Bartleby (John McEnery) is a likeable yet unusual young man – painfully polite and good-natured – looking for work, purpose, and meaning.
He gets a job as an audit clerk in a drab London City office run by a friendly but stuffy accountant (Paul Scofield), although the first interview between the two is typically awkward.
The boss, showing kindness and remarkable goodwill, soon has his patience tried by his new employee as Bartleby begins to politely refuse to complete certain tasks assigned to him, responding to the requests with a simple, “I’d prefer not to”.
This behaviour confounds his co-workers, including office boy and inveterate prankster Robin Askwith, the cheeky cocky chappy famed for his seaside titillation and Tucker (Colin Jeavons), who gives poor Bartleby such a hard time.
The accountant ultimately discovers that not only is his employee refusing to work, but he’s also now living in the office. At the end of his tether, he relocates his office to rid himself of the man.
Bartleby is subsequently arrested by the police and ends up in hospital, refusing to eat.
Bartleby is an enigma – neither autistic nor a rebel; he is just withdrawing quietly from a bewildering world of concrete and conveyor belt people. He is neither stupid nor inarticulate, but as he pointedly tells his boss in a backstreet world of rubbish, rust and waste, “Whatever I say will not explain.”
In truth – and in the film – there is only one outcome to such withdrawal, but it is unexpected nonetheless and hurts just the same.
It’s a numbing ending, and it leaves you wondering just what you would do with someone as withdrawn and unwilling to cooperate as Bartleby (about whose personal life we learn almost nothing).
This unusual tragi-comedy – based on a short story by Herman Melville published in 1853 – features gorgeous cinematography of London’s concrete vistas and an effortlessly cool score.
The story was remade in 2001 with Crispin Glover in the title role.
The Accountant
Paul Scofield Bartleby
John McEnery The Colleague
Thorley Walters Tucker
Colin Jeavons Office Boy
Robin Askwith Miss Brown
Rosalind Elliot Dickinson
Tony Parkin Hilda the Tealady
Hope Jackman Landlord
Raymond Mason Tenant
Charles Kinross Client
Neville Barber Doctor
John Watson Patient
Christine Dingle
Director
Anthony Friedman
Video
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He gets a job as an audit clerk in a drab London City office run by a friendly but stuffy accountant (Paul Scofield), although the first interview between the two is typically awkward.
It’s a numbing ending, and it leaves you wondering just what you would do with someone as withdrawn and unwilling to cooperate as Bartleby (about whose personal life we learn almost nothing).
