Using grainy archive footage that seems to project the very aura of cigarette smoke, the upcoming “You Never Had It: An Evening With Charles Bukowski” features producer and Italian journalist Silvia Bizio during an intimate evening interviewing irreverent writer and poet Charles Bukowski in January 1981 at his home in San Pedro, California, during the peak of his literary success. The vintage footage looks like it’ll be an extraordinary time capsule comprised of Bizio’s old dusty tapes, was long thought lost – rediscovered in her garage 20 years after Bukowski’s passing. The film also features a present-day Bizio reminiscing about the encounter with the author, one she cherishes and considers to be life-changing.
During that evening, the two and others, including Bukowski’s soon-to-be wife Linda Lee Beighle, converse about sex, literature, childhood and humanity through plenty of cigarettes and wine. The interview was shot on U-matic videotapes, which have been digitized and edited along with new Super8 footage shot in Downtown Los Angeles, set against poems read aloud by Bukowski himself.
An all-too-rare look at the man behind the words, the title of the film itself takes inspiration from the final line of Bukowski’s poem, “Those Sons of Bitches” from the collection “Mockingbird Wish Me Luck” (1972). Check out the synopsis below:
Directed by Matteo Borgardt and produced by subject and journalist Silvia Bizio, the documentary features rare, rediscovered lost footage of writer Charles Bukowski at the peak of his success on the occasion of his centennial.
“You Never Had It: An Evening With Bukowski” opens August 7 in Virtual Cinemas, to coincide with what would’ve been his 100th birthday.