We were shown this film as part of a class with Herman Melville's story "Bartleby the Scrivener". While the story- and the film as well- were given to us under the context of Marxist criticism, without all the dark symbolism and heavy-ness of the satire it is a fairly good story. The inherent problem with a film of it, however, is that the story is less than half the length of the film of it; certain aspects are added to heigthen the mood of the Public Records office perhaps not totally needed. The director/co-writer Jonathan Parker has set up here an eclectic, unusual, but highly effective group of character actors for the task (Paymer is excellent as the boss, Glover containing a similar persona he would further creep out with in 2003's Willard remake, not to forget Cassell also, though Piscapo is s a little less adept with the others). The music is that sort of off-kilter kind that almost goes off the deep end itself. And the common phrase of the film (as well as the story), "I...prefer not to", will likely stay in your head for some time afterward. Who knows, perhaps there is more worth to watching the film in a Marxist-analysis context, there certainly is a lot to take apart. As a satire, the film does have some ground to keep its feet on. The problem is is that aside from the good mood and the well-played cast, the tries at humor are usually uncomfortably executed (and not in the good way like Meet the Parents or something). The whole unsure-of-society tone is right for the film, but if any sense should creep into the picture it falls apart from itself. It's the kind of film I was glad to see once, because now I know the story is much better (or, to put it another way, if I saw the film before reading the book, I would get the book right away, just to make sure).

I found this movie disturbing. Advertised as a comedy, it is no such thing. There is a lot of comedy in there, all right, but overall the themes are heavy, disturbing, even horrific. Crispin Glover's performance is flawless, and his role in the story is to pose a lot of questions that never get answered. The story revolves around the other characters' failure to figure him out. The new employee at the Public Records Office in an unnamed city starts out doing a great job, but he does less and less work as time goes on until he is spending most of his time refusing requests to perform any job tasks, or simply gazing up into the air-conditioning vent. They fire him, but he doesn't leave. It gets worse from there, believe me.

Herman Melville's `Bartleby the Scrivener' has always been one of my all-time favorite short stories, a masterpiece of tone that features one of the most enigmatic characters in literary history. With devastating wit and understated irony – along with a keen appreciation for the absurdist and the surreal - Melville tells the tale of a well meaning though banally efficient pragmatist who is forced to reconsider his values when he runs up against a certified (and perhaps certifiably insane) nonconformist. After he hires Bartleby to be a clerk in his office, the (unnamed) employer quickly discovers that the taciturn, quirky young man has no intention of doing any work - and, even more strangely, that he feels no compulsion to explain his state of self-imposed inertia. What makes Bartleby fascinating is that he is a nonconformist simply by nature and not because he has any real bone to pick with society or the people around him. This lack of explanation frustrates the boss, of course, and some readers as well. But it is Bartleby's defining phrase, `I would prefer not to' - delivered like a refrain throughout the course of the story - that speaks for those in society who question the value and purpose of the myriad irrelevant tasks we are compelled to perform as we make our way through life.Melville conceived his story as a stinging indictment aimed against the dehumanizing effect of the business world's bureaucratic structure. How appropriate, then, that the makers of this current film version (now called simply `Bartleby') have chosen to set the tale in the present day, when that guiding philosophy has become, if anything, even more pronounced. David Paymer is splendid as the public records office manager who finds himself embroiled in an epic battle of wills against a force he cannot understand yet, in some bizarre fashion, can also not help identifying with and admiring. Crispin Glover is the pasty-faced Bartleby who seems to slip further and further into a state of catatonic madness as the story progresses. In their screenplay, Jonathan Parker (who also directed the film) and Catherine Di Napoli have retained the flavor of the original, combining hilarious and poignant moments in roughly equal measure. For even while we are laughing at the absurdity of both Bartleby and the other eccentric staff members in the office, we are also being made aware – as the boss is – of just how unique and admirable a creature Bartleby truly is.With its deliberate pacing, its starkly antiseptic, parti-colored sets and its eerily moody musical score (some of it reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann's work for `The Day the Earth Stood Still'), the film takes us to a highly stylized world where the events we see depicted come to make total sense. Only the most blatant realist will be inspired to question the wisdom of the main character's actions concerning Bartleby. All the rest of us will see the boss for the open-minded humanitarian Melville intended him to be.Parker has pulled together an interestingly offbeat group of actors to serve as his supporting cast, including Dick Martin, Joe Piscopo and Carrie Snodgrass. Glenne Headly is particularly wonderful as a flirtatious office worker who spends most of her time making suggestive comments, gestures and even foodstuffs to lure men her way.It's the extraordinarily controlled and brilliantly delivered deadpan humor that makes `Bartleby' an adaptation worthy of its source. This movie proves that Melville's nonpareil creation will forever be a timeless tale.

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.