Bukowski at Bellevue (1970)
In the spring of 1970 Charles Bukowski took his first plane trip for a poetry reading at Bellevue Community College in Washington state. That he was videotaped by two students apparently was later forgotten, but the tapes were recently rediscovered and have been released by Black Sparrow press. "Bukowski at Bellevue" gives us a fascinating glimpse of the man before he had to be concerned with how celebrity and financial security were affecting him. (It is said that this was only his fourth public reading.) This is Bukowski, then about 50, taken straight. No games, no irony, no self-consciousness--just an ordinary-looking guy, maybe hung over, sitting before a small group of students reading his work with gusto, humor and sensitivity. A man who clearly had lived the marginal life he wrote about with passion and at times a lyrical, even mystical beauty.
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What a waste of my time!!!
Charming and brutal
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?
Bukowski at Bellevue is basically amateur footage of one of the poet's readings, unearthed after thirty or so years. With little or no introductory matter, it plunges straight into the readings, as Bukowski reads some of his best poetry for the audience.The film and sound quality testifies to the film's amateur origins, with the sound level at times fluctuating, and the film itself briefly freezing up as the audio goes on. However, viewers interested enough to rent this will not be watching for the technical aspects. Rather, they will thrill to hearing the man himself read poems such as "I Think of the Little Men." This film is best seen as a companion piece for the documentary Bukowski: Born Into This. Combining the latter film's examination of the poet's life with footage of him in action has an excellent effect.