Bartleby

Year: 2001

Grade: B-

Country: USA

Director: Parker

Review

based on a melville short story, bartleby is about a records worker who slowly starts refusing to do work by simply stating that he’d “prefer not to.” i’ve never read the short story so i can’t compare the two works. the film is offbeat and generally funny. colors are bright and garish, as are the supporting characters. is bartleby a posterchild for the proletariat? a beaming example of passive resistance? he doesn’t refuse to work, he merely states that he’d prefer not to. he doesn’t object to his firing, but he doesn’t take his final pay, or even leave the building. once a good worker, bartleby slowly comes to have enough of the entire enterprise. is he dead because he has no passion for living, or is he more alive than his co-workers because he recognizes the mundane nature of life and work? his co-workers are either stupid, brutish, oversexed or aware of life’s futility, but unwilling to do anything about it. what to make of bartleby’s obsession with the air vent – his only link to the outside world? if the story is supposed to be about larger meaning – bartleby as leader of the proletariat, his co-workers as symbols of the lazy masses – then why is the building in which they work on an island, separated from the rest of the city? i can’t say that i was able to make much sense of the film on the whole, but bits of it are thought-provoking, compelling or funny and so the film is recommendable. also, crispin glover turns in a performance that only he could.