Film Depictions
Bukowski: Born Into This, a film documenting the author's life, was released in 2003. It features contributions from Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Harry Dean Stanton and Bono (U2's song "Dirty Day" was dedicated to Bukowski when released in 1993).
In 1981, the Italian director Marco Ferreri made a film, Storie di ordinaria follia aka Tales of Ordinary Madness, loosely based on the short stories of Bukowski; Ben Gazzara played the role of Bukowski's character.
Barfly, released in 1987, is a semi-autobiographical film written by Bukowski and starring Mickey Rourke as Henry Chinaski, who represents Bukowski, and Faye Dunaway as his lover Wanda Wilcox. Sean Penn had offered to play the part of Chinaski for as little as a dollar as long as his friend Dennis Hopper would provide direction, but the European director Barbet Schroeder had invested many years and thousands of dollars in the project and Bukowski felt Schroeder deserved to make it. Bukowski wrote the screenplay for the film and appears as a bar patron in a brief cameo.
Also in 1987 a small Belgian film called Crazy Love came out, with script co-written by Bukowski himself. The film was loosely based upon three frequently-told episodes from his life.
The closing credits of the film The Crossing Guard contain a dedication to Bukowski from Sean Penn.
A film adaptation of Factotum, starring Matt Dillon, Lili Taylor, and Marisa Tomei, was released in 2005.
In 2011, the actor James Franco publicly stated that he is in the process of making a film adaptation of Bukowski's novel Ham on Rye. He is currently writing the script with his brother Dave, and explained that his reason for wanting to make the film is because "Ham on Rye is one of my favorite books of all time."
Read more about this topic: Charles Bukowski
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