Bartleby

I LOVE Bartleby. This 1970 original is marvellous. Based on Herman Melville's classic novella, it's a work of art. A cold delicate hug of a film. It's slow meandering shots, it's wistful jazz infused score. In the 20 years since I first saw it, I've never seen anything else quite like it. Every frame is a beautiful portrait of London character and mundanity. An ode to 60s design culture, geometric modernity. In the centre of all this is Bartleby (John McEnery), a likeable yet unusual young man looking for work, purpose, meaning. He's painfully polite and good natured, but how shall we say, minimal with his communication skills. Despite this, he gets a job as an audit clerk in a drab office run by the friendly but stuffy Paul Scofield. This first interview between the two is typically awkward, but the boss has no idea what he's let himself in for. Bartleby is like no other employee he's ever had. Certainly nothing like office prankster Robin Askwith, the cheeky cocky chappy famed for his seaside titillation or Tucker (Colin Jeavons) who gives poor Bartleby such a hard time. They don't understand him you see. He has his way of doing things... and not doing things. The first indications of this coming when he's asked to bring some files and responds with the charming "I would rather not, just now", leaving his slightly dumbfounded boss unsure how to deal with him. They think he's being insubordinate, lazy even, "A bit strange". He's not though, Bartleby is focused, inquisitive, in tune with his world, his surroundings, his choices. Despite his boss's patience. Bartleby's "I'd prefer not to" refrain continues to confound his co-workers. He's civil, dignified, utterly magnetic to watch. I know it doesn't sound like it would be, it sounds totally nuts, but there's something completely arresting about it. It's partly down to the gorgeous cinematography of London's concrete vistas, partly the effortlessly cool score that accompanies these interludes to the office scenes. Mostly though it's Bartleby, McEnery is simply perfect with his unassuming poise. The tasks that Bartleby politely refuses to complete increase and his boss discovers that now not only is his employee refusing to work, he's also living in the office. There's no explanation for his behaviour, certainly none offered and the boss' patience eventually runs out, but sacking him isn't really going to work. Fair play to the boss (he really does deserve a name, such is Scofield's lovely performance) he does everything he can to help, but at the end of his tether moves offices, leaving Bartleby completely unanchored and headed only he knows where. It's an odd but captivating study of will, of social standing, of the modern workplace and our reliance on its structures. It's brilliant. Much to my horror and admittedly some intrigue, the story was revisited again in 2001. Now I'm not gonna dig in too deep again, but it's worth noting that where the 1970 film is very much based more loosely on the book, this sticks a little closer. I'm not sure that makes it any better as a film though. It has a very distinct style, a bold colour palate and an almost Lynchian tone in its simplicity... the entire cast is odd. What's most notable of course, is Bartleby, played by none other Crispin Glover. I remember seeing this on release and was really taken by Glover. He's an unusual guy himself, take a look at his Letterman interviews and did you know he release an album? It's on Spotify, have a listen. Anyway he's great here and arguably does more than McEnery in the original. He's not as haunting though. It's funnier, like a Canadian TV skit show in the early 90s. This though for me distracts from Bartleby and his preferring not to. It's almost slapstick in places. It's still worth a watch, but doesn't hold a candle to its predecessor.

The problem with Bartleby is not Paul Scofield or John McEnery, both of whom are fine actors. The problem is the story itself, which cannot really be updated to the present day, regardless of whether that present day be 1970 or 2001. Bartleby is a story written in the 1800s, about the 1800s, and it simply doesn't work in the present day.

For example, there is the office in which Bartleby works. He works for a lawyer in a cold and dark office that seems more akin to that of Ebenezer Scrooge than to any bright, airy, modern-day office building. Indeed, the only window in Bartleby's office has no view because it looks out onto an airshaft.

Then there is the nature of Bartleby's occupation. He is not, as in this version, an accountant. Indeed, his function is nowhere near so creative as that. He is, in point of fact, a scrivener in a law office. And exactly what is it that a scrivener does? He copies law documents. Bartleby is, in point of fact, nothing more than a human Xerox Machine. Bear in mind that, in the 19th century, there were no such things as word processors, Xerox Machines, carbon paper or even typewriters. A lawyer who needed to produce duplicate copies of legal documents employed scriveners to produce those copies word for word, by hand, with pen and paper. It is impossible to imagine any occupation as stupefyingly dull as that.

By the same token, it is also impossible to imagine anyone today performing any occupation even remotely comparable to that of a 19th century scrivener. It simply doesn't, and could't, exist today. And that is precisely the point. The world of Bartleby is as different from the world of a modern office worker as the world inhabited by the whalers in Moby Dick would be from that on board a modern-day whale-catching ship. Both have changed so much since the 19th century as to be as alien as the surface of another planet.

A somewhat sad and unusual film. John McEnery is marvelous as Bartleby, you cannot help feeling sorry for him even though he does not want to be helped in any way. Paul Scofield is also perefectly cast as the sympathetic boss.

A dry and deadpan tragicomedy of nihilism based on a novella by Herman Meville. BARTLEBY demonstrates what happens when, "I would prefer not to", becomes the answer to every action and reaction. A similar motif is also found in the more profound film, VAGABOND, by Agnes Varda. These works seem to critique the capitalist economic model without proposing the usual socialist reply, but offer up something more akin to complete non- acceptance. Although Anthony Friedman, director of BARTLEBY, has chosen a significantly different storyline from that of Melville (the film is set in late 1960's London), the tale does encapsulate his theme of the dehumanization of the modern workplace and presents a whimsical, yet unwise response.

An odd but interesting updating of Melville short story that has a superb cast. Colin Jeavons (Inspector Lestrade to Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes) does his best Tom Courtenay impression. Thorley Walters is his typically distracted self (though he hasn't much to do). Paul Scofield has one of the greatest challenges of his career: playing an ordinary employer, and he rises to the challenge with a superb performance.

The weak link is John McEnery. A fine actor, he was a stand-out as Kerensky in "Nicholas and Alexandra" (and perhaps the only actor who wasn't swamped by the affair) and his Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet" was more interesting than either Romeo or Juliet. But his Bartleby is too soft-spoken. I don't read Melville's Bartleby as being so apologetic when he says "I prefer not to." McEnery seems to want to strip any sort of emoting at all from his performance -- and that he comes so close proves that he is a fine actor -- and he comes off as merely bland, and Scofield acts him off the screen.

Gratuitous scenes of '60s folk on the street PERHAPS try to tie Bartleby in with the spirit of revolt, in his own way. But it that's what they meant, it doesn't seep through. The growing weirdness and sadness of Bartleby is diluted (for instance, by putting the dead letter office gag up front). McEnery's Bartleby is sad throughout and there's no explanation offered.

Though it doesn't quite capture the essence of Melville, it's worth watching for Scofield alone.