B for Bartleby
© Praherfilm, courtesy of sixpackfilm
Herman Melville’s famous short story Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, published in 1853 is at the starting point of Angela Summereder’s most recent film. Melville’s protagonist is a clerk at a law firm whose job consists of repetitively copying documents. His notorious line “I would prefer not to,” with which he brushes aside the work assigned to him with a polite, relentless stoicism, as we are told by the lawyer, the first-person narrator, runs like a common thread through Summereder’s essayistic montage.
The line connects, for one, sequences from Jean-Marie Straub’s and Danièle Huillet’s History Lessons...
Trailer
Orig. Title
B wie Bartleby
B wie Bartleby
Year
2025
2025
Country
Austria
Austria
Duration
72 min
72 min
Category
Essay, Documentary
Essay, Documentary
Orig. Language
German, Englisch
German, Englisch
Subtitles
English, German
English, German