''The Charles Bukowski Tapes'' are a collection of short interviews with the American writer/poet

Charles Bukowski Henry Charles Bukowski ( ; born Heinrich Karl Bukowski, ; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted ...

, filmed and assembled by Barbet Schroeder and first published in 1985. Today, the video documentary is considered a

cult classic A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. ...

Plot

The Charles Bukowski Tapes are an altogether more than four hours long collection of 52 short-interviews with the American cult author Charles Bukowski, sorted by topic and each between one and ten minutes long. Director Barbet Schroeder ''( Barfly)'' interviews Bukowski about such themes as alcohol, violence, and women, and Bukowski answers willingly, losing himself in sometimes minute-long monologues. Amongst other things, Bukowski leads the small camera team through his parents’ house and his former neighbourhood, but the largest part of the interviews takes place in Bukowski's flat or backyard. The documentary includes a scene in which Bukowski reacts violently toward his wife Linda Lee.

History of origin

The documentary was assembled from about 64 hours of film footage, which occurred during the three-year lead time for Schroeder's motion picture '' Barfly'', for which Bukowski wrote the autobiographical script.

Critical reception

References

External links

* 1987 films Documentary films about writers French independent films English-language French films Documentary films about poets 1980s English-language films 1980s French films {{bio-documentary-film-stub