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.avi written as DVD

Author Charles Bukowski was one of those rare writers whose work created a myth of epic proportions around its creator. Over the years, the name "Bukowski" has become synonymous with screwing, drinking and fighting, seedy barrooms and foul-mouthed prostitutes, low-paying jobs and roach-infested hotel rooms. For readers, Bukowski has come to personify the lower depths of human existence; in a direct, powerful and very personal style, he writes about an unthinkable but very real degradation-degradation based on his own life experiences.

BUKOWSKI: BORN INTO THIS is the first comprehensive documentary of Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) and while long-time fans will find confirmation of the Bukowski they’d always imagined, there are plenty of surprises in store. The film traces his extraordinary life, from an abusive childhood through decades of poverty and alcoholism; numerous menial jobs and turbulent relationships; through 14 years as a postal employee; and his eventual international celebrity as a poet, novelist and underground cult icon. In his lifetime, Bukowski became most widely known as the screenwriter and real-life model for BARFLY, the feature film based on his early life.

Director John Dullaghan spent seven years researching and shooting BUKOWSKI: BORN INTO THIS, conducting dozens of interviews with relatives, neighbors, teenage pals, fellow post office workers, girlfriends and other poets as well as better-known friends like Bono, Sean Penn, Harry Dean Stanton, Barbet Schroeder and Taylor Hackford.

Dullaghan traveled the world obtaining documents, photos and footage of Bukowski, and has worked closely with those who knew Bukowski best-particularly Bukowski's wife, Linda, with whom he has also helped organize the Bukowski archive in San Pedro, CA. While the film was undertaken out of an appreciation for Bukowski, Dullaghan went to great lengths to present the different sides of the author, offering the most revealing look yet of Bukowski and his work. The result is a film that peels off the hardened mask of the mythic Bukowski to reveal the insecure, loving and extremely human man - and the artist - underneath.

Amazon.com
Director John Dullaghan's biographical documentary about infamous poet Charles Bukowski, Bukowski: Born Into This, is as much a touching portrait of the author as it is an exposé of his sordid lifestyle. Interspersed between ample vintage footage of Bukowski's poetry readings are interviews with the poet's fans including such legendary figures such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Joyce Fante (wife of John), Bono, and Harry Dean Stanton. Filmed in grainy black and white by Bukowski's friend, Taylor Hackford, due to lack of funding, the old films edited into this movie paint Bukowski's life of boozing and brawling romantically, securing Bukowski's legendary status. Born Into This relies on interviews with Bukowski for biographical information instead of cheesy voiceovers, bringing the viewer even closer to the author. For example, in one amazing sequence, Bukowski rides the viewer around in the backseat of his car, telling us through his rearview mirror of his stint as a post office worker which inspired the novel, Post Office. Scenes splicing interviews with Bukowski's ex-wife, Linda Lee, and R. Crumb's comic strip panels portraying Bukowski as a sex-crazed maniac, set the tone for bawdier parts of the film. Occasionally the film displays lines of Bukowski's poetry on the screen, as reminders that he was not only a raging alcoholic with a fierce sense of humor but also a talented and beloved writer. With so much hilariously shocking footage of "Hank," Bukowski: Born Into This presents Bukowski as a troubled but classic genius. --Trinie Dalton