# Barfly (film)
**Barfly** is a 1987 American comedy-drama film written by [Charles Bukowski](https://www.edgepedia.org/charles-bukowski) as a semi-autobiographical account of his years drinking heavily in Los Angeles, directed by [Barbet Schroeder](https://www.edgepedia.org/barbet-schroeder) and starring [Mickey Rourke](https://www.edgepedia.org/mickey-rourke) as Bukowski's alter ego Henry Chinaski alongside Faye Dunaway.[1](https://barbet-schroeder.com/movies/barfly-1987/) • [2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY) It was Bukowski's debut screenplay and Schroeder's first American film, and it competed at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1987 before a theatrical release that October.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | 16 October 1987 (New York); R rating, 100 minutes, comedy-drama[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY) |
| Director / writer | Barbet Schroeder (his first American film); original screenplay by Charles Bukowski (his debut screenplay)[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY) |
| Cast | Mickey Rourke (Henry Chinaski), Faye Dunaway (Wanda), Alice Krige, Jack Nance[3](https://www.festival-deauville.com/en/movies/barfly/) |
| Origin | Bukowski completed the screenplay in 1979 for a $20,000 commission from Schroeder; it took seven years to find a studio[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY) |
| Financing | The Cannon Group agreed to the $5 million budget once Mickey Rourke was signed[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY) |
| Festivals | Competed at Cannes in May 1987; played the New York Film Festival in September 1987[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY) |
| Author's stake | Bukowski called it "an account of several nights of my life, long ago, ninety-three percent of which really happened"[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY) |
## Spoilers
### Story and characters
The film follows Henry Chinaski, a writer and skid-row barfly who spends his days at a Los Angeles dive called the [Golden Horn](https://www.edgepedia.org/golden-horn), drinking, brawling with the bartender Eddie, and scribbling poetry. He meets Wanda, an alcoholic woman in the process of divorce, and the two outcasts begin a partnership in vice, clinging to each other while sliding into abandonment and chaos. A brief foray into respectability comes when Tully, an upscale editor who publishes one of Henry's stories, draws him toward her world, which he dismisses as "a cage with golden bars."[3](https://www.festival-deauville.com/en/movies/barfly/) • [4](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/11/20/barfly-shows-the-beauty-in-the-beast/d44bd863-a231-4611-a6a5-783090c6a49b/)
Chinaski was Bukowski's recurring fictional stand-in, and the screenplay draws on the author's own bar-crawling years in Los Angeles before he rose to fame.[5](https://www.trentarthur.ca/news/trent-film-society-presents-barfly) Bukowski said the film was ninety-three percent true to events he had lived.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY) The Golden Horn itself was based on two now-closed bars Bukowski had frequented, one in Philadelphia on 16th Street and Fairmount Avenue and one in Los Angeles at 6th and Alvarado streets; the scenes were filmed at a bar called Big Ed's in [Culver City, California](https://www.edgepedia.org/culver-city-california).[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY)
## From commission to screen
Schroeder, a Swiss-German director already acclaimed in Europe for *More* (1969), *La Vallée* (1972), and *Maîtresse* (1975), had long admired Bukowski's writing, calling him "the greatest living American writer." He offered Bukowski $20,000 to write an original screenplay rather than adapt an existing work.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY) According to one account of their first contact, Bukowski slammed down the phone on Schroeder's initial call and picked up again only when the director mentioned the money.[5](https://www.trentarthur.ca/news/trent-film-society-presents-barfly) Bukowski completed the script in 1979, and it was published as a book, with illustrations by the author, in 1984 while film production was still pending.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY) • [1](https://barbet-schroeder.com/movies/barfly-1987/)
**The long search for financing.** Producers who read the script asked, in Bukowski's recollection, "Sure, it's good, but who cares about a drunk?"[6](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-11-03-ca-18371-story.html) Interest rose when [Dennis Hopper](https://www.edgepedia.org/dennis-hopper) showed the script to [Sean Penn](https://www.edgepedia.org/sean-penn), who offered to act in it for a dollar as his salary. Penn, loyal to Hopper, wanted Hopper to direct, while Bukowski insisted on Schroeder; Bukowski convened a meeting at his house to break the impasse.[6](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-11-03-ca-18371-story.html) Penn eventually backed out over the directing question, and Mickey Rourke agreed to star instead.[6](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-11-03-ca-18371-story.html) • [7](https://epublications.vu.lt/object/elaba%3A193232055/193232055.pdf) The Cannon Group committed to the $5 million budget only once Rourke was signed.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY)
Schroeder's persistence became part of the film's legend. Cannon's president Menahem Golan later said of him, "He said he was going to cut off his finger if I didn't make his film." Schroeder's own account was more measured: he never intended to cut more than the end of his left little finger, and planned a press conference followed by a hospital visit to have it sewn back on.[1](https://barbet-schroeder.com/movies/barfly-1987/)
**Production.** [Principal photography](https://www.edgepedia.org/principal-photography) began on 2 February 1987 on a thirty-two-day schedule.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY) Schroeder gave Bukowski final say over the screenplay: any dialogue changes required his approval, and Bukowski was on set for most of the shooting, occasionally appearing as a background extra in the Golden Horn scenes.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY) He has a silent cameo as one of the bar patrons, and most of the extras were actual residents of the Culver City hotel used as a location.[1](https://barbet-schroeder.com/movies/barfly-1987/) The film was produced by Schroeder, Fred Roos, and Tom Luddy, photographed by Robby Müller, and edited by Eva Gardos, with [Francis Ford Coppola](https://www.edgepedia.org/francis-ford-coppola) presenting.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY) • [8](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/barfly-1987)
## Release and reception
Barfly competed at the Cannes International Film Festival in May 1987 and played the [New York Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-york-film-festival) that September. It opened at the Regency in New York City on 16 October 1987 and in Los Angeles on 6 November 1987; reviews tended to be positive.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY) Roger Ebert, the [Pulitzer Prize](https://www.edgepedia.org/pulitzer-prize)-winning critic of the [Chicago Sun-Times](https://www.edgepedia.org/chicago-sun-times), gave it four stars and named it one of the year's best films, calling it "a truly original American movie."[8](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/barfly-1987) The Washington Post's Desson Howe praised Rourke's "swaggering pathos" and called the role Dunaway's gutsiest.[4](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/11/20/barfly-shows-the-beauty-in-the-beast/d44bd863-a231-4611-a6a5-783090c6a49b/)
The film has remained a reference point for depictions of alcoholism on screen, and it is frequently cited as the most faithful adaptation of Bukowski's work, unsurprising given that he wrote it himself; it was the only screenplay he ever wrote.[9](https://www.levee67.org/bukowski/film-video.html) Bukowski himself sent mixed messages about the result in later years, moving from admiration to reservation.[10](https://www.christian-sauve.com/2022/11/barfly-1987/)
## Aftermath
Bukowski turned the experience of making the film into his 1989 novel *Hollywood*, a first-person fictionalization of the production dedicated to Schroeder.[10](https://www.christian-sauve.com/2022/11/barfly-1987/) • [1](https://barbet-schroeder.com/movies/barfly-1987/) Schroeder had earlier documented the writer on video in *The Bukowski Tapes* (1982–1984), excerpts of which later appeared as supplements on the film's DVD release alongside Schroeder's commentary and the 1987 making-of featurette "I Drink, I Gamble and I Write: The Making of Barfly."[11](https://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s595barfly.html)
## References
1. [Barfly (1987), barbet-schroeder.com](https://barbet-schroeder.com/movies/barfly-1987/)
2. [Barfly (1987), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/57547-BARFLY)
3. [Barfly, Festival du Cinéma Américain de Deauville](https://www.festival-deauville.com/en/movies/barfly/)
4. ["'Barfly' Shows the Beauty in the Beast," The Washington Post, 20 November 1987](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/11/20/barfly-shows-the-beauty-in-the-beast/d44bd863-a231-4611-a6a5-783090c6a49b/)
5. ["Trent Film Society Presents: Barfly," Trent Arthur, 5 November 2013](https://www.trentarthur.ca/news/trent-film-society-presents-barfly)
6. ["Big-Screen Time for Bukowski," Los Angeles Times, 3 November 1987](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-11-03-ca-18371-story.html)
7. [Autobiographical space in Bukowski's *Hollywood*, Vilnius University e-publications](https://epublications.vu.lt/object/elaba%3A193232055/193232055.pdf)
8. [Roger Ebert, "Barfly" review, Chicago Sun-Times, 18 December 1987](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/barfly-1987)
9. [Charles Bukowski: These Words I Write Keep Me from Total Madness, Film & Video](https://www.levee67.org/bukowski/film-video.html)
10. [Christian Sauvé, "Barfly (1987)" review, 27 November 2022](https://www.christian-sauve.com/2022/11/barfly-1987/)
11. [DVD Savant review of Barfly DVD, DVD Talk, 9 September 2002](https://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s595barfly.html)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1980s › Satirical, black, and parody comedies of the 1980s*
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