The text discusses Herman Melville's short story 'Bartleby, the Scrivener' (1853) as interpreted by various philosophical frameworks (Agamben, Arsic, Deleuze, Rancière), and the way in which these readings can be related to a couple of film adaptations directed by Jonathan Parker (Bartleby, 2001) and Juha Koiranen (Partanen, 2003) based on the same text.