Factotum: the Movie

Sometimes I'll watch a movie on TV and discover that, although it didn't impress me that much at the time, later it sticks in my mind on different levels and causes a lot of reflection. Such is the case with Factotum, a 2005 film based partially on writer Charles Bukowski's life (and based on his book with the same title),starring Matt Dillon in what I regard as a "career performance". Dillon's unforgettable character, aspiring and frustrated writer Henry Chinaski, is a chronic drinker and smoker, living at the bottom of society in Los Angeles, and who can never hold a job for more than a few days at a time (if that long) because he simply refuses to conform to any authority. He also is very adept at picking up women in spite of his perpetual poverty, largely due to his suave mannerisms and his ability to portray himself as an important writer/artist to them. And he reminds me of someone I used to know.

About thirty years ago, one of my colleagues at the restaurant I worked at displayed almost the identical mannerisms and personality as Chinaski. He pretty much faked his way through his workday and spent his nights going out to bars and getting drunk (despite being married to a beautiful woman with a small baby). I know this because I would go out drinking with him a few times (back during my drinking period). I would sit there at the bar privately marvelling how he seemed to come alive there, suavely handling his cigarette and drink. And how he knew just the right kind of expression and small talk to make with those around him. This was his life. And like Chinaski in the movie, this guy was rooted (or self-justified) in a legitimate career: he was "studying" to be admitted into medical school! Yet all he really wanted to do in life was to drink, smoke, hang out in bars, and pick up women. Ultimately, he was arrested on a DUI and then one day just stopped showing up for work. My employer showed much more patience with him than she ever did to anyone else, but finally had to let him go. And he reportedly moved on to another town to start the whole process all over again.

Henry Chinaski stated his personal creed in Factotum's closing scene when he monologued, "If you're going to try, go all the way.". Yet his rock-solid "principle" was only applied in a negative sense that he used to justify his deliberate stagnation and to reject any assistance from others by judging it to be manipulation. He was in a perpetual rut, partially because he completely oblivious to the fact that he was in a rut to begin with!

Factotum was at times quite funny to me, as I would brace myself each time that Chinaski got a new job and then figured out a new way to get himself unceremoniously fired. In one scene, he went to a former employer's office to collect a delayed final paycheck. He sat there and told his old boss that he was going to use the money to get drunk. Then the old boss gave him his money, after which he pulled his own bottle of liquor out from his desk and took a big swig. Implying that there is a kind a "society" among alcoholics in which, on some level, they recognize and look out for each other. Interesting.