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Charles Bukowski's influence on popular culture


Charles Bukowski's work has influenced popular culture many times over in many forms and his work has been referenced in film, television, music and theatre.

Several films have been made about Bukowski’s life most involving Bukowski’s literary alter ego, Henry Chinaski. Barfly, which is probably the best known Bukowski auto-biographic film, starring Mickey Rourke as Chinaski, centered on Bukowski’s time in Los Angeles while drinking and writing. While early on in the filming, Bukowski (who also wrote the screenplay) spoke approvingly of Rourke's portrayal he would later go on to say that he felt the actor overplayed the character.

Bukowski's film incarnations have stretched to even foreign lands outside of The United States. In 1981 Italian director Marco Ferrari created "Tales of Ordinary Madness" which was based on several of Charles Bukowski's short stories including "The most beautiful women in town". In 1987, a small Belgian film named "Crazy Love" was released. The script was co-written by Charles Bukowski and is not considered one of the best films in world cinema dating back to the 1980s

In 1995 actor Sean Penn (a good friend of Bukowski's) directed his second feature film; an independent piece named The Crossing Guard starring Jack Nicholson, Robin Wright, and David Morse. The closing credits of the film contain a dedication to Charles Bukowski

In 2005, a cinematic adaption of his novel Factotum, directed by Bent Hamer and starring Matt Dillon as Henry Chinaski, was released to largely favourable reviews, scoring a 75% "Fresh Rating" on the film review site Rotten Tomatoes.

Charles Bukowski has left an impression on many musicians throughout the years through his work. Bono, lead singer of the commercially and critically loved Irish rock band U2, credits Bukowski with a part in his love for American literature saying "Here was a guy who was like 'Look, I have no time for metaphors. Can we just get straight down to the bone..the marrow of the bone' ". U2 would later go on to pay tribute to Bukowski in Dirty Day, the ninth track off their widely successful album Zooropa.


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