The work of poet/author Charles Bukowski, America's "Budweiser Baudelaire," has always had a kind of contradictory appeal. On the one hand, Bukowski, a misanthropic alcoholic, delivered a harsh, no-holds-barred account of life on the skid-row underbelly of society. And yet he did so with such prosaic elegance, with such power, wit and confidence, that it's hard not to romanticize the often miserable experiences of drink and cheap women that he describes.
"Living is a matter of / adjusting to / zero. /Death, like life, / solves / nothing." That's the kind of sentiment Bukowski is known for, but one so often missing from the films about the man.
Bukowski's work was autobiographical, and several films have given us stories with the author as the central figure. 1987's "Barfly," with Mickey Rourke playing Bukowski's alter-ego, Henry Chinaski, is a great, truly funny film, but one that makes alcoholism-induced cirrhosis of the liver less sordid and more a sort of wacky adventure. Even Bukowski's nihilism becomes a one-liner. (Faye Dunaway: "I hate people, don't you?" Rourke: "I don't mind them, but I seem to feel better when they're not around.")