Masaryk University in Brno Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies

The Film Dialogue in Bukowski's Barfly (Sociolinguistic Analysis)

JAN SVOBODA, Jr.

Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Ludmila Urbanová, CSc.

Brno 2004 Declaration:

I declare that I have worked on this diploma thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

•Jat^ py^é^^e Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank doc. PhDr. Ludmila Urbanová, CSc. for her critical comments, valuable pieces of advice and kind help during the supervision of my diploma thesis. CONTENTS

GLOSSARY OF TERMS 1

INTRODUCTION 4

CHAPTER ONE 10 Speech Behaviour in Social Context

CHAPTER TWO 21 Screenplay Versus Soundtrack

2.1. Notes on Phonetic Features 23 2.1.1. Voice Intensity Indicative of Emotion 2.1.2. Intonation and Emphasis 2.1.3. Elusion 2.1.4. Repetition

2.2. Morphosyntactic Level 28

2.3. Lexical Choices 31

CHAPTER THREE 34 Film Discourse, Pragmatic Meaning, Style 3.1. Situation 37 3.2. Participants 42 3.3. Ends 43 3.4. Act Sequences, Key and Instruments 45 3.5. Preconclusion 61

CHAPTER FOUR 63 Conclusion

APPENDIX 70 GLOSSARY OF TERMS ellipsis (elide, ellipt-ed, -ical) A term used in GRAMMATICAL analysis to refer to a SENTENCE where, for reasons of economy, emphasis or style, a part of the STRUCTURE has been omitted, which is recoverable from a scrutiny of the CONTEXT. TRADITIONAL grammars talk here of an ELEMENT being 'understood', but LINGUISTIC analyses tend to constrain the notion more, emphasising the need for the 'elided' (or 'ellipted') parts of the sentence to be unambiguously specifiable. For example, in the sentence A: Where are you going? B: To town, the 'full' FORM of B's sentence is predictable from A's sentence ('I am going to town'). But in such sentences as Thanks, Yes, etc., it is generally unclear what the full form of such sentences might be (e.g. Thanks is due to you'? 'O give you thanks'?), and in such circumstances the term 'ellipsis' would probably not be used. 'Elliptical' constructions are an essential feature of everyday conversation, but the rules governing their occurrence have received relatively little study. They are also sometimes referred to as REDUCED, CONTRACTED or 'abbreviated' constructions. [Crystal 1985. 107-108] exclamation (exclamatory) A term used in the classification of SENTENCE FUNCTIONS, and defined sometimes on GRAMMATICAL and sometimes on SEMANTIC or SOCIOLINGUISTIC grounds. Traditionally, an exclamation referred to any emotional UTTERANCE, usually lacking the grammatical structure of a full SENTENCE, and marked by strong INTONATION, e.g. Gosh!, Good grieß In some grammars, 'exclamatory sentences' have a more restricted definition, referring to constructions which begin with what or how without a following INVERSION of SUBJECT and VERB, e.g. What a fool he was!, How nice! Semantically, the function is primarily the expression of the speaker's feeling - a function which may also be expressed using other grammatical means, e.g. What on earth is he doing? (when it is obvious what is being done) The term is usually contrasted with three other major sentence functions: STATEMENT, QUESTION and COMMAND. [Crystal 1985. 113-114] command A term used in the classification of SENTENCE FUNCTIONS, and defined sometimes on GRAMMATICAL and sometimes on SEMANTIC or SOCIOLINGUISTIC grounds. SYNTACTICALLY, a command is a sentence which typically has no SUBJECT, and where the VERB is in the IMPERATIVE MOOD, e.g. Come here! Semantically it is primarily used to tell someone to do (or not do) something. From A SPEECH ACT point of view, the function of command may be expressed using other forms, e.g. that boy will stand up, or by a dominant INTONATION. The term is usually contrasted with three other major sentence functions: STATEMENT, QUESTION,

1 EXCLAMATION. In grammatical discussion, commands are usually referred to as 'imperative' in form. [Crystal 1985. 55] question A term used in the classification of SENTENCE FUNCTIONS, and defined sometimes on GRAMMATICAL and sometimes on SEMANTIC or SOCIOLINGUISTIC grounds. SYNTACTICALLY, in English, a question is a SENTENCE with INVERSION of the SUBJECT and first VERB in the verb PHRASE (yes-no questions', such as Is he coming?), commencing with a question word (WH-questions, such as Where is he?) or ending with a question TAG (e.g. He's coming, isn't he?) Some would include the use of sentences with a rising INTONATION to be a class of question. Semantically, question express a desire for more information, usually requesting a reply, from the listener (exception include 'rhetorical questions' (e.g. isn't that awful?)). The term is usually contrasted with three other major sentence functions: STATEMENT, COMMAND and EXCLAMATION. In grammatical discussion, questions are usually referred to as INTERROGATIVE in form. [Crystal 1985. 254] statement A term used in the classification of SENTENCE FUNCTIONS, and defined sometimes on GRAMMATICAL and sometimes on SEMANTIC or SOCIOLINGUISTIC grounds. SYNTACTICALLY, a statement is a sentence which contains a SUBJECT occurring before VERB, e.g. The man is coming. Semantically, it is used primarily to convey information. The term is usually contrasted with three other major sentence functions: QUESTION, COMMAND, EXCLAMATION. In grammatical discussion, statements are usually referred to as DECLARATIVE or INDICATIVE in form. [Crystal 1985. 286] continuity editing: The key concepts of continuity editing, as described by Bordwell & Thompson, can be listed like this:

1. Establishing shot (the room or other space of action is defined, including the position of characters).

2. Shot/reverse-shot (cutting back and forth, e.g., depicting dialogue).

3. Eye-line match (cut from one shot to another, motivated by direction of the character's gaze in the first shot). 4. Match on action (cut motivated by direction and continuity of action between two shots). 5. Match on sound (off-screen sound causes characters to turn in the direction of the sound, and a cut is made to a shot showing the source of the sound). 6. Analytical editing (this very method of choosing parts of what is shown within the established space of action and putting them together in the kind of puzzle described). Finally, we may list as a 7th element the possible cycle of establishing, breaking down, and re-establishing (the established scene is

2 broken down in parts, which are edited together as described, and as another person enters, the characters are redistributed/re-established in the room, whereupon a new breakdown with an editing series may begin).

[See Bordwell 1986.211-220]

3 Waking From Drunkenness on a Spring Day

"LIFE in the World is but a big dream; I will not spoil it by any labour or care." So saying, I was drunk all the day, Lying helpless at the porch in front of my door. When I woke up, I blinked at the garden-lawn; A lonely bird was singing amid the flowers. I asked myself, had the day been Wet or fine? The Spring wind was telling the mango-bird. Moved by its song I soon began to sigh, And as wine was there I filled my own cup. Wildly singing I waited for the moon to rise; When my song was over, all my senses had gone.

-LiPo INTRODUCTION

The reasons I have chosen to write a final thesis about the film dialogue in Barfly are multiple. I studied film in the Department of Film Studies in the Faculty of Arts at Masaryk University in Brno and I have been primarily engaged with the relationship between word and film image during my studies. My chief interest in the Department of English and American Studies has been linguistics. Most importantly; I have been concerned with the field of sociolinguistics. In the presented thesis I am going to make an attempt of bringing together the studies of English language and film studies. The reason I have chosen the original screenplay of Barßy written by Charles Bukowski is a result of conjuncture of themes. I belong to the generation of young people in Czech Republic which was highly influenced by the books of the author since the early 1990s. Since that time Bukowski and his books have become a great popular phenomenon. The fact that the academic community keeps overlooking this phenomenon is part of my motivation for writing about Bukowski's film screenplay. The writer is believed, among other things, to write extremely authentic and simple dialogues. When I started to think about the topic in linguistic terms, I became aware of the incongruities in language used in the screenplay in comparison with the soundtrack version of the film dialogue.

4 The film itself is a rare example of an American movie celebrating "experience of unreformed alcoholics"1 and is believed to be entropie in comparison with the classic representation of alcoholism dominating the history of American film.2 Barbet Schroeder is the director and producer of Barßy. He invited Bukowski to write the screenplay and worked on production for three years. During the time, the first version of the script underwent many changes. However, even the original screenplay of the movie published in 1987, after the film's release, does not precisely present the actual language used in the film soundtrack. My hypothesis lies exactly in the assumption that the language used in the film soundtrack is changed and stylized for the film narration purposes. The film discourse of the dialogue is supposed to be reflected in the film soundtrack version more than in the screenplay. To demonstrate the hypothesis, I have chosen two short dialogues between one dyad of characters that appear in the beginning of Barfly. The discourse analysis based on the comparison of the two versions of the dialogues will be undertaken. For a better illustration of the plot and the film's critical reception, a review of Barfly written by a respected American film reviewer Roger Ebert is included.

THE FILM'S PLOT AND REVIEW

By Roger Ebert

The movie takes place in a gutbucket bar down on the bad side of town, where the same regulars take up the same positions on the same bar stools every day. Your private life is nobody's business, but everybody in the joint knows all about it. To this bar, day after day, comes Henry (Mickey Rourke), a drunk who is sometimes also a poet. The day bartender hates him, probably for the same reason all bartenders in gutter saloons hate their customers: It's bad enough that they have to serve these losers, without taking a lot of lip from them, too.

1 The citation taken from Alexander Hicks' review of a book called Hollywood Shot by Shot Alcoholism in American Cinema written by Norman K. Denzin in 1991. According to Denzig the classic representation of an alcoholic in American cinema shows the character's grace, fall and redemption, [see Hicks 1992.1789]

5 Henry and the bartender head for the back alley to have a fight. Henry is beaten to a pulp. Hawking up spit and blood, he tosses down another drink and heads off for the hovel he calls his room. Another day, another adventure. One day he looks up from his drink and sees, sitting at the other end of the bar, a woman named Wanda (Faye Dunaway). She looks like she belongs in the place and she doesn't look like she belongs in the place, you know? She looks like a drunk, all right, but she's still kind of classy. Henry and Wanda strike up a conversation and, seeing that Henry is flat broke, Wanda invites him home. The dialogue scenes between Rourke and Dunaway in this movie are never less than a pleasure, but their exchanges on that first night are poetry. She explains that if a guy comes along with a fifth, she is likely to leave with that guy, since when she drinks she always makes bad decisions. He nods. What other kinds of decisions are there when you're drunk? They drink, they talk, they flirt, they coexist. Another day, another adventure.

One day a beautiful rich girl with long hair (Alice Krige) comes to the bar looking for Henry. She publishes a literary magazine and has purchased some of Henry's stuff. He likes this development. They go to her house and drink, talk, flirt and coexist. The next time she turns up in the bar, Wanda is already there. The rich girl and Wanda do not coexist.

That's basically what the movie is about. "Barfly" is not heavy on plot, which is correct, since in the disordered world of the drinker, one thing rarely leads to another through any visible pattern. Each day is a window that opens briefly after the hangover and before the blackout, and you can never tell what you'll see through that window.

"Barfly" was directed by Barbet Schroeder, who commissioned the original screenplay by Bukowski and then spent eight years trying to get it made. (At one point, he threatened to cut off his fingers if Cannon Group president Menahem Golan did not finance it; the outcome of the story can be deduced by the fact that this is a Cannon release.) Rourke and Dunaway take their characters as opportunities to stretch as actors, to take changes and do extreme things. Schroeder never tries to impose too much artificial order on the events; indeed, he committed to filming Bukowski's screenplay exactly as written, in all its rambling but romantic detail.

The result is a truly original American movie, a film like no other, a period of time spent in the company of the kinds of characters Saroyan and O'Neill would have understood, the kinds of people we try not to see, and yet might enjoy more than some of our more visible friends. "Barfly" is one of the year's best films.

6 Henry Mickey Rourke Wanda Wilcox Faye Dunaway Tully Alice Krige Detective Jack Nance Jim J.C. Quinn Eddie Frank Stallone Grandma Moses Gloria LeRoy

Cannon presents a film directed by Barbet Schroeder, and produced by Schroeder, Fred Roos and Tom Luddy. Screenplay by Charles Bukowski. Photographed by Robby Müller. Edited by Eva Gardos. Running time: 100 minutes. Classified R. At McClurg Court. +

Louis Armstrong was trying to explain jazz one day, and he finally gave up and said, "There are some folks that, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em." The world of Charles Bukowski could be addressed in the same way. Bukowski is the poet of Skid Row, the Los Angeles drifter who spent his life until age 50 in an endless round of saloons and women, all of them cheap, expensive, bad or good in various degrees. "Barfly," based on his original screenplay, is a grimy comedy about what it might be like to spend a couple of days in his skin - a couple of the better and funnier days, although they aren't exactly a lark. [Ebert 1987]

Chicago Sun-Times

In this thesis, I will study the complexity of the film dialogue in Barfly. For example, I am going to concentrate on how the forms of address are employed in the movie's diegesis, which is the entire created world of the narrative. What is revealed by the way characters of the movie address each other? How does the dialogue function in the specific narrative of Barfly? These questions will be answered with regard to linguistic and non-linguistic means of communication. The opening words uttered in the story of the film are:

A man's voice shouting off-screen: "Come on Eddie, hit him again!" A female's voice shouting off-screen: "I love you! I love your mean guts, Eddie, kill him!"

7 These short outcries introduce information about the speech behaviour in the movie. The uses of the first name Eddie and the personal pronoun you indicate intimacy. The noun phrase, mean guts is the first example of slang used in the movie. Colloquial speech is frequently a part of verbal exchanges in communities of speakers who know each other very well. However, the film viewer is unaware of what exactly happening in the film until the moment when the camera reveals a scene in which several people watch two young men engaged in a physical combat. A shouting man and woman are cheering on Eddie the bartender who is fighting Henry, the main character of the movie. At this point the first direct verbal exchange is heard.

Eddie: All ya gotta do is beg for little mercy. Henry: Quitting to you would be like swallowing piss for eternity. Eddie: Come on, give it up! (Now instead of later!) Henry: You're gonna need a priest, you prick. And while your mother's crying at the funeral I'm gonna goose her with a turkey neck!

Utterances remain short. What is at work here is an affect-laden verbal display. Eddie's use of the colloquial variants ya and gotta for you have to shows a high degree of informality and closeness. He is advising Henry to give up and thus showing his superiority. Henry's reply is a direct insult to Eddie, as is emphasized by the vulgar word piss. Henry addresses Eddie with the personal pronoun, you, and with the derogatory noun, prick. Their language is informal, colloquial and also elliptical. For instance, the utterance, Now instead of later! (appears only in the screenplay) is a clear example of ellipsis, referring to the preceding DIRECTIVE in the form of an indirect address Come on, give it up! The language game of power and dominance is exposed here. Characters reveal their attitudes from their specific points of view. This is done in an outrageous way, because extremely vulgar language is being used. The affective meaning of the utterances is thus foregrounded. To understand the game, the context of the speech situation has to be taken into consideration.

8 The context of the speech situation consists of several layers. In Linguistic Criticism, Fowler distinguishes between the context of utterance, context of reference and the context of culture. He writes:

there is the immediate context of utterance, the situation within which discourse is conducted. This comprises: the physical surrounding or 'setting'; the distribution of the participants vis-a- vis one another, whether they are two people talking face-to-face, one person addressing a large audience, two people speaking on telephone, a group of informal conversationalists scattered through a large room, or whatever; the channel employed, whether aural, visual or electronic, etc., which will determine the 'mode' as some variety of speech or of writing. [Fowler 1996. 112]

In this case, the first lines of the film dialogue are considered. One must bear in mind that apart from the communication in process in a specific speech situation on the screen, there is also the communication between the film and the spectator, which is also specific. In other words, the verbal interaction takes place on the screen, i.e. in the world of fiction, or, more exactly, in an American narrative film made in Hollywood in 1987. Thus, the particular cinematic representation of this reality has to be taken into account in understanding the ways the film dialogue interacts with audience. Also, the verbal exchange is situated in an alley behind a bar that is predominantly visited by members of the lower class. The bar is a specific social setting, and this setting has to be considered in the analysis as well.

9 CHAPTER ONE Speech Behaviour in Social Context

First of all, a thorough analysis of the social dimension of the film dialogue has to be undertaken. One dyad of characters will be in focus: Henry v. Eddie and also situations when Henry talks to himself in a form of voice-over monologue. In the monologues, Henry is talking to Henry, and these sequences also offer a certain form of a "dialogue" because of the fact that they are meant to interact with the spectator's perceptions. A close examination of the developments in the relationship reflected in the characters' verbal exchanges will lead to a better understanding of the participants' speech behaviour in the social context. For the purpose of gaining insight into social context of the verbal exchanges, four dimensions of analysis are employed:

1. The solidarity scale concerned with participant relationships (distant, intimate) 2. The status scale concerned with participant relationships (subordinate, superior) 3. The formality scale relating to the setting or type of interaction (informal, formal) 4. Two Junctional scales relating to the purposes or topic of interaction (i) The referential function scale (high, low) (ii) The affective function scale (high, low) [See Holmes 2000.12]

The scales introduced by Holmes will provide an analytical tool for describing and understanding the piece of the film dialogue in its social context. Recurrences and typical patterns in making utterance will be revealed. The meaning of a word is arbitrary and is always constructed in

10 the process of interaction. Every utterance has its own unique context; in order to decode the meaning of the utterance the context must be observed and interpreted.

Henry the Barfly and Eddie the Barkeeper

In Barfly, there are three scenes in which Henry Chinaski (played by Mickey Rourke) speaks to the night bartender called Eddie (Frank Stallone). I will concentrate here the first two of these scenes.

1.1. Henry v. Eddie in SCENE ONE

In the opening scene of the film we see and hear an extreme exchange of opinions, during a fistfight in front of the rear entrance of a bar called "The Golden Horn." A multiplicity of voices is heard from behind the bar when the camera pans to the rear entrance. A louder voice screams off­ screen: (Eddie): All you gotta do is beg for a little mercy. The next shot shows Henry's bloodied face answering the outrageous suggestion which, only now understood, has been pronounced by Eddie, as he stands and moves his fists in front of Henry. The aggressive dialogue continues, accompanied by fist blows and spitting: Henry: Quitting to you would be like swallowing piss for eternity. Eddie (off-screen): Come on, give it up! Henry: You're going to need the priest, you, prick. And while your mother's crying at the funeral I'm gonna goose her with a turkey neck! Hey, baby. Henry: Oh, shit...oh, hey, that the best you can do? You better phone for help. Eddie: Scumbag! Faggot! Eddie: I hate that cheap punk. Fuck he thinks he's going from? Eddie: That's the third time. You'd think that son of a bitch would've learnt by now and stopped trying me.

11 This short verbal interaction accompanies the fistfight that Henry finally loses. Eddie finishes the dialogue while kicking Henry as he lies on the ground. Other people have to hold Eddie back from massacring Henry. When speaking, Eddie's (Frank Stallone's) voice sounds extremely angry, and it is followed by the highly-strung facial expression. This brief description of the context of situation from which it is understood where the dialogue takes place, I will move to the four social dimensions reflected in the use of language. The degree of intimacy between the participants is extremely high. Nevertheless, there is a difference in the frequency with which the personal pronoun you is used. While Eddie addresses Henry by you only once in this sequence of dialogue (All you gotta do...), Henry uses the pronoun showing closeness and familiarity six times in the first scene. Once, Henry addresses Eddie with a vulgarism you prick, which adds to the negativity of Henry's intimate verbal act. The resonance of the expression is enhanced by the specific delivery the actor has chosen to use. Timing is crucial for the delivery. After the prolonged pronunciation of the word priest, a short you arrives, introducing a heavy fist blow synchronized with the shouted vulgarism prick. Before and after you, two dramatic pauses are employed, thus giving weight to the utterance. On the other hand, Eddie chooses to use either no form of address at all, or derogatory terms such as faggot and scumbag. Moreover, in the last two lines, Eddie addresses Henry indirectly calling him that cheap punk and that son of a bitch. This gives evidence of a high degree of negative intimacy (showing disrespect) on the social distance scale. At the same time, such intimate verbal interaction is highly negative because of the meanings of the expletives used as well as for the context of the situation, which is very informal. Nevertheless, the slight incongruity in the frequency of the use of you (higher in Henry's contributions) and the use of derogatory forms of address (higher in Eddie's case) might reveal a slight difference in the degree of negative intimacy of the two speakers. In other words, it expresses the

12 different attitudes of Eddie and Henry, and at the same time, it sheds more light on their social status. The social status of the characters is conveyed by the frequent use of the vernacular, including ungrammatical language varieties or structures. For this purpose, slang and colloquial expressions are employed in the interaction. In Henry's verbal choice the expressions are swallowing piss, the already mentioned word prick alliterating with priest and a more complex use of slang I'm gonna goose her with a turkey neck while referring to Eddie's mother. The non-standard grammatical form of Oh shit...oh hey, that the best you can do? is a type of REDUCED construction (see GLOSSARY OF TERMS). Henry omits the verb he in his utterance which also reveals further information about Henry's low social status and distance toward the hearer. Eddie's low status is revealed by the use of the expletives, mentioned above, and the non-standard occurrence of grammar, for instance Fuck he thinks he's going from? is used instead of the standard paradigm Where does he think he is from? Eddie's creative use of English grammar in this utterance underlines his final superiority, since Henry is unable to answer while lying in blood unconscious on the ground. His line becomes a statement of Eddie's power reflected in linguistic terms. Generally speaking, it can be argued that both men are using vernacular forms of language showing their lower social status. Common use of contracted forms like You're gonna or All you gotta instead of you are going to and All you have to also suggests a low degree of formality and a low status. This is evident from the context of the situation, e.g. the setting. Men having a fight in the bar, with audience consisting of similar kinds of bar inhabitants of a comparably low status. However, this is apparent only from the visual level of the movie. The style of the utterances provides evidence that the participants are verbally competing here to show who is able to use more colloquial expressions in order to exhibit their superiority and power and, possibly, to boost their low social status. Both men deny their subordination to one

13 another. They attempt to degrade and insult each other by the use of various forms of the vernacular, which is supposed to "... carry macho connotations of masculinity and toughness" [Holmes 2000.174-175]. This is reflected in a low degree of formality in the participant's speech turns. Slang, non­ standard language and elliptical (REDUCED) expressions can be observed in their use of language (see the description above). Therefore, the type of verbal behaviour Eddie and Henry use seems to functionally employ the social prestige upside down. This dyad uses utterances as verbal "weapons" in the battle for dominance that they are having, as each tries to humiliate the other. Henry's turns are longer and more complex, while Eddie uses shorter sentences with frequent vulgar words. The slightly higher complexity of Henry's contributions signals his better command of the language. This reflects his superiority for a moment, when he says: Hey, baby... to himself with a smile. However, soon after this, he is strongly attacked by Eddie's fists and kicks, which "shorten" his last contribution and consequently make him silent. When considering the referential functional scales, one will take notice of the fact that Henry's utterances show a prevailing and high degree of affective content than information content. The usage of exclamation Oh, shit...oh, hey... or the alliteration priest, you prick are supporting the idea that Henry uses language more for its own sake - to be poetical, to express his emotions and not to give new pieces of information. Thus the affective meaning and poetic function of Henry's language are foregrounded. Eddie is also more affective using frequently obscene, vulgar forms of address. Only in the final sentence does he reveal information about the past and present. This has been the third time Henry has dared to fight Eddie and also the third time Eddie has won. This information provided by Eddie is important for the next scenes of the movie and thus serves to anchor diegesis and characters. It will be instructive for us to follow the social dimensions reflected in the dialogue in the second encounter between this dyad.

14 1.2. Henry v. Eddie in SCENE TWO

The second encounter between Henry and Eddie takes place in The Golden Horn' bar again. Henry walks into the bar a day after the preceding fight, sits behind the bar and addresses Eddie to order a glass of draft beer. How does he deliver his request? What is the form of the speech act? Henry turns his head towards Eddie, who is standing at the other side of the bar talking to a woman, and says calmly: Hey, boy, fetch me a draft! The casual tone of the utterance doesn't react to any previous trouble with Eddie. Henry chooses a considerably familiar tone when addressing his counterpart by the word boy. This type of form of address is loaded with a high degree of intimacy and, although the form of this utterance is a direct command, it is not intended to insult directly, it sounds almost acceptable. However, the implicit meaning of this strategy suggests that Henry is teasing Eddie right from the start while approaching him with such "fatherly" attitude, that is to say, with lower degree of negative intimacy. One simply doesn't ask a bartender for beer by using words hey, boy..., especially if one had an open conflict with him the previous night. The context of the situation helps to distinguish between the degrees of negative intimacy in verbal behaviour of the interlocutors3. Eddie turns his head but ignores him. After a while Henry chooses to shout a more expressive insult: Hey, you! You in that filthy apron! This utterance opens up a series of increasingly offensive animosity and humiliation leading to another fistfight between the characters. The recurrence of the personal pronoun you, emphasizes the illocutionary force of the verbal act and makes it more affectionate. Moreover, this recurrence also refers to the similar style Henry uses to address Eddie in the previous scene. The informality and rudeness of this speech act is effective as Eddie stops talking and walks toward Henry in a lazy, self-

3 Degrees of negative intimacy in the verbal interaction are dealt with in the chapter three devoted to the contextual interpretation of speech behaviour.

15 important fashion while taking on his favourite "macho" language game of power and dominance: Eddie: I hear a voice down there but I'm sure I don't see much. (pause) It seems like that beating I gave you last night must've rattled your bells, huh?

Eddie's speech turn shows signs of his assumed superiority. Henry is referred to as a voice, and thus he is even denied the right to be addressed directly. From the start, Eddie is trying to exhibit his dominance over Henry by showing how insignificant and low his social status is. The first sentence employs witty language which is used to convey insult. Henry is being ridiculed also by the use of the slang expression rattled your bells. This phrase is followed at the end of Eddie's utterance by the highly informal question tag, huh? This becomes a rheme of the message and thus reinforces the sarcastic effect of this speech act. However, Henry replies with an even more profound and complex offensive strategy. Remember ordering a draft, barkeep. What, you out brew or has lobotomy finally taken hold, huh? In the first short sentence, Henry reminds Eddie of his social position of a bartender who is obliged to serve the customer. In other words, Eddie is reminded of the boundaries of his social status relevant to the context of the situation. The colloquial and old-fashioned variant of the address term barkeep helps to subvert the presumptuous superiority of Eddie. The subversion is expanded on the bitterly sarcastic use of language referring informally but not vulgarly to Eddie's bad mental condition. Eddie's humiliation is achieved by the use of informal and REDUCED language. In the first sentence, the subject (i) is missing and the predicate are is elided in the second sentence. On the social solidarity scale, a slight change can be recognized. It is apparent that using the address term barkeep, Henry is suddenly being less intimate. On the contrary, he insists on his distance from Eddie. The degree of formality remains quite low and has a tendency to decline in the following verbal exchanges.

16 Eddie's reaction to the insult is an even more intense and threatening insult directed to Henry. He leans across the bar toward Henry saying in a quiet mood: I'll drive your head right through the fucking wall tonight, you faggot. I pulled my punches on you last night...But don't move! The first sentence shows an example of alliteration of the /f/ phonemes in the two vulgarisms used to reinforce the offensive impact of the utterance. The second sentence is a reminder of the preceding event (fistfight) and again uses alliteration. This time it is the phoneme /p/ being applied to reinforce Eddie's speech. The third sentence commands and precedes the physical action narrated by the camera. Eddie sets a glass of beer down in front of Henry and waits to be paid while smoking a cigarette in a macho style. Henry slams his hand on the bar as if paying with coins, looking at Eddie. Then he lifts his palm and there is nothing. This act of body language is accompanied by Henry's soft and short giggle. Once more, he radically refuses to admit Eddie's rights as a bartender, and moreover, he subverts social status and authority. Eddie's reaction to this is evidence of his losing his temper which is expressed by the different intonation, more aggressive mood and the sudden change of the facial expression: Fuck you on tonight? Eddie's anger is verbalized in a condensed form in which the expletive phrase fuck you on is used as a substitute for a standard form what the fuck are you on enriching the question by a directly offensive insult. This sentence is a transparent example of the way the informality, offensiveness, and REDUCTION are complexly interrelated in the film dialogue. The utterance also signals Eddie's typical use of language, his rhetorical style, which tends to be structured in shorter, more condensed forms, since he seems to be unable to control his emotions. Here is a sample of the subsequent verbal exchanges, those that escalate to an open conflict: Henry (relaxed): Looking at a new man, my boy. I gotta full tank of fuel. Eddie (less calmly): You gotta pay for that goddamn beer. (He is throwing his cigarette into the glass of beer in Henry's hand)

17 Henry (disappointed but calm): Oh, Eddie, come close, I wanna tell you something. Come here, I want you hear it good... Eddie: Yeah, or what? Henry (softly with pleasure): Your mother's cunt stinks like (sniffs) carpet cleaner. Eddie (explodes and shouts): That's it. Fuck!!! (He throws his towel into Henry's face and with a heavy blow of his hand he is knocking over the glass of beer, then jumps over the bar and runs towards the rear entrance. Henry jumps across the bar too and goes to the beer tap, pouring beer into his mouth and laughing. Their positions are reversed) Eddie: Fuck you! Get away from that tap!

Here Henry's social and verbal behaviour reveals its specific pattern. He keeps violating the Politeness Principle as well as social conventions, in order to question the social norms of language use. His speech shows a high degree of intimacy that does not correspond to his social status. He is being extremely informal depending on how fully he needs to insult Eddie to subvert his position. For this purpose he uses sarcasm [lobotomy) and metaphor (carpet cleaner) accompanied by frequent use of the pronoun you. For the purpose of showing his higher status, he also uses address forms hey boy and my boy again. The first name Eddie (the first time in the movie) is used closely before Henry applies the strongest insult so far, when referring again to Eddie's mother (a recurrence of the word phrase your mother's) with an obscene and vulgar slang word cunt Such a verbal act is successful in triggering off Eddie's aggressive behaviour as he is unable to verbally counter attack Henry's offensiveness adequately in his status of a bartender. Having temporarily succeeded in humiliating and offending Eddie, Henry celebrates symbolically by changing position with Eddie. Eddie jumps over the bar and Henry jumps behind the bar and drinks beer right from the tap while laughing and screaming. Henry uses metaphorical and obscene verbal behaviour to express his personal attitude towards Eddie and his status. When the second fistfight starts, the social status of Henry and Eddie become more equal again. The direct face-to-face battle gives Eddie a chance to express his personal attitude towards Henry. The repetition of the negative

18 word unit can't is employed to show the negativity of Eddie's attitude. This repetition also intensifies the illocutionary force of the speech act. In fact, Eddie is reacting to Henry's preceding sentence addressed to someone else. Henry expresses his irresoluteness in: Jim, maybe I can't and Eddie takes advantage of it. Eddie is suddenly the one whose utterances express his superiority. During the fight Eddie suddenly loses his certainty a little while saying: What's hold you up, sucker? Usually fall by now. Eddie beats Henry heavily but at one point Henry stands up and says: Okay, Eddie. This serves as a warning for Eddie. Eddie's reply is intensely affective, although he does not accept the warning as he questions Henry's "okay" by What's "okay"?, repetitively. The use of f*** derogatory intensifier and the address term referring to Henry's drinking habit in the middle of the questions, is another example of Eddie's showing off. His presupposed dominance is rooted in slightly higher social status. He is the person in charge of the bar. His attitude is closely connected to the context of situation. However, in the back alley of the bar, where the dustbins are stored, Eddie's position is changed. Here he represents a big man, with built-up musculature who is able to show his physical, masculine strength to the useless alcoholic who keeps insulting him as a man. Eddie: Your life is just a bunch of cant's. You can't work, you can't fuck, you can't fight. Eddie: I'd hate to be you if I were me. Eddie: What's hold you up, sucker? Usually fall by now. Henry (bleeding heavily): Okay, Eddie... Eddie (shouting very loudly): What's "okay," youfuckin' rummy? What's okay?

The referential function of an utterance appears occasionally in the interaction between the two "battling", for instance in Henry's turn: Looking at a new man, my boy. I got a full tank of fuel. New information is given, however, even here, the degree of affective meaning of the utterance remains high. The contracted form of you are and I have got, the negatively polite address in my boy, or the alliteration sounds in full tank of fuel reflect highly expressive and affective speech behaviour.

19 Eddie approaches Henry as somebody who is below his social status. To express how despicable Henry is, Eddie uses specific forms of address, usually slang like scumbag, faggot, that punk, sucker or youfuckin' rummy. Henry refuses to take a subordinate position by addressing him with the first name, insulting his mother with obscene expressions, and using sarcasm and metaphor. At the paralinguistic level, he fights back against Eddie with gestures and fists, while beating him heavily in the second fistfight.

20 CHAPTER TWO Screenplay Versus Soundtrack

TABLE I: HENRY v. EDDIE, SCENE ONE: Fistfight

THE ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY SOUNDTRACK (p.13-15) 1 Eddie: All y a gotta do is beg for a All ya gotta do is beg for a little little mercy, mercy. /off- screen/ /off-screen/

2 Henry: Quitting to you would be Quitting to you would be like like swallowing piss for eternity. swallowing piss for eternity.

3 Eddie: Come on, give it up! Now Come on, give it up! instead of later! /off-screen/ /off-screen/

4 Henry: You're going to need the You gonna need the priest, you priest, prick. And while your prick. And when your mother's mother's crying at the funeral I'm crying at the funeral I'm gonna going to goose her with a turkey goose her with a turkey neck! neck! ...HEY, BABY...

5 Henry: Shit...that the best you can Oh, shit...oh, hey, that the best do? You better phone for help. you can do? You better phone for help.

6 Eddie: Scumbag! Faggot! 7 Eddie: I really hate that cheap I hate that cheap punk. Fuck he punk. Where the hell's he coming thinks he's going from? from?

21 TABLE II: HENRY v. EDDIE, SCENE TWO: Bar talk andfistfight

THE ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY SOUNDTRACK (P. 37-43) 8 Henry: Hey, boy! Fetch me a draft! Hey boy, fetch me a draft!!

9 Henry: Hey, you! You in that filthy Hey, you! You in that filthy apron! apron! 10 Eddie: Seems like all those I hear a voice down there but I'm Muhamad Alis I've laid on you have sure I don't see much. It seems rattled your bells. like that beating I gave you last night must've rattled your bells, huh? 11 Henry: Look, barkeep, I remember Remember ordering a draft, ordering a draft. You out of brew or barkeep. What, you out of brew or has your lobotomy finally taken has lobotomy finally taken hold, hold? huh?

12 Eddie: Eddie: I'll drive you right I'll drive your head right through through the fucking wall tonight, the fucking wall tonight, you fag. I pulled my punches on you faggot. I pulled my punches on last night... you last night... But don't move! 13 Eddie: What the hell are you on Fuck you on tonight? tonight, punk? 14 Henry: You're looking at a new Lookin' at a new man, my boy. I man, my boy. I've got a full tank of gotta a full tank of fuel. fuel. 15 Eddie: You pay me for that You gotta pay for that goddamned goddamned beer! beer, (throws a burning cigarette into the glass of beer Henry is holding) 16 Henry: Eddie, come closer. I want Oh, Eddie, come close. I wanna to tell you something and I want tell you something. Come here, I you hear it good... want you hear it good...

17 Eddie: Yeah? Yeah, or what?

18 Henry: Your mother's cunt stinks Your mother's cunt stinks like like carpet cleaner. (sniffs) carpet cleaner. 19 Eddie: That's it, motherfucker! That's it...Fuck!!! (throws a towel in Henry's face)

22 20 Eddie: Fuck you! Get away from Fuck you! Get away from that that tap tap! 21 Eddie: Your whole life is just a Your life is just a bunch of cant's. bunch of cant's. You can't work, You can't work, you can't fuck. you can't fuck. You can't fight. You can't fight.

22 Eddie: I'd hate to be you if I were I'd hate to be you if I were me. me. 23 Eddie: You fight like a girl. 24 Eddie: You usually fall by now, What's hold you up, sucker? sucker. What's holding you up? Usually fall by now. 25 Henry: Okay, Eddie... Okay, Eddie...

26 Eddie: Okay, what? What's "okay"? What's "okay," you fuckin' You fucking rummy, what's okay? rummy? What's okay?

For a deeper insight into the language use in the interactions in Barfly, it is necessary to keep an eye on patterns and forms recurring during conversation. It will be instructive to compare the written form of the dialogue in the original screenplay with its actual spoken realization in the movie soundtrack. The incongruity of the written and spoken versions will tell us more about the nature of the film dialogue.

2.1. Notes on Phonetic Features

It is impossible for the writer of the screenplay to suggest exactly how a line should be pronounced. Bukowski describes the way the words should be uttered in brackets with sparse and vague comments such as gasping, wheezing it out, quite loudly or softly to Eddie. The volume corresponds to the degree of emotiveness and the force of the illocutionary act.

2.1.1. Voice Intensity Indicative of Emotion For instance, the first sentence is uttered by Eddie roaring; the volume is high. The fistfight context of the utterance reveals a high degree of

23 affective function. It can be heard that in the first scene it is Eddie whose words are uttered more loudly. Anger and hate toward Henry are foregrounded by Eddie's stronger and more affective voice. Henry's voice is not as loud because he feels himself to be "more weary than angry" [Bukowski 1987.7] as described in the screenplay. The volume of his voice increases significantly only in the sentence: Hey you! You in that filthy apron! Henry shouts to draw Eddie's attention because the preceding request for a draft is ignored. In the second scene, the volume of Eddie's voice is much weaker. The line beginning í hear... sounds resolute but relaxed. Then, when insulted, Eddie utters the threat in a rather mild voice. He is almost whispering also because his face is very close to Henry's. However, then his voice goes up in the shout Fuck you on tonight? before becoming low and impatient in You gotta... and then rising extremely again in That's it. Fuck! and Fuck you! Get away from that tap! By means of voice intensity Eddie's uncontrolled emotions are expressed. Even more so, the emotiveness o is delivered with a scream in the last line of Eddie in the second scene. In the two dialogues in Barfly, volume of expressions depends on emotiveness and on the character's nature. It will be perhaps even more revealing to consider the most prominent items of the characters' short utterances.

2.1.2. Intonation and Emphasis The intonation nucleus of the Eddie's first line is the word beg. In Henry's first lines, the one-syllable words piss, prick, the first syllable of funeral and goose are pronounced as the intonation nuclei of the sentences and thus are given special prominence. In the second scene, Henry chooses to emphasize the following words: draft, you, filthy, draft, lobotomy, man, fuel, here, good, stinks and the second syllable in okay. On the other hand, in Scene Two, Eddie chooses to emphasize the most following monosyllabic words or individual syllables: voice, see, fucking, punches, don't, fuck, goddamned, what, fuck, fuck, tap, cant's, work, fuck, fight, you, sucker, fall, what's, and what's. This list reveals that the words chosen as

24 intonation nuclei are predominantly monosyllabic which also corresponds to the informality of the language.

2.1.3. Elusion Despite the fact that Bukowski reflects the spoken variety of English, since he had a long and fruitful experience with the spoken word, he could not prevent some changes in the actual film dialogue. Here and there, the filmmakers (director, actors, editors, producers) add or omit a few phonemes, lexemes or even sentences. In line 3, Eddie's utterance has been deprived of the second unit and thus made shorter. Another discrepancy between the screenplay and the soundtrack appears as early as line 4, Henry's second utterance. Instead of you're going to the phonetic realization you gonna is heard. The omission of the phoneme standing for the verb be and the use of the more informal variant of the construction going to reflects the highly colloquial style of the language used in the interaction. The informality of the phrases already present in the screenplay is even further intensified in the movie soundtrack. The soundtrack informal variant gonna is used twice by Henry instead of going to written in the screenplay. In you gonna the phoneme /r/ is omitted and in I'm gonna the phoneme /m/ is realized. In All y a gotta (line 1), the soundtrack version corresponds to the written form, meanwhile you gotta pay for is different from the screenplay's you pay me for in (line 15). However, both express the more informal version of got to or have to. A phonetically similar unit occurs once more. Nevertheless, this time it does not express modality but possessiveness. It is the moment when Henry informs Eddie: I got a full tank of fuel It can be heard that the phoneme /v/ standing for the word have has been omitted in pronunciation. There are more frequent elisions in this sequence of the film dialogue. Sometimes they are recorded already in the screenplay, sometimes not. For instance in that the best you can do (line 5) after that the phoneme /s/ is missing and this elision is scripted. Similarly, in I wanna tell you something and I want you hear it good (line 16), the two phonemes /tu/ are missing.

25 Once it is contracted into wanna, which is not scripted and once it disappears altogether after you, exactly as is written by Bukowski. Two further revealing examples of elisions which are not reflected in the screenplay are: the phoneme /r/ is missing in Henry's come close(r) (line 16) and the two phonemes /in'/ are mispronounced by Eddie in hold(ing) (line 24). It is evident that even though the language in the screenplay reflects the informality of expression by the two men, on many occasions the actual spoken dialogue is changed slightly to expand the degree of informality of the language and casual interaction.

2.1.4. Repetition While analyzing the specificity of film dialogue Kozloff makes a point about repetition when she writes:

Repetition in film dialogue may at times exist to mimic normal conversational habit, but primarily it stems from aesthetic motivations. ... The artistry of film scripts can be traced to their recurrent patterns. [Kozloff 2000. 84]

In the two sequences I have been analyzing so far there is frequent repetition on the phoneme level. The alliteration in case of consonants /pr/ in priest, prick (line 4) has been already mentioned above. Another repetition exists in the same utterance when the sound of /ju:/ can be heard twice. Staying in the same line, the next sentence is full of alliterative sounds too. The sound of the consonant /r/ is heard five times in mother's crying at funeral, her and turkey. The same utterance reveals another alliteration of consonants in gonna goose. The fact that such a dense use of specific sound patterning is not just a matter of coincidence is evident from other examples. The expression pulled my punches (line 12) used by Eddie is another example of alliteration par excellence. The use of five phonemes /k/ in Henry's most condensed and alliterative line 18 proves the aesthetic

26 motivation Kozloff mentions. The rhythm created by the chain of words cunt stinks like carpet cleaner suggests the poetic quality of foregrounding. Mukařovský claims:

In poetic language foregrounding achieves maximum intensity to the extent of pushing communication into background as the objective of expression and of being used for its own sake; it is not used in the services of communication, but in order to place in the foreground of the expression, the act of speech itself. [Cited in Fowler, 96] I have shown a number of features at the phonic level of the utterance, comparing the frequent elisions in the language use in the screenplay and the movie soundtrack. The poetic function of the condensed and repetitive sound patterning has been verified.

27 2.2. Morphosyntactic Level

At this level I will briefly examine the way words are combined in the dialogue. The first phenomenon I have noticed is the fact that most sentences are simple and short. The frequent use of contracted forms and REDUCED constructions can be traced in the dialogue. There are 22 different contracted forms employed in the 26 lines uttered by the dyad in the two scenes of the film. Here they are grouped chronologically as they are employed in the interaction:

TABLE III: CONTRACTED FORMS

gotta gotta gonna wanna mother's mother's gonna that's he's can't I'm can't don't can't must've can't I'll I'd don't what's gotta what's

The tendency towards monosyllabic word use in spoken English is evident. The informality stemming from such a density of contracted forms is also transparent. As if the number of syllables were not sufficient, the use of REDUCED constructions makes the sentences even shorter. An ungrammatical form occurs in the first sentences in line 5. There the verb be is missing as well in the following sentence where instead of grammatically more correct you had or you'd better a less standard phrase you better is used. A similar example of REDUCTION can be found in line 11. The personal pronoun I is omitted

28 from the utterance altogether by Henry, as well as the verb be in the following sentence of the same line. The personal pronoun appearing in the screenplay is skipped once more from the utterance in the line 14 of the soundtrack. In both samples of REDUCED constructions, the subject shifted and thus the subjective word order is employed here. The same feature is traceable in the second sentence of Eddie's line 24. The subject is present only in the screenplay, but not in the soundtrack. These are pieces of evidence of a high degree of emotiveness and informality in the usage of language practiced by Henry and Eddie too. One example of such a word order where a rheme of the utterance is put in the beginning of the sentence can be found in the Eddie' s emotionally condensed utterance on line 13. The scripted version of the sentence is: What the hell are you on tonight, punk? However, in the movie Eddie's angry question is made more dismissive and direct by the use of the vulgar f-word in the initial position of the utterance and by another use of REDUCED construction (See GLOSSARY OF TERMS). The phonetic resemblance of the morphemes what and fuck is taken advantage of as this kind of substitution helps to intensify the illocutionary force of the utterance. Structural simplification is also present in the sentence since the verb be is missing again. At this moment, it is necessary to discuss the terms ELLIPSIS and structural simplification in a more general sense. As mentioned above the film dialogue excessively employs REDUCED construction. Writing about the notion of structural compression or "reduction of complexity of constituent structure," Leech points out that one of the devices of simplification responsible for such compression "is the process of anaphoric reference by which repeated semantic content may be omitted altogether ('ellipsis')" [Leech 1974. 193-194]. This type of omission, i.e. ellipsis, occurs in the analyzed segment of the screenplay version of the film dialogue as mentioned above [Now instead of later!). Crystal specifies ELLIPSIS as a "term used in GRAMMATICAL analysis to refer to a SENTENCE where, for reasons of economy, emphasis or style, a part of the STRUCTURE has been omitted,

29 which is recoverable from a scrutiny of the CONTEXT" [Crystal 1985. 107]. Crystal also mentions that such sentences are referred to as REDUCED, CONTRACTED or 'abbreviated' constructions. The term REDUCED has been used in relation to the film dialogue. Furthermore, he claims that "'elliptical' constructions are an essential feature of everyday conversation, but the rules governing their occurrence have received little study" [108, see GLOSSARY OF TERMS]. Moreover, Fowler reminds us of the fact that: Ellipsis is a very important cohesive device in dialogue, a guarantee that speakers are concentrating together on a single topic. In Actional dialogue, ellipsis suggests intimacy, intensity. [Fowler 1996. 85]

This claim is highly relevant to the film dialogue analysis since it brings evidence that intimacy and structural simplification (REDUCTION), including ellipsis, are interrelated. This will be dealt also in the following Chapter Three. Thus it can be stated that contracted forms, subjective word order, substitution and REDUCED constructions in the film dialogue make the verbal acts more colloquial, more direct as well as more intimate. The soundtrack version of the interaction shows a higher frequency of such strategies and is thus in many cases slightly more informal and intensified than the screenplay.

The examples mentioned above: That'(s) the best (ľ) remember you (are) out of brew (you're) lookin' Fuck (What the hell are) you on tonight?

30 2.3. Lexical Choices

At this level I will show which words are used by the characters, comparing the informality of the word phrases already present in the screenplay with an even more intensly informal version in the soundtrack. The two following chronological lists of word phrases show what expressions Henry and Eddie use to address each other:

TABLE IV: FORMS OF ADDRESS

HENRY: EDDIE:

you ya you scumbag you faggot you prick cheap punk you your head hey boy youfaggot barkeep you you you Eddie fuck you you your life you you your mother's you Eddie you sucker fuckin' rummy

What is seen here is the frequent use of the personal pronoun by both characters; this reveals a high degree of intimacy between them. Henry uses the first name Eddie twice, showing his negative intimacy. In Eddie's usage there are more derogatory terms expressing contempt since they address Henry as either a male homosexual (twice), disrespected person [scumbag, punk, sucker) or an unreformed alcoholic (rummy). It can also be seen that Henry uses vulgar slang expressions in a slightly more intricate way. This can be seen in the line 18 which has been mentioned in connection with the sound patterning above. Eddie's use of

31 expletive slang seems to be simpler and more straightforward. For instance, he utters the f-word 6 times in the 26 lines of the two scenes in the movie, while no such instance can be found in Henry's turns. This disproportion in the use of words may possibly reveal the difference in the characters' level of education or intelligence, although intelligent and educated people can use f- words quite often, especially when drinking alcohol. However, from the context of the speech situation low social status can be detected in the interaction. When identifying the discrepancies between the written and spoken realizations of the dialogue, the intensifier you can be found before the address form prick being used in the line 4. Then in the following sentence the sounds of the interjections oh (preceding the sole scripted word shit) and oh hey are added to the scripted dialogue as well as the victorious, as if self- directed interjection hey baby, which is uttered by Henry in a moment when Eddie seems to be beaten. Each of these three interjections serves a different function in the utterance: 1) The first oh shit is a clear reaction to a particularly heavy blow in the stomach. 2) The following oh hey is a way of addressing Eddie. A similar use of the same interjection can be found in line 16, when Henry reacts in disappointment to a cigarette thrown into his beer. 3) The actor's prolonged and relieved delivery of the third interjection in line 4 hey boby, impregnates the two words with a feeling of complacency. Henry smiles a little and closes his eyes while uttering this short expression, only to be caught unprepared by Eddie's fist in the face. The expression hey baby is used for the purpose of the film narration. At first sight it seems to have a monologue-like character. However, this is only an illusion because the short speech has been inserted in the movie to communicate with the spectators. Thus another layer of interaction is established. The film dialogue is structured to take the spectators into consideration.

32 When Eddie verbally addresses Henry for the second time while kicking into belly he uses a couple of derogatory terms: Scumbag! Faggot! Once again, these words of hate and disgust are not in the original screenplay. Have they been chosen to make the film dialogue more effective, emotive and expressive or is their presence in the soundtrack a matter of coincidence? The latter is very unlikely as it is important for the revelation of character. This fact brings us to the interpretation of the pragmatic meaning.

33 CHAPTER THREE Film Discourse, Pragmatic Meaning, Style

In Chapter Three I will analyze the speech events and suggest a tentative pragmatic interpretation of the film dialogue. The dominant part of the interpretation will be showing the strategies according to which the dialogue is constructed to communicate information to the audience, i.e. the meaning construction. In other words I will analyze the discourse of the film dialogue. For this purpose, the characteristic features and functions of a film dialogue need to be considered. Writing about the nature of film dialogue, Kozloff claims that: [.] film dialogue is purposely designed for the viewer to overhear, so that we can draw the best hypotheses, but films disguise the extend to which the words are truly meant for the off-screen listener. Part of the film-going suspension of disbelief is to collaborate in this fiction. [Kozloff 2000. 15-16] Therefore, for the comparative discourse analysis of the screenplay and soundtrack version of the piece of film dialogue in Barfly, it will be fundamental to show how the dialogue is designed, i.e. constructed, for the viewer to overhear. Furthermore, Kozloff refines understanding of the film dialogue by distinguishing it from:

1. stage dialogue 2. dialogue in novels 3. spontaneous everyday speech [See Kozloff 2000.15-19] In relation to 1, the film dialogue is claimed to be different in two principal ways: A) by the simultaneous signification of camera work/mise-en- scěne/editing that serves to select, emphasize, undercut, distract, reveal, or deform the filmgoer's interpretation

34 B) by the phenomenological absence of the actors from the filmgoers' space and reality, which allows the spectators' cathexis4 with the characters more free play [Kozloff 2000.17]

In relation to 2, Kozloff observations are as follows: Film dialogue is distinguished from dialogue in novels by die absence of the literary narrator who could expliciüy summarize or interpret the characters' speeches or even render interior views of the characters' minds and emotions. Instead of a narrator sequentially contextualizing the characters' speech, film offers the simultaneous signification of camera work/mise-en-scěne/editing. Moreover, the difference between reading words printed on a page and hearing them spoken aloud by actors is immeasurable. [Kozloff 2000.17]

In connection to 3, Kozloff mentions several claims relevant for the further interpretation of the meaning of the film dialogue.

In narrative films, dialogue may strive mightily to imitate natural conversation, but it is always an imitation. It has been scripted, written and rewritten, censored, polished, rehearsed, and performed. Even when lines are improvised on the set, they have been spoken by impersonators, judged, approved, and allowed to remain. Then all dialogue is recorded, edited, mixed, underscored, and played through stereophonic speakers with Dolby sound. The actual hesitations, repetitions, digressions, grunts, interruptions, and mutterings of everyday speech have either been pruned away, or, if not, deliberately included. Less time is devoted to the actual functions of everyday discourse, such as merely establishing social contact (what Roman Jakobson calls "phatic function") or confirming that a conversation is that speakers should not tell each other what the other already knows, film dialogue is often forced to smuggle in information merely for the viewer's benefit. Because the words are in truth directed at the filmgoer, not at the on-screen conversationalists, each word does double duty, works on double layers. [Kozloff 2000.18-19]

In the chapter devoted to the functions of dialogue in narrative film, Kozloff explains that when analyzing a segment of film dialogue one should

4 n. pi. cathexes Concentration of emotional energy on an object or idea

35 ask: "Why are these lines here?" or "What purpose do they serve in the text as a whole?" Kozloff identifies nine functional categories of a film dialogue. The first grouping concerns functions of a film dialogue in relation to the narrative:

1) anchorage of the diegesis and characters 2) communication of narrative causality 3) enactment of the narrative events 4) character revelation 5) adherence to the code of realism 6) control of viewer evaluation and emotions

The second grouping, as Kozloff claims, goes "beyond narrative communication into the realm of aesthetic effect, ideological persuasion and commercial appeal":

7) exploitation of the resources of language 8) thematic messages/authorial commentary/allegory 9) opportunities for "star turns" [Kozloff 2000. 33-34]

Such a division will be helpful in describing the film discourse of the film dialogue in Barfly. I will focus on the ways the distinctiveness of film dialogue is reflected in the analyzed piece of verbal interaction as well as on the location of the film dialogue functions mentioned above. By concentrating on the ways the verbal interactions between the characters are used to fulfil the functions, the discourse of the film dialogue can be disclosed. In other words, the focus will be on the ways the interaction between characters structures the spectator's reception of what is seen on the screen. Thus, at a general level, the crucial question also concerns the relationships of the word and image in the film.

After the introduction of the general characteristics and functions of the film dialogue, I will concentrate on contextualizing and interpreting the pragmatic meaning of the actual segment of the film dialogue. In order to do so, I will proceed with the comparison of the screenplay and the soundtrack

36 versions of the dialogue with the intention to point out the shifts in the pragmatic meaning. The SPEAKING grid proposed by Hymes will be used for the context description [See Thomas 1995.188].

3.1. Situation

The situation or setting in which the analyzed dialogue, i.e. speech event, takes place can be understood on two levels: 1) The audio-visual film setting of the speech event constructed by the simultaneous signification of the "film audio-visual narrator", i.e. the camera work, mise-en-scene5 and editing where the verbal exchange between interlocutors is designed purposefully for the overhearing spectator. In fact the channel can be described as two on-screen characters communicating information to the audience by performing a film dialogue. 2) The abstract social setting of the speech event related to the on-screen interlocutors having face-to-face conversation.

Despite the fact that the two settings are intertwined it will be productive to have the two different levels in mind because of the "double duty" of the word used in film. [See Kozloff above] Firstly, I will again concentrate on Scene One, in which a viewer sees and hears Eddie and Henry for the first time. For the understanding of the audiovisual film setting the work of camera, mise-en-scěne and editing will be discussed. The camera pans into the "Golden Horn" bar after the first opening images of several "lowlife bars" [Bukowski, 1987.13] are shown. The camera

5 mise-en-scěne tu The arrangement of performers and properties on a stage for a theatrical production or before the camera in a film.

37 pans down to the entrance door, the screen is all in black. The door opens with a creaking sound and the interior of the bar is exposed. The camera goes slowly onward. The bartender Jim calmly reading a newspaper can be seen. The place looks dark, old and shabby. The camera continues to pan to the rear entrance leading to the back alley. The image is accompanied by electric blues music. Apart from the bartender there is nobody in the darkened place. However, a multitude of excited voices can be heard more distinctly. The camera stops while showing the rear entrance of the bar. The strong voice of Eddie shouting his first line is heard off-screen then a sudden detail of Henry's face saying his first line can be seen and heard on­ screen. The reason why I have used such a detailed description of the opening sequence of the movie is to show the way the work of camera, mise-en-scěne and editing replace the literary narrator of the story. They do so in accordance with conventions created during film history. The slow move of the camera into the dark space of the bar suggests a mystery and gives rise to spectator's expectation. One of the conventions used in Hollywood narrative movies is the audio-visual continuity editing (see GLOSSARY OF TERMS), which is used to avoid confusing the audience as to the geography of a scene and the position of things and characters. Time and space, image and sound are synchronized and presented in a continuous fashion so as not to disturb the viewer's expectation most of the time. Disturbing a viewer by separating the image from the sound in using an off-screen utterance is done on purpose to keep the spectator in suspense and thus attract more attention. To use the Fowler's term, it is a type of defamiliarization of the film audio-visual narration. Moreover, such use of utterance is a part of the strategy of the filmmakers of Barfly and a way of employing the sixth function of film dialogue as described in Kozloff and mentioned above (control of viewer evaluation and emotions). The fact that Eddie's first line, All y a gotta do is beg for a little mercy, is heard off-screen changes its meaning in the context of the actual film setting. The unseen source and the

38 emotionality of Eddie's utterance attract the viewer's attention. At the same time, the utterance, being uttered off-screen, can be regarded as less prominent in relation to the character's revelation. Even more so when compared to the on-screen setting of the first utterance of Henry. Henry's unshaven, battered, and bleeding face uttering the first words is revealed closely after Eddie's unseen utterance. It is understood that Henry's words and Henry's character in general are made more prominent than Eddie's words by means of the film narration, more exactly by editing. The spectator is informed about the Henry's privileged position by the discourse of the film narration. Another piece of evidence supporting the claim is the long shot showing Henry lying cdone in his own blood on the ground while the crowd of people is heading back to the bar with congratulations f or Eddie in the end of Scene One. Thus the verbal interaction is opened as well as closed by the shot of Henry. This is an example of the relationship between the audio­ visual film setting and the film dialogue. It is evident that the interpretation of the pragmatic meaning of the dialogue is highly dependent on the film discourse and vice versa. The way camera reveals the characters is related to the paralinguistic feature of the utterances. For example, the extremely deformed facial expressions seen during the fistfights are the instances of paralinguistic features expressing high-strung emotiveness of the characters' verbal acts. Comparing the screenplay and soundtrack version of the dialogue a shift of the setting is evident. The first is an instance of written language used for the purpose of the film in the later. In the film, the words from screenplay are uttered by the impersonators which can be heard by the audience. Therefore the dialogue in the soundtrack is a piece of spoken language used in film. The interpretative and summarizing function of the film "audio-visual narrator" is absent in the screenplay's written form. More precisely, the on-screen audio-visual setting is only suggested there. The interpretation of the pragmatic meaning of the dialogue is dependent on the context of the film narration. The audio-visual, i.e. the sound and image

39 information given to the audience in the course of the film narration gives clues for understanding the dialogue. The first scene exposes of the characters in the film. After the fistfight, it is clearer who the main character is. Between the two scenes and further on the film narration proceeds and gives more information about the attitude of Henry toward Eddie. The next day after the first fistfight Henry goes to the "Golden Horn" and speaks with the day bartender Jim Jim advises Henry: "Henry, you oughta stop fight Eddie. You don't even have a reason, that's why you lose every fight." Henry answers: "I could whip him without a reason because I got the guts... hey, I got the guts... but the guts need fuel." Then he steals a sandwich from a fat customer and eats saying again: "All I need is little fuel! That's all I need to whip Eddie." Then he has a drink "on the cuff' and goes to his cheap hotel apartment In the hotel he is seen writing something on a piece of paper listening classical music on the radio. His voice can be heard over the image saying:

HENRY v. HENRY Voice Over Monologue in Henry's Apartment Listening to Mozart and Writing

THE ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY SOUNDTRACK (p. 27) A /voice-over/ Some people never go crazy. What truly Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible horrible lives they must live. lives they must lead. B /to himself/ Oh shiň Come on.

Henry's monologue-like utterance gives further information about the functions of the film dialogue. Henry's utterance serves the character revelation in the film when expressing his personal attitude toward people and their craziness. It is an example of a stylized voice-over monologue, in which, in fact, Henry communicates with himself and at the same time with the audience. In this sense, the utterance can be considered as dialogic. Furthermore, while reading his poetry Henry's voice over is addressing some people, expressing his contempt of them. However, Henry does not pronounce the words. Spectator/hearer in a movie theatre is informed only by the voice of the actor through speaking the loudspeakers. The actor on­ screen does not open his mouth. Thus the convention of the use of sound in

40 film is employed. A monologue, during which a character speaks to oneself is a rare phenomenon in American movies and is often presented in a form of voice-over, suggesting the words going on in mind of the on-screen character. What will also be important for the discourse analysis are the incongruities of the screenplay and the soundtrack realization of the dialogue. However, the shifts in pragmatic meaning of the speech acts in the film dialogue will be dealt with later the sub-chapter 3.4.

Further on in the movie, Henry is seen waking up stealing food and whiskey from another apartment eating, drinking and smoking and listening to the radio. Then at night he goes to the "Golden Horn" again and the second scene with Eddie begins. During the scene it is Henry who is the centre of camera attention. The scene ends with Henry leaving Eddie lying on the ground. He goes slowly through the silent crowd of people who seem to be shocked by his victory. He exchanges a smile with an old barfly and goes to the bar. Then asks Ben, the substituting bartender, for beer but Eddie, who is now in caring hands of women, shakes his head saying "No!" to Ben who is thus force to refuse to serve Henry. Henry leaves... etc.

It can be seen from the context description that in both scenes with Henry and Eddie the setting of the verbal interaction takes place in the "Golden Horn", which is supposed to be a lower class bar in Los Angeles. The abstract social setting of the speech situation in the first scene can be called a fistfight and take place among dustbins in the back alley of the bar. The situation in the second scene might be characterized as a bar talk leading to a fistfight. During the bar talk, the informality of the situation is slightly reduced than during the fistfights, because Henry and Eddie occupy their typical places. Henry sits in front of the bar and Eddie moves behind it. Generally speaking, both scenes are informal speech situations set in a place where social norms tend to be violated, where people drink alcohol heavily, smoke and make dirty jokes. It is a place where old prostitutes sexually satisfy costumers in the toilet and especially a bar where a bartender is regularly having fights with one of the customers, i.e. barflies. As it is scripted by Bukowski, the bar is a lowlife setting.

41 3.2. Participants

The two young males, Henry and Eddie, are the interlocutors. The former is a regular attendant of the bar and the later is the night bartender, which shows a difference in their status. I have mentioned the prominence of Henry' s character underlined by the audio-visual film setting which has an impact on the viewers' interpretation. Nevertheless, Henry is portrayed as a loner, an outcast, even in the bar he frequents. He is the one the crowd does not cheer for. He is often unemployed and unlucky. He seems to be living in a world going nowhere. However, from Henry's point of view everybody lives in such a world, whether living in a bar or a big family house. This attitude can be understood from the words he says in a comparatively long contribution addressed to Jim, the day bartender who is one of the few people in the film who seem not to hate Henry:

This is a world where everybody's got to do something. You know, somebody laid down this rule that everybody's got to do something, you got to be something - you know, a dentist, a glider pilot, a narc, janitor, a preacher. All that. Sometimes I just get tired thinking of all the things I don't want to do, of all the things I don't want to be, of all the places I don't want to go, like India, like get my teeth cleaned, ehm, save the whale. All that. I don't understand it. The Jim's answer is: You're not supposed to think about it. I think the whole trick is not to think about it. [See Bukowski 1987.69-70]

As opposed to Henry, Eddie does not think about such issues. He is the quintessence of the stereotypical macho personality, who must "prove... some thing continually but...never asks himself why" [Bukowski 1987.3]. Masculine physical and sexual dominance seems to be the only things he lives for. He has a job and is respected by the surrounding people. He is the one the crowd cheers for. For a more detailed illustration of the characters, see the scripted character descriptions in the Appendix.

42 At the same time, Eddie and Henry are both fictitious characters represented by actors (Rourke, Stallone). Moreover, Henry's role is played by a contemporary film star, which is also significant for the understanding of the Hollywood film context. Rourke plays a role of Henry Chinaski who is the alter ego of Charles Bukowski, a famous poet, writer and the author of the screenplay. It has already been claimed that the film dialogue is distinctive by the fact that the audience is inherently present in it. Thus viewers are in the participants' dialogue, too. They are hearers, or, as Kozloff writes, "overhearers" of the verbal interaction. As has also been stated above, the dialogue takes the audience into consideration by the way it is used. More specifically, it is the viewer's "horizon of expectation" which is important for the construction of the film dialogue [see Kozloff 2000.138]. Part of the audience expectation may also be the fact that Henry represents the young Charles Bukowski.

3.3. Ends

In the course of the two dialogues, individual goals are at play. What is the goal of Eddie in the first scene? The explicit goal is that Eddie wants to win the fight. In the first three lines (1,3 and 6) he utters he expresses his will to offend and humiliate Henry and thus show his superiority and dominance. At the same time, Eddie wants to show-off his masculinity by beating Henry verbally as well as physically. Henry's goals seem to be more ambiguous. According to the screenplay's character description, he is an unsuccessful, possibly mad and disowned suicidal character who is poor, who drinks and who "fears the life of the dull and the damned..." [See characters description]. At the level of explicit meaning, he wants to offend and humiliate Eddie, too, as seen from the utterance he uses. However, his motivation is implicitly different which becomes clearer from the context of the film narration. As has been mentioned above in the description of the scenes preceding the second

43 dialogic sequence, he claims he can beat Eddie without a reason, only because he has "got the guts but the guts need fuel" [Bukowski 1987.24]. From this it can be understood that Henry is simply thirsty and hungry. His individual goal is to survive. What he needs for survival is alcohol and food. Henry seems to be aware of Eddie's aggressively masculine attitudes also because of the fact that they both seem to know each other well. This is evident from the language they use as has been analyzed above, when closeness and negative intimacy is detected in the use of language, as will be developed in the next section. However, according to the character description, Henry also wants to die, but he is unable to do it. Therefore, in general, he may like to be beaten, however, not by Eddie, who symbolizes the dull life Henry fears. These are briefly the individual goals of the dyad in the interaction. Nevertheless, there is also a goal related to the film discourse of the analyzed dialogue. The words used are meant to interact not only between Henry and Eddie but between the film narration and the audience. The context of the audiovisual film setting and Kozloff s functions of a film dialogue are at play. From such perspective, the goals of these two particular dialogic sequences are related to the functions. The function responsible for the control of viewer evaluation and emotions has already been mentioned in the section devoted to SITUATION where it has been shown how the "audio-visual film narrator" helps to construct the meaning of the dialogue. In relation with the goals of the interaction, this function is realized in the two sequences as well. Viewers are supposed to be entertained, drawn into participation and identify with the characters by means of the dialogue construction. The second dominant function that can be observed in this context is the character revelation. Viewers are exposed to this function more significantly in the first scene because here they receive the first information about the characters. The exposition of characters mirrored in their use of

44 language will be partly in focus in the next section devoted to speech acts, in other words, to the verbal behaviour of the characters in the movie.

3.4. Act Sequences, Key and Instruments

The message form of the illocutionary acts in the speech event has been thoroughly analysed in the previous chapters. However, the message content of the utterances has been insufficiently touched upon. In relation to the making meaning, the form and the content of the utterance are interrelated and inseparable. The observation of language use leads us to the claim that the actual spoken dialogue has been evidently, even though slightly, changed on some occasions on behalf of the expansion of informality of the language and the casualty of the interaction (see Chapter Two, 2.1.3). Another and maybe an even more important observation is that contracted forms, subjective word order, substitution and REDUCED constructions in the dialogue are used extensively on many occasions and thus make the verbal acts more colloquial, more direct as well as more intimate. Moreover, it has been proved that the utterances in the soundtrack of the movie reinforce such strategies. This has lead to the conclusion that the interaction in the soundtrack of the movie is slightly more informal and intensified (see Chapter Two, 2.2). What this means for the pragmatic understanding of the film dialogue might be more transparent in agreement with Kozloff: However, so-called "elliptical" dialogue implies a special closeness amongst the characters, they speak to each other in a shorthand fashion, they understand mysterious prior references, and their minds are moving in the same speed. The viewer is put in an inferior position, shut out from the closeness, trying to catch up. Screenwriters regularly quicken the pace by starting a scene in the middle of a conversation, thus forcing the viewer hurriedly to infer the elided moments. [Kozloff 2000.74] Indeed, the first scene of the movie starts in the middle of the fistfight conversation. Viewers' emotions and evaluationsare thus controlled as the

45 "overhearers" have to increase their attention to understand the dialogue's meaning. This is especially so, if the form of the dialogue is as excessively "elliptical"6 and informal as the soundtrack interaction is in the two analyzed sequences of verbal interaction. The audience is excluded from the closeness existing between the two characters. However, the spectators become more involved in the conversation by the employment of the REDUCED constructions of utterances. The notion of informality and closeness brings back the social scales' evaluation and the problem of intimacy which has been dealt with in the beginning of the analysis. It is necessary to distinguish between various linguistic means expressing intimacy in order to define the different degrees of intimate verbal behaviour on the scale between positive and negative. The distinction is highly dependent on the context of the speech act. Hence a closer look at the particular speech acts from the socio-pragmatic point of view is needed. The changes made in the soundtrack version of the utterance in contrast to the original screenplay will again be observed in order to disclose the film dialogue specificity, i.e. the discourse of the film dialogue. In other words, I will look for the shifts occurring in the soundtrack version in contrast to the screenplay version of the dialogue. I distinguish four basic speech acts; STATEMENT, INQUIRY, DIRECTIVE and EXCLAMATION. By observing the occurrence of the speech acts during the course of the two segments of dialogue, while comparing its screenplay and soundtrack version, the pragmatic meaning of the piece of verbal interaction in the film dialogue will be revealed.

6 See discussion of 'ellipsis' above in Chapter Two.

46 TABLE V: SPEECH ACT C>CCU IIRENCE 7 - EDDIE - HENRY Line Speech Act Line Speech Act 1 STATEMENT 2 STATEMENT DIRECTIVE 3 DIRECTIVE 4 STATEMENT EXCLAMATION 6 EXCLAMATION 5 EXCLAMATION INQUIRY STATEMENT EXCLAMATION 7 STATEMENT 8 EXCLAMATION EXCLAMATION DIRECTIVE 10 STATEMENT 9 EXCLAMATION STATEMENT INQUIRY 12 STATEMENT 11 STATEMENT EXCLAMATION INQUIRY DIRECTIVE 13 EXCLAMATION 14 STATEMENT INQUIRY STATEMENT 15 STATEMENT 16 EXCLAMATION DIRECTIVE DIRECTIVE STATEMENT 17 EXCLAMATION 18 STATEMENT INQUIRY 19 EXCLAMANTION 25 EXCLAMATION 20 EXCLAMATION - - DIRECTIVE 21 STATEMENT - - 22 STATEMENT - - 23 (STATEMENT) - - 24 EXCLAMATION INQUIRY STATEMENT 26 (INQUIRY) EXCLAMATION INQUIRY TABLE VI: FREEQENCY OF OCCURENCES - total EDDIE total HENRY TOTAL both STATEMENTS 8 7 15 INQUIRY 5 2 7 DIRECTIVE 5 2 7 EXCLAMATION 9 7 16

7 The speech acts printed in bold letters are added to the screenplay version of the dialogue. The speech acts in the brackets are omitted in the soundtrack version of the dialogue.

47 It can be said that the function of utterances becomes more changeable. Let us take Eddie's first line which has the syntactic structure of a statement: All y a gotta do is beg for a little mercy. Meanwhile, the dominant intonation; the emphasized word beg being the intonation nucleus of the utterance and the high volume and expressivity of the delivery suggest DIRECTIVE function of Eddie's verbal act. As if the meaning of the first part of the sentence All ya gotta were reduced while the illocutionary force of the second part, beg for a little mercy, were intensified in the soundtrack version of the utterance. In line 2, Henry expresses his attitude in the form a statement [Quitting to you would be like swallowing piss for eternity). Once again, the intonation suggests extreme emotion and expresses his negative attitude toward Eddie's preceding DIRECTIVE STATEMENT since the vulgar slang word piss is emphasized. Thus the statement can be interpreted as exclamatory, expressing Henry's activated emotions. Furthermore, the utterance is underlined paralinguistically. The detail shot of Henry's twisted face during the utterance intensify the emotion and expressiveness of the statement. "The audio-visual narrator" manifests the paralinguistic features of the utterance and thus underlines and intensifies the illocutionary force of the speech acts in the soundtrack version of the film dialogue. To expand the idea it should be noticed that the first two lines of Eddie are uttered off the movie screen. The camera prefers to concentrate on showing Henry's speaking face in the beginning of the first scene. This corresponds to the movie narrative, in which Henry plays the leading role and to the first opportunity of the "star turn". In addition to the undercutting of Eddie's speech by the ignorance of the camera, Eddie's utterance in line 3 is also shortened compared to the screenplay:

3 I Eddie: Come on, give it up! Now instead of later! Come on, give it up! /off-screen/

Low Degree «. High Degree

48 It can be seen, that the second part of the screenplay of the DIRECTIVE speech act is omitted from the soundtrack version. The choice of camera and what is more the REDUCED structure of the speech act cause a shift in the meaning of the utterance as the illocutionary force is weakened. Not only is Eddie's speech made less prominent but it also quickens the pace of the interaction. Moreover, by omitting the elliptical second sentence (Now instead of late!) and by the choice of the camera, the degree of negative intimacy in this utterance is slightly reduced in the soundtrack as is seen on the scale. 8 In contrast to this, Henry's speech is made more prominent and reinforced in the soundtrack version of the dialogue. His responses are certainly longer and more importantly they are made longer in the soundtrack than in the screenplay:

4 Henry: You're going to need the priest, prick. And You gonna need the priest, you prick. And when while your mother's crying at the funeral I'm going your mother's crying at the funeral I'm gonna goose to goose her with a turkey neck! her with a turkey neck! ...HEY, BABY...

Low Degree ._» High Degree9

5 Henry: Shit...that the best you can do? You better Oh, shit.„oh, hey, that the best you can do? You phone for help. better phone for help.

Low Degree ._» High Degree

8 For complete chronological evaluation of the degrees of negative intimacy in the film dialogue see the scales of negative intimacy in the Appendix 9 Legend to the scales:

stands for the degree of negative intimacy in the screenplay

« stands for the degree of negative intimacy in the soundtrack when it is reduced

» stands for the degree of negative intimacy in the soundtrack when it is extended

49 It can be seen that the final speech act of EXCLAMATION, HEY, BABY, is added to the screenplay dialogue in the soundtrack version of Henry's utterance in line 4. Similarly, the screenplay's initial EXCLAMATION shit is expanded in oh shit... oh hey in the soundtrack.

The utterance in line 4 and 5 bear a complex use of EXCLAMATION. The functions of the interjections (hey baby, oh shit, oh hey) has already been mentioned in relation to the grammatical level (see Chapter Two). Interjections constitute the speech act of EXCLAMATION, expressing the speaker's feeling. However, different types of exclamatory functions are used here. The interjection you prick (line 4) in the soundtrack as opposed to the sole use of prick in the screenplay is marked by intonation in the film. The preceding and following statement are intensified while made more negatively emotional and expressive. Furthermore, the force of the illocutionary act is intensified by the image and sound of Henry's fist punch into the Eddie's belly. The sound of the blow is synchronized with the sound of the aspirated plosive /p/ in prick. The following interjection hey baby closing the Henry's temporary "win of the argument" serves an exclamatory function. In this case, however, the positive emotion is being expressed, which is accompanied by a gesture of relief and feeling of victory with a calm tone of the interjection. As has been mentioned before (see Chapter Two), this monologue like utterance is added to the scripted dialogue. In my opinion, this is done on purpose to communicate with spectators. By such usage the audience is able to recognize who is the "good" and who the "bad" guy is as well as who the main character is. This is done on the basis of positive or negative intimacy. The character of Henry is thus revealed more in the soundtrack by the addition or expansion of the EXCLAMATION. Three different samples of the exclamatory function of this utterance can be found in the soundtrack version of the line 5 (Oh, shit...oh, hey, that the best you can do? You better phone for help). In the initial expression oh shit, Henry's pain is expressed after he has just received a punch in the face.

50 The short utterance stands for Henry's speech act of EXCLAMATION expressing his abrupt and uncontrolled feeling and emotion (exclamatory function 1). After a small pause, the rhetorical mocking question is uttered while introduced by the exclamatory form of address oh hey missing in the original screenplay. Henry certainly does not ask for more information from Eddie but rather his negative attitude is expressed while the degree of the negative intimacy is increased in the soundtrack version of the dialogue (exclamatory function 2). The ironic STATEMENT (You better phone f or help) only intensifies the negativity. The three speech acts suggest Henry's closeness or intimacy as well as his negative attitude toward Eddie. Emotionality is also marked by the incompleteness in the grammatical structures of the utterances, thus the INQUIRY and the STATEMENT can be considered to have an exclamatory function as well (exclamatory function 3). Moreover, from the perspective of the film narration, the suspense in the viewer's reception is created by the fact that Henry exclaims positively at a wrong time, when the fistfight is not decided yet. By such strategy, viewers are more involved in the film action. They also have an opportunity to identify with the leading character. Such observations are fundamental for the understanding of the film dialogue discourse. What is important for the understanding of Henry's verbal behaviour in the first scene is the expression of his attitudes by the complex use of intimate language. Is this line an instance of positive or negative intimacy? It can be argued that it is both. One's conclusion depends on the point of view and the context of the speech situation.

1. NEGATIVE INTERPRETATION OF INTIMACY SIGNALS The violation of the Cooperative Principle by means of the mocking rhetorical question (oh, hey, that the best you can do?) and irony (You better phone for help) suggests that the intimacy toward Eddie is highly negative (even more intensified in the soundtrack).

51 2. POSITIVE INTERPRETATION OF INTIMACY SYGNALS In the context of the film narration, the ironical utterance Oh, shit... oh, hey, that the best you can do? You better phone for help can be interpreted as positive by the spectator. From the film reception point of view, this form of speech is used on purpose and a comic effect of the movie scene is thus achieved. Such verbal behaviour gives the audience information about Henry's characteristic features. He is being verbally intimate and funny, and the viewer may interpret this as an example of wittiness, boldness, courage or craziness because of the moment at which Henry utters such mockery. He is actually in a desperate situation, bloody and about to be knocked down by Eddie. Thus, in such cases, context is crucial for the understanding of the film dialogue meaning. The soundtrack's addition of the positively intimate EXCLAMATION, HEY, BABY, helps to construct a positive intimacy with the audience and makes the character likeable. On the other hand, the next words Eddie utters while kicking the prone Henry produce an attitude which is purely negative:

6 Eddie: Scumbag! Faggot!

Low Degree » High Degree

The whole speech act of EXCLAMATION showing Eddie's strong disrespect for Henry is used only in the soundtrack of the film and is missing in the screenplay. The fundamental information is that the two instances of EXCLAMATION {He baby... and Scumbag!!! Faggot!!!), which have been inserted to the scripted dialogue, express a type of positive intimacy in Henry's verbal behaviour and negative intimacy in Eddie's verbal behaviour. In this way, characters are revealed by strategies defining the film discourse of dialogue during the fistfight speech event.

52 In the time between the two film scenes, Henry utters the monologue mentioned above. Its special importance is clear in the screenplay and the soundtrack comparison: HENRY v. HENRY Voice Over Monologue in Henry's Apartment Listening to Mozart and Writing

THE ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY SOUNDTRACK (p. 27) A /voice-over/ Some people never go crazy. What truly Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible horrible lives they must live. lives they must lead. B /to himself/ Oh shift Come on.

Low Degree «. High Degree

As can be seen, the screenplay version of the dialogic monologue consists of speech acts A and B. Speech act A is an example of a STATEMENT and B is an EXCLAMATION. Speech act B expresses Henry's negative attitude toward himself, his self-critical attitude. More precisely, the EXCLAMATION shows his negative emotion toward the preceding STATEMENT. The four word EXCLAMATION has been omitted in the film soundtrack variant of the utterance. The low degree of negative intimacy in the screenplay's utterance has been even more reduced by the omission of the emotional and self-negating speech act. This causes a shift in the pragmatic meaning of Henry's verbal act. Once more, Bukowski's screenplay version is changed on purpose. The Hollywood film discourse of the film dialogue is thus more apparent as the main character represented by the Hollywood film star (Rourke) is presented slightly more positively and heroically or at least slightly less negatively to the film audience.

The second scene including dialogue during the speech events of the bar talk and fistfight is loaded with EXCLAMATIONS as well. Emotions are expressed excessively. It is important to emphasize the fact that I understand the term EXCLAMATION in a more traditional sense. It can be defined as any emotional utterance, which usually lacks grammatical

53 structure of a full sentence and is marked by strong intonation (see GLOSSARY OF TERMS above). During the bar talk speech event the two characters are revealed by their use of language in which attitudes are reflected. Henry and Eddie interpret the social situation in different ways. Henry acts as if the Eddie's status were equal to his, thus denying the fact that Eddie is the bartender who is in charge of the place. On the other hand, Eddie denies Henry's social status of a respected customer who should be served in a polite way. However, this is more understandable when the "lowlife" status of the bar is taken into consideration. Nevertheless, it can be argued that both of the characters violate the Politeness Principle by using language full of negative intimacy. The first instance of ordering beer by Henry (line 8: Hey boy, fetch me a draft!) shows signs of a low degree of intimacy:

8 Henry: Hey, boy! Fetch me a draft! Hey boy, fetch me a draft!

Low Degree «. High Degree

This is manifested by the casual but calm manner of speech. The only indication of negativity could be found in Henry's ignorance of the bartender's respected status. The goal of the utterance, obtaining a glass of beer, is unfulfilled because Eddie ignores him. Nonetheless, since the goal seems to be very important for Henry (being an alcoholic), the next utterance is reflected by his anger exemplified by the exclamatory form of address.

9 Henry: Hey, you! You in thatfilthy apron! Hey, you! You in thatfilthy apron!

Low Degree . High Degree

Referring to Eddie by means of the personal pronoun you twice and raising his voice significantly (screaming), the illocutionary force is

54 intensified. The negativity of the EXCLAMATION is indicated by the use of the word filthy as the nucleus of the second utterance. The enhanced illocutionary force makes Henry's utterance successful and prompts Eddie into reaction. In the following utterance Eddie shows more distance:

10 Eddie: Seems like all those Muhamad Alis I've I hear a voice down there but I'm sure I don't see laid on you have rattled your bells. much. It seems like that beating I gave you last night must've rattled your bells, huh? Low Degree •_» High Degree

As can be seen in comparison with the screenplay, the soundtrack utterance has been made longer. The first STATEMENT, I hear a voice down there but I'm sure I don't see much and the question tag huh? appear only in the soundtrack version of the utterance. In the attempt to mock Henry, Eddie utters two STATEMENTS instead of one as is scripted. The STATEMENTS reflect his assumed physical and social superiority. The illocutionary force is intensified by emphasizing the words voice and see, expressing Eddie's ignorance and negative attitude, as well as by the use of the exclamatory and colloquial form of the tag question huh? Such use of the tag question expands the degree of negative intimacy. It is the only moment in the dialogue when Eddie uses sarcasm to offend Henry, which may reveal something about his poor education and intelligence. Nevertheless, the sarcasm has a comic effect for viewers and the people sitting in the bar. Henry tops the mockery with an even stronger degree of sarcasm, using a rhetorical question, being even more witty and funny:

11 Henry: Look, barkeep, I remember ordering a Remember ordering a draft, barkeep. What, you out draft. You out of brew or has your lobotomy brew or has lobotomy finally taken hold, huh? finally taken hold? Low Degree ._» High Degree

What can be traced here is the omission of the subject I and the addition of the word what and the informal question tag huh? in the soundtrack version.

55 By accepting the status game in the first utterance (using the form of address barkeep as already mentioned above, p. 19), emphasizing lobotomy (used metaphorically as a stronger variant of sarcasm) and repeating the same informal and exclamatory question tag as Eddie [huh?), Henry insults, offends and thus makes Eddie angry. Henry uses a rhetorical question intensified by the question tag to make fun of Eddie's macho masculinity and show his disrespect toward him. It is another example of the way Henry's character is revealed to the audience. By denying the authority of the bartender, he is being very bold, courageous, funny and crazy. It is relevant for the comparison of the screenplay and soundtrack that the informal tag questions are attached to the scripted dialogue, thus making the soundtrack film dialogue more interactive, emphatic and emotive. Another piece of utterance added to the dialogue is found in the line 12:

12 Eddie: Eddie: I'll drive you right through the I'll drive your head right through the fucking wall fucking wall tonight, fag. I pulled my punches on tonight, you faggot. I pulled my punches on you you last night... last night... But don't move! Low Degree •__» High Degree

A full speech act of DIRECTIVE is added in the end of Eddie's utterance (But don't move...). In my opinion, this addition not only emphasizes the negative description of Eddie's character but, more importantly, it is a clear evidence of the film discourse effect in the dialogue. It creates suspense, while the viewer is tempted to ask: What will happen next? Another aspect of film discourse is connected with the significance of paralinguistic features in verbal interaction. It can be explained by the fact that narrative film is a visual art using the camera as a narrator, while the image replaces the verbal description of the speech situation as mentioned above. However, the design of the soundtrack dialogue reflects the discourse of the film narration. Eddie's utterance is made shorter once more in line 13:

56 13 Eddie: What the hell are you on tonight, punk? Fuck you on tonight?

Low Degree . » High Degree

The informality and emotionality of the soundtrack version of the INQUIRY has been increased by the use of the elliptical structure with the expletive fuck. Thus Eddie's emotional, REDUCED EXCLAMATION and INQUIRY, Fuck you on tonight?, is a form of a strongly negative and informal rhetorical question. Regarding the immediate context of the utterance, it can be understood as a reaction to Henry's non-verbal act, i.e. showing his empty palm with a hilarious smile on his face when supposed to pay. The non-verbal act appears to be effective in relation to Henry's interactive goals as he insults Eddie and leads him gradually into another fistfight. Eddie's reaction is an instance of a growing degree of negative emotion. It can be seen that the soundtrack version of Eddie's utterance shows a higher degree of emotiveness and negativity. The illocutionary force is intensified by the use of the f-word substituting and abbreviating the slightly more formal construction "What the hell are you on tonight, punk?' [Bukowski 1987.39] appearing in the written form in the screenplay. Thus Eddie's soundtrack verbal act is made shorter and more emphatic by substituting REDUCED construction and subjective word order as has been described above. It must also be stated that the address punk is omitted without any substitution in the soundtrack version of the dialogue. Henry's reaction to Eddie's insulting question is intricate while he ridicules Eddie with the intimate form of address, my boy in the first STATEMENT:

14 Henry: You're looking at a new man, my boy. I've Lookin' at a new man, my boy. I gotta a full tank of got a full tank of fuel. fuel.

Low Degree •_» High Degree

57 What is also evident from the comparison of the personal form of address You're is contracted and thus makes the STATEMENT and more intimate in the soundtrack. The screenplay contracted construction I've got a full tank of fuel is contracted even more in soundtrack by the use of even more colloquial version I gotta full tank of fuel. In the next line Eddie also employs a powerful and interactively significant non-verbal act when using his burning cigarette to spoil Henry's object of desire and source of "fuel", i.e. his beer, after saying:

15 I Eddie: You pay me for that goddamned beer! You gotta pay for that goddamned beer, (throws a burning cigarette into the glass of beer Henry is holding) Low Degree High Degree

The illocutionary force of the DIRECTIVE speech act is intensified not only by Eddie's subsequent non-verbal act but also by the use of the informal modal verb gotta which does not occur in the screenplay. Henry's strategic use of a very low degree (line 16) and an extremely high degree of negative intimacy (line 18) results in the escalation of emotion and turns the speech event of bar talk into a fistfight.

16 j Henry: Eddie, come closer. I want to tell you Oh, Eddie, come close. I wanna tell you something. j something and I want you hear it good... Come here, I want you hear it good... Low Degree _._>>_ High Degree

The employment of the speech act of EXCLAMATION oh before the DIRECTIVE speech act, is another example of making the soundtrack dialogue more emotional than the screenplay utterance. The elision of the final /r/ in the scripted word closer is mentioned above. The positive degree of the adverbial function is used here instead of comparative degree (close- closer).

17 | Eddie: Yeah? Yeah, or what? Low Degree » High Degree

58 Eddie's elliptical INQUIRY is made more aggressive in the soundtrack than in the screenplay by the addition of the words or what, which increase the negativity of the speech act by creating suspense. This utterance is the type of structural condensation mentioned by Leech in the previous Chapter Two. The semantic content of Henry's previous utterance is not repeated by Eddie. He reduces his speech act by saying two words only; the rest is being implied by the context. In the following utterance, Henry launches the most offensive STATEMENT.

18 Henry: Your mother's cunt stinks like carpet Your mother's cunt stinks like (sniffs) carpet cleaner. cleaner. Low Degree •__» High Degree

The high degree of negative intimacy is reinforced paralinguistically on the screen when Henry is seen and heard sniffing before the last two words are uttered. The force of the rheme of the STATEMENT is thus reinforced and made even more prominently negative. Eddie's negative and angry emotion is triggered when indicated by the vulgar EXCLAMATIONS with f-words in line 19 and 20. The negative intimacy of the speech act in line 19, That's it...Fuck!!!, is again intensified paralinguistically by the non-verbal act.

19 Eddie: That's it, motherfucker! That's it...Fuck!!! (throws a towel in Henry's face) Low Degree ._» High Degree

20 Eddie: Fuck you! Get away from that tap! Puck you! Get away from that tap!

Low Degree . High Degree

During the second fistfight emotionality is also expressed by the grunts of the participants. Eddie utters more words this time. However, he is

59 beaten in the end. The expression of his fear is marked in the following emotional utterance:

24 Eddie: You usually fall by now, sucker. What's What's hold you up, sucker? Usually fall by now. holding you up? Low Degree •_» High Degree

It is evident here that the succession of the two speech acts in the screenplay (STATEMENT, INQUIRY) is reversed in the soundtrack (INQUIRY, STATEMENT when the STATEMENT Usually Jail by now used after the INQUIRY What's hold you up, sucker? From the point of view of pragmatic meaning this changes the core of the information. In the soundtrack, the mocking STATEMENT comes first and becomes intensified by the derogatory form of the address sucker. Then the less intensified STATEMENT omits the subject you. The form of STATEMENT is the first sign of fear in Eddie's utterances. However, a strong disrespect toward Henry is present in Eddie's last utterance before he is beaten.

26 Eddie: Okay, what? What's "okay"? You fucking What's "okay," you fuckin' rummy? What's okay? rummy, what's okay?

Low Degree ._» High Degree

The comparison shows omission of the first speech act of INQUIRY Okay, what? in the film soundtrack of the dialogue. The screenplay's version of the utterance is highly elliptical; nevertheless, it is made even shorter in the soundtrack. The four lines uttered during the fight are again emphatic and exclamatory, expressing attitudes. For the film discourse it is relevant that the Eddie's line 23 in the screenplay, "You fight like a girl" [Bukowski 1987. 43] is omitted in the soundtrack. In my opinion, the reason for this omission is that the degree of emotionality, informality, expressiveness, masculinity and negative intimacy should be reduced.

60 3.5. Preconclusion

Chapter Three has been devoted to a tentative pragmatic interpretation of the film dialogue. In the beginning, general characteristics and functions of film dialogue were introduced. Subsequently, the speech events occurring in the film dialogue in Barfly were analyzed. First, two potential layers of setting were identified. It has been shown, that the level of the audio-film setting, with the significant audio-visual narrator, is intertwined with the level of the social setting of the speech events (fistfight, bar talk leading to fistfight) in the film dialogue. The aspect of the Hollywood film setting and the aspect of a low life bar setting has been discovered and described. Secondly, the context of the speech situation has been revealed by discussing the characteristic features of the two on-screen participants in the interaction. The viewer has been identified as the third potential participant of the film dialogue, and the "horizon of expectation" significance was mentioned. Furthermore, the ends of the interaction have been identified. In relation to both of the characters the explicit mutual goal to offend and humiliate the other was mentioned. However, the motivations of Eddie and Henry are different, since the first wants to show his masculinity and dominance and the later wants to survive by having a drink. In relation to the audience, the goal of the interaction employs distinctive film dialogue functions. More precisely, the function of controlling of the viewer's evaluation and emotion and the function of character revelation have been mentioned in connection with the goals of the interaction. In the section analyzing the actual speech acts, the shifts in meaning have been discovered through a comparison of the screenplay and soundtrack versions of the film dialogue. The skilful employment of added exclamations and the intricate use of the degree of negative intimacy in the

61 soundtrack version have been observed in the course of the film dialogue. It has been manifested that the degree of negativity in most cases is expanded in the soundtrack version in comparison with the screenplay. However, one speech act indicating a positive emotion or one case of a lower degree of negative intimacy has been found in Henry's contributions in the soundtrack as opposed to the screenplay. The viewer's possible positive interpretation of Henry's negative intimacy has been mentioned in opposition with the clearly negative interpretation of the intimate verbal behaviour of Eddie. Furthermore, the ongoing process of REDUCTION, making the utterances more direct, and more informal as well as more elliptical in the soundtrack has been followed in the comparative analysis.

62 CHAPTER FOUR Conclusion

Film is a synthetic art form and the employment of dialogue in film is a highly complex matter. The limited scope of this thesis prevented me from further analysis of the film dialogue in Barfly. Nevertheless, the basic outlines of the film dialogue discourse or style have been analysed. To summarize the results of the analysis, I will first present observations that have been made in the discourse analysis of the two sequences of the film dialogue in Barfly. Subsequently, I will try to contextualize the observed phenomena and highlight the interrelationships between them. In Chapter One, the social context of the speech behaviour in the two sequences of the film dialogue is described, analyzed and interpreted. The four dimensions of analysis are used to describe the social context of the dialogue, namely the social context of the low life bar "Golden Horn," and the immediate context of utterance, the situation within which the verbal interaction is conducted (fistfight, bar talk) . The verbal interaction between Henry and Eddie has been found highly intimate on the solidarity scale. The intimacy is found to be mostly negative, as an atmosphere of conflict is present. The participants use their slightly different positions to show their dominance and superiority to each other. Status is used to offend and/or humiliate the other participant. Furthermore, an extremely high degree of informality has been discovered in the contributions. The interlocutors use informal speech forms (slang, non-standard language, obscene and derogatory expressions) for the purpose of degrading each other's position. Eddie's social status seems to be higher as he is the bartender and Henry is "a mere alcoholic." However, the implicit meanings suggest that Eddie's superiority is only presumptuous. As

63 far as the affective and referential functions of the verbal exchanges are concerned, it has been evident that emotionality of the utterances prevails over factuality. In Chapter Two, a close formal comparison of the screenplay and soundtrack version of the two sequence of the film dialogue has been carried out. It has led us to following conclusions: First, on the phonetic level, it has become evident that even though the language in the screenplay reflects a high degree of informality of the expressions by the two men, on many occasions the actual spoken dialogue in the film is changed slightly in order to expand the degree of informality of the language and the casual tone of the interaction. Furthermore, the poetic function of language used (more by Henry) has been disclosed in the use of alliteration and sound condensation. Thus the communication is backgrounded and the sound structure of words, i.e. the act of speaking as such, is foregrounded. Secondly, on the morphosyntactic level, it has been shown that contracted forms, subjective word order, substitution and REDUCED constructions in the film dialogue are at work to make the verbal acts more colloquial, more direct as well as more intimate. The soundtrack version of the interaction shows a higher frequency of such strategies and is thus in many cases slightly more informal and intensified than the screenplay version. In this section, the notion of ellipsis is discussed while views of Leech, Crystal and Fowler are combined in the interpretation. Chapter Three is completed with its own summary in Preconclusion above. However, it needs to be pointed out that the interpretation of the pragmatic meaning employed in two different layers of setting has led us to the specification of the film discourse and style of the dialogue. The specific features of the film dialogue stemming from the screenplay-soundtrack comparison are:

64 1) The film soundtrack dialogue puts a higher emphasis on emotionality (higher frequency of exclamations), informality, expressiveness, masculinity and negativity of utterances. Use of expressions with more positive meanings have been identified only in Henry's contributions, which is done on purpose to anchor the character and the diegesis of the film and to reveal the character. 2) The dialogue is more colloquial using reduced constructions, contracted forms, omissions, ellipsis, elision, slang expressions and subjective word order frequently as mentioned above. 3) The paralinguistic level of utterance is emphasized by the presence of the audio-visual film narrator; the camera work, mise-en-scěne and editing. This type of narrator contextualizes the spoken dialogue of the characters and even renders the characters' emotions, while the verbal exchange between interlocutors is designed purposefully for the overhearing spectator. The channel of the interaction can be described as two on-screen characters communicating information to the audience by performing a film dialogue.

The work of the camera is simultaneously significant in delivering the speech acts. The camera10 really does "speak" by organizing the on-screen image within which the film dialogue takes place. Henry's victorious and relieved gesture during the exclamation Hey baby, his empty palm "speech act" and his sniffing have been mentioned. These gestures all intensify the illocutionary force of the utterances they accompany. In similar way, Eddie's directive statement is made even more directive by the non-verbal act of throwing a cigarette into Henry's beer. Thus, the ways the actors deliver the words, their expressions and tones of utterances, are more significant since they can be seen and heard on the screen, photographed by the camera. Besides, the work of camera changes the meaning of the dialogue by making

10 The experienced, avowed and recognized director of photography, Robby Muller, was behind the camera of Barfly. He has photographed films directed by Wim Wenders since the 1970s, films by Jim Jarmush since the 1980s, and films by Lars von Trier since the 1990s.

65 Henry's character the more prominent speech participant. The actual, shabby setting of the bar is revealed also through the camera. Last but not least, audio-visual narrator is used for keeping the viewer in suspense.

4) Another specific feature of the discourse is the phatic function; mere establishing of social contacts is missing in the characters' interaction. Moreover, the speakers tend not to tell each other what the other already knows. The film dialogue, working on double layers, is constructed for the viewers' benefit while the words are more directed at them than at the on-screen characters.

It has been proved that words of the film dialogue serve a double duty. The film dialogue is stylized purposefully serving the functions mentioned with Kozloff. Characters' gestures and tones of utterances are used by the audiovisual narrator; the work of camera, mise-en-scěne and editing, to create the film dialogue meaning. In my opinion, the phatic function of the dialogue is suppressed exactly because of the double duty of the interaction as well as because of the simultaneous significance of the work of camera. The wording of the dialogue leaves out the components which don't serve the bifurcated function of the film dialogue. Establishing social contact by verbal interaction in Barfly is left out. [See Kozloff, 18-19]

The above observations have been shown transparently in the example of the "dialogic" monologue of Henry as well. Writing about dialogic speech Mukaŕovský adds the term dialogic quality which he defines as "designating a potential tendency toward the alternation of two or more semantic contextures, a tendency which is manifested not only in dialogue but also in monologue" [Mukaŕovský 1977.109]. In the monologue uttered by Henry in his room, I have identified the multilayered voice employment. Henry, as if he were speaking to himself, indirectly addresses the people and the

66 audience. The double-layered nature of the words used in the film dialogue mentioned above, can thus be expanded to multilayered employment of voices in the film dialogue. Such conclusions would lead us to Bakhtin's notion of heteroglosia. Every utterance reflects two voices or even more. For example, in the above mentioned monologue of Henry, the voices are the following:

1. The indirect voice of Bukowski, as the author of the text 2. The direct voice of Henry Chinaski embodying young Charles Bukowski 3. The direct voice of Rourke, the impersonator of Henry 4. The voice of the filmmakers (director, producer, director of photography, etc.) 5. The voice of the ever present "overhearing" spectator 6. The voice of the audio-visual film narrator

Moreover, the shape and use of the verbal interaction reflects the specific film dialogue functions. It anchors the diegesis and characters. It reveals the characters to the audience and control the viewers' evaluation and emotions. In linguistic terms, the style of the utterance in the film dialogue under analysis can be defined as extensively emotional, brief, direct, informal and negatively intimate as stated above; thus my hypothesis that the language in the film soundtrack has been changed for the film narration purposes has been proved. The hypothesis has also verified that the film dialogue in Barfly is highly and purposefully stylized despite of striving to imitate authentic, natural conversation. On a yet more general level, it can be said that the style of the film dialogue in Barfly, even if stylized according to the conventional norms of Hollywood film representation of reality, is a rare example of authentic representation of low life in Los Angeles.

67 APPENDIX

I. DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTERS HENRY CHINASKI: Late twenties. Already life-worn. More weary than angry. Face formed by the streets, poverty. If he is mad, then it is the madness of the disowned who lack interest in the standard way of life. Rather than enter the treadmill of society he has chosen the bottle and the bars. There seems little for him to do but sit and wait, but he is not sure what the waiting means. Drinking seems a way to hide. He fears the life of the dull and the damned, and the eight-hour jobs they hate yet must fight to keep. He thinks of suicide; he has tried suicide several times and failed, but he's not even a good suicide. He is more sad than bitter, and like most desperate men he has some humor. He attempts to remain hidden behind his street face but now and then kindness and gentleness come to surface, though rarely. He moves slowly for a young man, rather stiff-shouldered, but at times his movements show a sudden swiftness and grace. It is as if he were saving himself for some magic moment, some magic time. Meanwhile, he drinks and drinks and drinks.

EDDIE, THE NIGHT BARTENDER: Twenty-four. Stocky, square-jawed, quick with word, seems to know things but does not. He's good with ladies, knows the phrases to set them off, pours free drinks to the best lookers. He's also a man's man, black hair jutting from his chest, his shirt open two or three buttons down. He's really a sickening prick but you don't want to admit it to anybody because he's what a man is supposed to be, and if you don't like that, you know, then there's something wrong with you. One of his favorite stunts is to do gymnastic tricks along the bar, grabbing the edge of the bar with one hand and putting the other hand upon a stack of beer cases, then swinging his legs high into the air while grinning like a motherfucking monkey. He is a good duker, he punches hard and on target but he is only a front runner - if he can't do his man in early he tires, loses heart, and if you catch him with one while he is coming in he blinks, backs off, looks stunned and you can see the fear in his eyes. Eddie's mind is on women, he lives more to fuck than to drink, and fucking to him is not so much a joy as it is something he has to do to prove something to himself, and he must prove this something continually but he never asks himself why. Just another hustling bartender stamping around on the boards. [Bukowski 1987.7-9]

68 II. SCALES OF NEGATIVE INTIMACY*

SCENE ONE

Eddie: All ya gotta do is beg for a little mercy, All ya gotta do is beg for a little mercy. /off-screen/ /off-screen/ Low Degree High Degree

Henry: Quitting to you would be like swallowing Quitting to you would be like swallowing piss for piss for eternity. eternity.

Low Degree High Degree

Eddie: Come on, give it up! Now instead of later! Come on, give it up! /off-screen/

Low Degree «. High Degree

Henry: You're going to need the priest, prick. And You gonna need the priest, you prick. And when while your mother's crying at the funeral I'm going your mother's crying at the funeral I'm gonna goose to goose her with a turkey neck! her with a turkey neck! ...HEY, BABY...

Low Degree _» High Degree

Henry: Shit...that the best you can do? You better Oh, shit...oh, hey, that the best you can do? You phone for help. better phone for help.

Low Degree High Degree

S Eddie: Scumbag! Faggot!

Low Degree _» High Degree

SCENE TWO

8 Henry: Hey, boy! Fetch me a draft! Hey boy, fetch me a draft!

Low Degree «. High Degree

9 Henry: Hey, you! You in that filthy apron! Hey, you! You in that filthy apron!

Low Degree High Degree

69 10 Eddie: Seems like all those Muhamad Alis I've I hear a voice down there but I'm sure I don't see laid on you have rattled your bells. much. It seems like that beating I gave you last night must've rattled your bells, huh? Low Degree High Degree

fl | Henry: Look, barkeep, I remember ordering a Remember ordering a draft, barkeep. What, you out draft. You out of brew or has your lobotomy brew or has lobotomy finally taken hold, huh? finally taken hold?

Low Degree High Degree

12 Eddie: Eddie: I'll drive you right through the I'll drive your head right through the fucking wall fucking wall tonight, fag. I pulled my punches on tonight, you faggot. I pulled my punches on you you last night... last night... But don't move!

Low Degree . » High Degree

13 Eddie: What the hell are you on tonight, punk? Fuck you on tonight?

Low Degree _. » High Degree

14 Henry: You're looking at a new man, my boy. I've Lookin' at a new man, my boy. I gotta a full tank of got a full tank of fuel. fuel. Low Degree High Degree

L5 Eddie: You pay me for that goddamned beer! You gotta pay for that goddamned beer, (throws a burning cigarette into the glass of beer Henry is holding) Low Degree . » High Degree

L6 Henry: Eddie, come closer. I want to tell you Oh, Eddie, come close. I wanna tell you something. something and I want you hear it good... Come here, I want you hear it good...

Low Degree . » High Degree

17 Eddie: Yeah? Yeah, or what? Low Degree . » High Degree

18 Henry: Your mother's cunt stinks like carpet Your mother's cunt stinks like (sniffs) carpet cleaner. cleaner. Low Degree . » High Degree

19 Eddie: That's it, motherfucker! That's it...Fuck!!! (throws a towel in Henry's face) Low Degree High Degree

70 20 Eddie: Fuck you! Get away from that tap! Fuck you! Get away from that tap!

Low Degree High Degree

21 Eddie: Your whole life is just a bunch of cant's. Your life is just a bunch of cant's. You can't work. You can't work, you can't fuck. You can't fight. you can't fuck. You can't fight.

Low Degree High Degree

22 I Eddie: I'd hate to be you if I were me. I'd hate to be you if I were me.

Low Degree High Degree

24 Eddie: You usually fall by now, sucker. What's What's hold you up, sucker? Usually fall by now. holding you up?

Low Degree . » High Degree

25 Henry: Okay, Eddie... Okay, Eddie...

Low Degree High Degree

26 Eddie: Okay, what? What's "okay"? You fucking What's "okay," you fuckin' rummy? What's okay? rummy, what's okay? Low Degree _» High Degree

Legend to the scales:

stands for the degree of negative intimacy in the screenplay « stands for the degree of negative intimacy in the soundtrack when it is reduced » stands for the degree of negative intimacy in the soundtrack when it is extended

71 III. SOME SLANG EXPRESSIONS

faggot n A sexual pervert. Some cl930 use. Archaic, having been replaced by the shorter "fag." See fag. fag 2. n A homosexual; an effeminate man; since c 1940 specif., a male homosexual/ 1941: "He had the body of a wrestler and a face of a fag." adj. Homosexual; pertaining to homosexuals. goose v.t. 1 [taboo] Lit. and fig., to poke or threaten to poke a finger into someone's anus to produce shock or annoyance, either to make a joke or to start the person working or the like. 1943: "As she was bending over her work-table, a playful lab assistant goosed her." M. Shulman, Barefoot Boy with Cheek, 99. 2 To outwit someone, to take advantage of another's lack of alertness. cl930 3 To start a motor or a machine; to feed spurs of gasoline or power to a motor. C1935. 4 To threaten, beg, cajole, or encourage another to do something faster or better. 5 To stop a locomotive suddenly, usu. by putting it into reverse while it is moving forward. Railroad usw

6 Fig., to obtain the maximum speed from an engine, machine, or esp. a vehicle. ptUlk n. 1 A petty hoodlum; one who thinks he wants to be a hoodlum but lacks real toughness and experience. 1949: "All the cockiness which association with Frankie had lent him, and Fankie's absence had taken away, returned. Dealer was coming home. 'Guys who think they can rough me up, they wake up wit' the cats lookin' at 'em,' he immediately began warning everyone. And spat to emphasize just how tough a Division Street punk could get." N. Algren, Man with the Golden Arm, 11. 2 A young or inexperienced person. Specif, a boy tramp or child hobo; a boy, youth, or beginner; a young prisoner; any C.C.C boy, except an official leader; a child or adolescent of either sex; a youngster. 3 An inferior or unimportant person. Specif. A small-time criminal. 1930: "... They reached the stage where they thought only 'punks' committed misdemeanours. ..." Levine, Third Degree, 102. 4 [derog.] A catamite; the young male companion of a sodomite. Prison, maritime, and tramp use. 5 An inferior prize fighter, jockey, pool player, etc. 6 A lackey; esp. a waiter or porter. 7 A man or guy; esp. a worthless man; a petty criminal. 1934: "We're just two punks, Frank." Cain, Postman, 88. rummy or rummie n. 1 A drunkard. 1860: DAE. 1941: "What rummies they were getting to be." Cain, Peirce, 55. Colloq. 2 A stupid, shiftless, or confused person, as if from habitual drunkenness; a worthless person, as a drunk. 1937: "And besides, that rule was only for rummies." Weidman, Wholesale, 68. Not common.

72 3 Anything inferior or worthless. Not common. scumbag n. A person regarded as despicable, [http://dictionary.reference.com] l.[ 1920s] a derogatory name for someone you don't like sucker n. 1 A person easily deceived or cheated; an easy victim; a dupe. 2 A fan; one who is vulnerable to a certain type of person, business deal, sport, or gambling game. 1953: I'm a sucker for a beautiful blonde." George Sanders [movie actor], AP interview. 3 A teacher's pet. Student use. 4 A lollipop. Child use; colloq.

DICTI0NARY.COM:

Slang.

a. An unspecified thing. Used as a generalized term of reference, often as an intensive: "our goal of getting that sucker on the air before old age took the both of us" (Linda Ellerbee). b. A person. Used as a generalized term of reference, often as an intensive: He's a mean sucker.

[See Dictionary of American Slang 1975 and http://dictionary.reference.com]

73 IV. IMAGES FROM THE MOVIE BARFLY

Line 2: Quitting to you would be like swallowing piss for eternity.

Line 4: ...HEY, BABY...

74 Line 6: Scumbag! Faggot!

Line 9: Hey, you! You in that filthy apron!

75 Henry's palm with no money Cigarette in beer

Line 18: Your mother's cunt stinks like (sniffs) carpet cleaner.

76 The towel in Henry's face Drinking from a tap

Line 25: Okay, Eddie...

11 BIBLIOGRAPHY:

—: Dictionary of American Slang; ed. Harold Wentworth and Stuart Berg Flexner, Fitzhenrz & Whiteside Limited, Toronto: 1975.

—: Dictionary.com; http: / /dictionary.reference.com

Bllkowski, Charles: The Movie: "Barfly"; Black Sparrow Press, Santa Rosa: 1987.

Bo r dwell, David & Kristin Thompson Film Art: An introduction. Alfred A. Knopf, New York: 1986.

Crystal, David: A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics; Basil Blackwell Ltd, Oxford and New York: 1985.

Denzin, Norman K.: Hollywood Shot by Shot: Alcoholism in American Cinema; Aldine de Gruyter, New York: 1991. In Review by Alexander Hicks, The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 97, No. 6 (May, 1992), 1788-1790. http: / /links.istor.org/sici=0002- 9602%28199205%2997%3A6%3C1788%3AHSBSAI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3

Ebert, Roger: "A Review of Barfly"; In Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago: 1987. http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert reviews/1987/12/269356.html.

Fowler, Roger: Linguistic Criticism; Oxford University Press, New York: 1996.

Holmes, Janet: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics; Longman, Wellington: 2000.

Kozloff , Sarah: Overhearing Film Dialogue; University of California Press, Los Angeles: 2000.

Leech, Geoffrey: Semantics; Penguin Books Ltd, Baltimore: 1974.

Mukařovský, Jan: The Word and Verbal Act, Yale University, New Haven and London: 1977.

Thomas, Jenny: Meaning in Interaction: an Introduction to Pragmatics; Longman, London and New York: 1995.

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