Barfly

Director: Barbet Schroeder

1987 / 100min / 35mm

Schroeder’s adaptation of cult author Charles Bukowski’s original screenplay, starring Mickey Rourke as the author’s perpetually pickled gutter poet alter ego Henry Chinaski, is very simply one of the most blearily beautiful depictions of Los Angeles in all of cinema—that is, if you have a particular predilection for dive bars, flophouses, and flickering neon as seen through the eye of Müller. A simple story of lowlife love between lushes, with Faye Dunaway as Chinaski’s female opposite number, agleam with glimpses of enchantment amidst the downtown desolation.

Part of Robby Müller: Remain in Light