The non-conformist… Bartleby (1970)

I confess that I was in the mood for a more ebullient film and confused this with Alan Bates’ Butley (1974) but once you start watching John McEnery’s turn as the almost impenetrable Bartleby it’s hard to look away. This film is as emotionally intelligent as they come and provides a puzzle for the audience and performers alike with a character who behaves in ways that are often painful to watch and which speak to our insecurities and the instinctive need to not only respond in kind to others’ prompting but to conform in most of what we do. Society expects and there’s a good adaptive instinct behind that but to every rule there must be an exception and, perhaps the main character is one of those accidents of nature that leads nowhere or somewhere depending on your point of view.

The film is an adaptation of the short story Bartleby, the Scrivener; A Story of Wall-street (1853) written by Herman Melville apparently in reaction to the disappointing sales of Moby Dick and Pierre, his preceding novel. As such it’s source story of possibly about depression and alienation, but updated and relocated to London, by director Anthony Friedman who co-scripted with Rodney Carr-Smith, its meaning is less hard to pin down. The main character is withdrawn and, in being so, pulls in his employer, an accountant played by the masterly Paul Scofield whose commercial concerns are replaced by an enigmatic concern for the other’s well-being even as he exasperates and frustrates him.

John McEnery

The film also provides something of a city symphony with extensive locations showing the London of 1970 and there is much fun to be had in spotting streets and buildings that are familiar and yet long changed, this is an aftertaste of a city we all take for granted and yet which never gives us pause for breath. Bartleby is first seen on a train heading into Euston where he puts his luggage into a locker and after a tube journey – Northern Line? - emerges into the bright London light and immediately looks out of place in the concrete jungle as commuters mill around the temporary walkways around London Bridge.

Bartleby is looking for work and we see flashbacks of his previous position in a Post Office sorting office as he trudges the streets, a look of vague dissatisfaction and wariness indicating a troubled past and a troubling present. McEnery manages to convey everything and almost nothing and whilst depression may have been on the script there’s a ringing familiarity with Asperger’s and autism speaking as a member of an autistic family. Diagnoses were rarer in 1970 but today we’re seeing what was 1% of the population on the spectrum steadily growing through better diagnosis – it’s a cliché but neurotypicality is a broad spectrum in itself as is the atypical ASD person; it’s not a monolithic condition and every single person has supposedly contraindicating “spikes”.

McEnery’s Bartleby presents in similar ways one of which is that he always tells the truth no matter how inconvenient that is; he doesn’t mean to be difficult, he is just saying how he feels at that particular point. What he faces is a monumental absence of sympathy and even the concern of his fellow workers doesn’t go anywhere deep enough to make a connection.

The Office (1970)

Bartleby passes the test to get a job as a clerk at the accountancy firm run by Scofield’s accountant and, despite his odd refusal to discuss anything other than what he has written on his application, he clearly knows how to keep books and, naturally, we all assume this will be the beginning of his “fitting in”. Everyone masks their true feelings in the workplace to some extent, I’ve passed psychometric tests I shouldn’t have and we all know what behaviours are expected (unless you work for GB News…). The anticipation of our hero doing the same is quickly vanished by his polite refusal to fit in with his co-workers, Tucker (Colin Jeavons), Dickinson (Tony Parkin), Miss Borwn the secretary (Rosalind Elliot), office lad (the mighty Robin Askwith) and even the tea lady, Hilda (Hope Jackman) who try but are politely rebuffed.

Then Bartleby startles the head accountant by refusing to do a task - I don't feel I can. Just at the moment - this sets the older man back and he tries again, still patiently asking what he means only to be told that his clerk would prefer not to explain. The next morning Bartleby offers the same explanation and the mantra of I prefer not to becomes more frequent even as he continues with some tasks and not others.

In between these moments of escalating conflict, the young man wanders the city, looking on in fascination at the old Starling murmuration in Leicester Square and emblem of a tight knit “society” all the birds flying in close formation, never colliding and swooping down on the insects that are their reward for joint enterprise…

John and Paul

The Accountant’s friend, played by Thorley Walters, asks him why he doesn’t just sack Bartleby but he is determined to try and help the man. He tries all reasoning and, even when he discovers that Bartleby is sleeping in the office overnight, can’t bring himself to refuse him another chance. The Accountant becomes the focus as the narrative darkens and we are all Paul Scofield as his movable force meets this irresistible object.

Dusty Verdict: It’s a truly fascinating contest with both Scofield and McEnery leaving everything on the pitch and leaving the viewer with plenty of take-aways. What the film lacks in action it makes for with questions and the locations only serve to remind us that this is the capital we still walk and that, by and large, we still must walk the same talk.

Why would someone take the hard way out? Perhaps there are some like Bartleby who simply have to. It’s not a preference but something, perhaps the only thing, they cannot say no to.

  

 

Chiswell Street between the Barbican and Moorgate

 

Grimsby Street off Brick Lane

Hungerford Bridge heading north

Piccadilly - definitely Let it be...

This and above St Alphage Highwalk near Moorgate

Rupert Street heading south from Soho