Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 29, 2020 8:56:58 GMT -8
I watched the 1970 version of Herman Melville’s Bartleby. Paul Scofield plays The Accountant and John McEnery plays Bartleby.
There’s also a 2001 version, a 1976 version, and other versions as well.
This is a queer story. And we should resurrect that word and save it from oblivion because it fits some things like no other word.
I mostly enjoyed the story, although it got quite repetitive. What makes it work at all isn’t John McEnery as Bartleby (one supposes nearly anyone could play that role gauging by his performance). It works because of the performance of Paul Scofield as the boss.
At 1 hour, 18 minutes, it’s too long. As a short piece, this would have been better. What’s astonishing is that it can work at all given the almost zero content other than the Boss’s mounting exasperation, and then pity, and then alarm.
Offhand, I’m guessing the 2001 French version is the one I should have started with. One reviewer says that most others are “stolid and vacuous” portrayals. The vacuity of the performance by John McEnery as Bartleby is in abundance. But maybe the character is supposed to be that way? I don’t know. I’ll see if I can find the French version.
There’s also a 2001 version, a 1976 version, and other versions as well.
This is a queer story. And we should resurrect that word and save it from oblivion because it fits some things like no other word.
I mostly enjoyed the story, although it got quite repetitive. What makes it work at all isn’t John McEnery as Bartleby (one supposes nearly anyone could play that role gauging by his performance). It works because of the performance of Paul Scofield as the boss.
At 1 hour, 18 minutes, it’s too long. As a short piece, this would have been better. What’s astonishing is that it can work at all given the almost zero content other than the Boss’s mounting exasperation, and then pity, and then alarm.
Offhand, I’m guessing the 2001 French version is the one I should have started with. One reviewer says that most others are “stolid and vacuous” portrayals. The vacuity of the performance by John McEnery as Bartleby is in abundance. But maybe the character is supposed to be that way? I don’t know. I’ll see if I can find the French version.
What does it mean? Gauging by this movie, there doesn’t seem to be much to say. We don’t know what caused Bartleby to be the way he was or if he’d always been that way, drifting through life, perhaps people tending to always throw him a rope because he was so pathetic. I haven’t read the book so I can’t say much about what Melville intended. But it is indeed a queer story.