Bartleby (2001)

Director:

Jonathan Parker

Writers:

Herman Melville (story)
Jonathan Parker (screenplay) ...

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

I would prefer not to.

Plot:

A clueless boss has no idea what to do with his mundane office worker whose refusal of duties only gets worse each passing minute.

Plot Keywords:

Office | Employee | Records | Employer | Insubordination

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

David Paymer	...	The Boss
Crispin Glover	...	Bartleby
Glenne Headly	...	Vivian
Maury Chaykin	...	Ernest
Joe Piscopo	...	Rocky
Seymour Cassel	...	Frank Waxman
Carrie Snodgress	...	Book Publisher
Dick Martin	...	The Mayor
Greta Danielle Newgren	...	Boss's Date
Ken Murakami	...	Landlord
Josh Kornbluth	...	Property Manager
Nick Scoggin	...	Street Philosopher
Stoney Burke	...	Soup Kitchen Server
Terry Allen Jones	...	New Tenant
Stu Klitsner	...	Professor Bum (as Stuart Klitsner)

Also Known As:

Bartleby at the Office (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some sexual content.

Runtime:

83 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

USA:PG-13 | UK:PG

Filming Locations:

Novato, California, USA

Company:

Parker Film Company

Trivia:

Dick Martin's final acting performance.

Goofs:

Continuity: When the boss's date is straddling him in his office, sometimes her hair is wrapped in a scarf and sometimes it's not.

Quotes:

Rocky: Let me tell you something: It's the sensitive guy that gets the needy woman.
Ernie: Yeah, well it's the worm that gets the hooker.

Movie Connections:

Version of Bartleby (1976)

Soundtrack:

Phantasie #3 In D Minor

Melville and Co-dependency

The film touches on some parts of the original story very aptly. I thought the Chaykin-Piscopo match was very close indeed to what Melville intended. As to Crispin Glover, no other movie actor of his stature is creepy enough and palpably slow-witted enough to fit the role -- not even the younger editions of a Brando or Hopper or Walken, who would overact monstrously in one form or another.

Most viewers seem to surrender to the misconception that the story is all about Bartleby. In fact, the narrator undergoes the most profound change within its context. And in that sense this film version fails because the Paymer character is made out to be a complete sap, rather than the seriously introspective and well-educated man of the original.

No one in 1853 knew anything of co-dependency in relation to addictions and other mental disorders, but Melville was prescient in that regard. The apparent despondency of Bartleby (characterized in the original as late of the Dead Letter Office) has no bounds, but it is in his employer's character we are led to see that this relatively new concept involving an excess of identification with the subject person can result in similar debilitation on the part of the caregiver.

It falls as well into the category of feature-length films based on short stories destroyed by too much padding and extraneous activity we used to call "stage business." It should be as spare as the slowly emptying mind of Bartleby himself.