film "Bukowski: Born Into This" (see link: http://www.movienet.com/bukowski.html) director John Dullaghan traces the life story of Charles Bukowski from his abused childhood, through the brief lassitudes at LA City College, through the years of working in the post office, and on into the florescence of Bukowski's exploding fame from the late 1950's onward. The archival footage includes Dullaghan's own short of Bukowski's famous City Lights reading as well as exquisite black and white footage from German filmmaker (###) driving with Bukowski around the freeways, to the laundry, discussing his views on poetry and life. This film also includes footage from Dullaghan's over 150 interviews with people who knew Bukowski and/or acted as his patrons. This film is a gem, a must see.

My first experience with Bukowski was through a book of poetry--Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame-- given to me by a friend. I was of the impression then and as I read more of Bukowski that he felt suffering was the very precondition and essence of knowledge . His realism stands in the presence of the reality that life is cruel. As the boy in "I met a genius"tells Bukowski: its ugly. Readers of Bukowski savor the nihilism, the pessimism, the black humor of Bukowski's wit. But the structure of Dullaghan's film imposes a kind of teleology on the life of Bukowski which sheds insight into the genuine moral improvement of the man over time. The salvific relationship with Linda, his wife, is explored in interviews with her. We see him drinking less, being faithful to his wife, and genuinely enjoying the fruits of life. Her description of his last breaths and the knot that was unravelled upon his deathbed is a veritable epiphany. Dullaghan's film describes Bukowski's story through the lens of a path of suffering, transformation, and moral improvement. I realized that my initial understanding of Bukowski concealed what is revealed here, namely that Bukowski did not like to suffer and maybe more importantly that he came to realize that he did not have to suffer as much. And this is the light in which Dullaghan's film portrays him.

Dullaghan's choice to focus on the personal and psychological, of necessity has left that much less room for the poetry of Bukowski. Some of his poems are read, though it does not cover adequately any period of his poetry. In this way, the film may misrepresent the integration of his felt need for suffering with the art, of Bukowski's self-imposed dramaturgy of proletariat blues. One gets the impression from the film that Bukowski's poetry was instrumental to the increased freedom, respect, and dignity with which he was treated his later years. That may make one forget that the writing of his poetry was to him an intrinsically important end. It was for the sake of the art that Bukowski lived throughout his productive career. By failing to represent the poetry--the content of that poetry--alongside the emotivisitic descriptions of his psychological state, there is a failing to see the whole of his consciousness. That may be a falsification engendered by Dullaghan's editorial hand.

Regardless, Dullaghan has produced a masterpiece--rough hewn as Bukowski's face. The kind of film that makes your girlfriend cry.