Bartleby

Bartleby is a very strange and at times surreal movie experience. In came out in 2001 although I had never heard of it until recently. I found it while rummaging around on Netflix one night and finally got around to watching it yesterday. My 10 yr. old and my wife watched it with me, when it went off the 10 yr. old asked, "What was that about?" and my wife said, "That movie lasted about and hour and 1/2 to long." I liked it, it was weird and very strange and appeared to have been shot on a very low budget. I thought it was from the 80's, it wasn't until I looked it up on IMDB that I saw it had come out so (relatively) recently. The movie centers around and office manager played by David Paymer and his strange new employee Bartleby, played by the awesome Crispin Glover. Paymer's character runs a small public records office, he has a secretary and two employees until extra work load leads him to place an add for a new worker, the only applicant is Bartleby and so, despite his strange mannerisms, he's hired. He works well for awhile but then one day he's asked to do something and he responds, "I'd rather not." This becomes a sort of catch phrase for him and as the film progresses he begins answering, "I'd rather not." more and more often. I don't want to give away anything that happens but this progresses to it's furthermost conclusion. To answer the question my son asked, "What was this about?", I answered that I believed it was about non-conformity. I've thought about and talked about the movie some today and I believe my first assessment was right. Everyone at the office conforms to what their suppose to do and even though all the characters have their quirks, they conform to what their stereotypes are, everyone except Bartleby. Bartleby stands there staring at the air conditioner vent preferring not to work and it drives everyone else to distraction, especially the boss. Something is obviously wrong with Bartleby, but we're never told what or why he is the way he is, he prefers not to talk about it. His nonconformism goes to extreme measures (if just standing there preferring not to do anything can be considered extreme) and infects others. I loved the last scene in the film. The movie isn't a call to nonconformism because it shows what an outcast it can make you, it's more an illustration of how we all fall in line everyday without usually even realizing that we are.  The movie is based upon a Melville short story titled, Barleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, I've not read this but I'll have to keep an eye out for it now.