Product Details

• Actors: Paul Scofield, John McEnery, Thorley Walters, Colin Jeavons, Raymond Mason
• Directors: Anthony Friedman
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Kultur Video
• VHS Release Date: June 26, 1995
• Run Time: 79 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301815858
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #341,335 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good Rendering!, April 1, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Bartleby (DVD)

The cheesy television drama music score doesn't do wonders, to a mostly wonderful adaptation of Melville's story.
The only other drawback is that the moviemakers didn't have the guts to develop the two supporting co-worker characters, who were perhaps the most memorable part of that story. Melville was tremendous at developing lesser characters the same way Shakespeare paid attention to such details.
But the two main characters, Bartleby and his boss, are marvelously portrayed. They really hit the nail on the head and didn't change their characters from the story at all. Those two characters and the actors who play them make this movie very much worthwhile.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eerily Successful, June 3, 2006

By 

Billyjack D'Urberville (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bartleby (DVD)

This shot at one of Melville's best known stories is both a startling short film and on target as to it source. Moved to that banal modern London that Prince Charles is always grumbling about, it turns those plain buildings and awful alleys into the sort of wierd surrealistic beauty that is food for Bartleby's unfathomable spirit. A bold filmic choice, while this locale does not totally explain why he "prefers not to" do much of anything but faceless jobs, and then only half-heartedly, it sets him and gives him gritty and explicable context.

Here an auditor rather than Melville's copyist, Bartleby is taklen in by a small firm's unfailingly decent head marvelously portrayed by Paul Schofield. The battle of wills ensues, a fable of the modern world still appropriate and telling, funny and monumentally frightful. One nows sees that Melville here was a harbinger of Ionesco and Beckett in this relentless experiment in minimalism and ambiguity. This film is a must see for any devotee of America's greatest author, whose facets continue to prove an unexplored goldmine.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A lost gem, November 30, 2009

By 

Dadicus (Provo, Utah) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bartleby (DVD)

This is a great production. Paul Scofield is fantastic and John McEnery is the epitome of Bartleby. It's a quiet little drama, but well worth the effort.