An Evening with Charles Bukowski

Written and directed by Matteo Borgardt
Featuring Charles Bukowski, Linda Lee Beighle and Silvia Bizio
Running time: 52 minutes
Unrated-Contains smoking, drinking, general potty-mouth and discussions of sex

by Benjamin Leonard, Best Boy

I was introduced to Charles Bukowski’s work in the mid-to-late nineties. It was just shortly after his death. I’d heard plenty about his foul language and dirty sex stories, but I’d also heard he was a soulful poet. I’d been reading a lot of Kerouac and Burroughs in those years and he sounded like a good fit. The first thing I ever read of his was his last completed novel, Pulp. As I was walking through my local bookstore, it was on the endcap as a staff pick. Twenty-five years and the majority of his bibliography later, I think it was a great place to start. With Buk in his later years looking back at his life, it contextualized a lot of the rough-and-rowdy iconography that precedes most people’s actual introduction to his work.