Bartleby

Herman Melville's `Bartleby the Scrivener' has always been one of my all-time favorite short stories, a masterpiece of tone that features one of the most enigmatic characters in literary history. With devastating wit and understated irony – along with a keen appreciation for the absurdist and the surreal - Melville tells the tale of a well meaning though banally efficient pragmatist who is forced to reconsider his values when he runs up against a certified (and perhaps certifiably insane) nonconformist. After he hires Bartleby to be a clerk in his office, the (unnamed) employer quickly discovers that the taciturn, quirky young man has no intention of doing any work - and, even more strangely, that he feels no compulsion to explain his state of self-imposed inertia. What makes Bartleby fascinating is that he is a nonconformist simply by nature and not because he has any real bone to pick with society or the people around him. This lack of explanation frustrates the boss, of course, and some readers as well. But it is Bartleby's defining phrase, `I would prefer not to' - delivered like a refrain throughout the course of the story - that speaks for those in society who question the value and purpose of the myriad irrelevant tasks we are compelled to perform as we make our way through life.

Melville conceived his story as a stinging indictment aimed against the dehumanizing effect of the business world's bureaucratic structure. How appropriate, then, that the makers of this current film version (now called simply `Bartleby') have chosen to set the tale in the present day, when that guiding philosophy has become, if anything, even more pronounced. David Paymer is splendid as the public records office manager who finds himself embroiled in an epic battle of wills against a force he cannot understand yet, in some bizarre fashion, can also not help identifying with and admiring. Crispin Glover is the pasty-faced Bartleby who seems to slip further and further into a state of catatonic madness as the story progresses. In their screenplay, Jonathan Parker (who also directed the film) and Catherine Di Napoli have retained the flavor of the original, combining hilarious and poignant moments in roughly equal measure. For even while we are laughing at the absurdity of both Bartleby and the other eccentric staff members in the office, we are also being made aware – as the boss is – of just how unique and admirable a creature Bartleby truly is.

With its deliberate pacing, its starkly antiseptic, parti-colored sets and its eerily moody musical score (some of it reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann's work for `The Day the Earth Stood Still'), the film takes us to a highly stylized world where the events we see depicted come to make total sense. Only the most blatant realist will be inspired to question the wisdom of the main character's actions concerning Bartleby. All the rest of us will see the boss for the open-minded humanitarian Melville intended him to be.

Parker has pulled together an interestingly offbeat group of actors to serve as his supporting cast, including Dick Martin, Joe Piscopo and Carrie Snodgrass. Glenne Headly is particularly wonderful as a flirtatious office worker who spends most of her time making suggestive comments, gestures and even foodstuffs to lure men her way.

It's the extraordinarily controlled and brilliantly delivered deadpan humor that makes `Bartleby' an adaptation worthy of its source. This movie proves that Melville's nonpareil creation will forever be a timeless tale.

I never heard of this movie until couple of weeks ago when I saw it on TV. This brings my question - where do all the good, "small", independent movies go after they've been created and screened on the Sundance Film Festival? How do we learn about their existence? Where do we read about them? And most importantly, where can we see them?

Bartleby, the first film directed and written by Jonathan Parker is a real gem - modern version of the Melville's short story "Bartleby the Scrivener" with absolutely amazing cast.

Crispin Glover plays Bartleby, the man who was hired, but preferred not to work and who was fired, but preferred not to leave. David Paymer is his clueless boss who tries to understand what he is dealing with. Glenne Headly is Vivian, an office secretary, the woman of many adorable talents; Maury Chaykin, and Joe Piscopo are his coworkers in the one of the most boring office ever existed. The office is located in the building that sits on the top of the hill and comes directly from the El Greco's painting "View of Toledo" with its atmosphere of mystery, danger, and loneliness: Would you like to work in the building like that? I'd prefer not to...

I believe Parker made a very impressive debut - the film is creatively shot, the use of music is amazing - Beethoven's sonata turns into a creepy, quirky and moody Bartleby's theme for which Parker used theremin - very interesting and unique musical instrument. Parker and his co -writer transported 'Bartleby the Scrivener' into a surreal and absurd black comedy - satire on bureaucracy and alienation in the insane and cruel modern world.

Franz Kafka's name came to my mind more than once while watching the film - he would've loved that absurd, funny but dark and sad story. Also, if ever a good movie is made about one of the greatest and tragic writers of 20th Century, Crispin Glover should play him. Just compare their pictures...

Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby the Scrivener" gets a slightly surreal update in this offbeat comedy drama. The manager (David Paymer) of the city records department in a mid-sized California community decides that his staff of three - flirty chatterbox Vivian (Glenne Headly), sloppy Vietnam vet Ernie (Maury Chaykin), and slick-suited, Don Juan wannabe Rocky (Joe Piscopo) - could use some help, so he places an ad looking for a new employee. The boss ends up hiring the one and only applicant who wants the position, a quiet, pale young man named Bartleby (Crispin Glover).

At first, Bartleby is a model of efficiency, but before long he loses enthusiasm for his job, much to the annoyance of his co-workers, and soon he's spending his days staring at an air conditioning vent. The Boss asks Bartleby to get back to work, but Bartleby's repeated reply to such requests is, "I prefer not to," and the Boss sees little recourse but to fire him.

However, Bartleby refuses to leave his desk, and it soon becomes obvious that Bartleby has not only stopped doing his work - he's stopped going home and has moved into the office. Bartleby was the first feature film for producer/director Parker. He also wrote the screenplay, in collaboration with Catherine Di Napoli.

There is really not enough material in Melville's story to warrant a feature length film. When "Bartleby" sticks to the text of the story it is interesting and fairly funny, but Parker is forced to add a lot of filler which is simply not very good. Worth a look, but in the end, a bit weak.

The film touches on some parts of the original story very aptly. I thought the Chaykin-Piscopo match was very close indeed to what Melville intended. As to Crispin Glover, no other movie actor of his stature is creepy enough and palpably slow-witted enough to fit the role -- not even the younger editions of a Brando or Hopper or Walken, who would overact monstrously in one form or another.

Most viewers seem to surrender to the misconception that the story is all about Bartleby. In fact, the narrator undergoes the most profound change within its context. And in that sense this film version fails because the Paymer character is made out to be a complete sap, rather than the seriously introspective and well-educated man of the original.

No one in 1853 knew anything of co-dependency in relation to addictions and other mental disorders, but Melville was prescient in that regard. The apparent despondency of Bartleby (characterized in the original as late of the Dead Letter Office) has no bounds, but it is in his employer's character we are led to see that this relatively new concept involving an excess of identification with the subject person can result in similar debilitation on the part of the caregiver.

It falls as well into the category of feature-length films based on short stories destroyed by too much padding and extraneous activity we used to call "stage business." It should be as spare as the slowly emptying mind of Bartleby himself.

The head of a public records office advertises for a new employee. Only one person responds--Bartleby, a former postal worker who at first files like a demon then lapses into apathy. Bartleby stands all day looking at an air vent in the ceiling, responding to every request from his boss and coworkers with, "I would prefer not to." Eventually the boss retaliates with passive-aggressive acts aimed at getting rid of the man. Till the very end, however, Bartleby remains an enigma, a human cipher who refuses to give up his secrets.

Hardly an engaging story premise? That's what I thought when I trudged through Herman Melville's mid-nineteenth century story "Bartleby the Scrivener" in college lit class. Sure, the story has an important theme and some interesting symbolism, but it's also dull, dull, dull. However, director Jonathan Parker has taken the best sort of revenge on this canonical work of American literature; he's turned it into a zany, low-budget, laugh fest--getting across many of the essential ideas while also entertaining his audience. Parker has approached the sort of exaggerated, stale, depressing office atmosphere seen at the beginning of "Joe Versus the Volcano" and turned it inside out, covering it with a colorful, kitschy facade to inflate the absurdity of modern information mills.

Essential to the success of the film is the fine ensemble cast. Crispin Glover deserves more lead roles, and though with Bartleby he does spend most of his time immobile and silent, perhaps no other actor can accomplish more with simple posture, well-manipulated expressions, and quirky movement. Glenne Headly is a scream in her exaggerated seduction attempts aimed at Seymour Cassel. Joe Piscopo is also in fine form as the office macho man, though he has aged dramatically since we saw him last in, what--"Wise Guys"? Maury Chaykin gives the overweight and nerve-racked Ernie a comic flair, playing with his desktop windup toys only to flinch every time they jump, and pulling off an impressive physical comedy scene involving a sandwich, a photocopier, and a watercooler. Finally, David Paymer as "The Boss" provides a solid focus for the film with his adaptive performance of a complex character.