The multitude of secrets and strangeness of an enigmatic, but everywhere and known to all, figure of LA’s punk scene is explored in Dave Markey’s insanely engaging 2025 documentary, Secret Lives of Bill Bartell, now on Blu-ray from MVD Visual.
The Film
There were times during Dave Markey’s documentary The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell where I thought, “They gotta be pulling my leg, this has to be a put on. No one can live this oddly.” But unless a small production like this can deepfake Kurt Cobain, who opens the film lauding Bartell, it is real. Bill Bartell was real. And he’s a fascinating subject, an enigmatic figure: both known and unknowable across the LA punk scene of the 70s onward. He’s a hidden history in punk, pushing the genre forward but not becoming one of the names a person with a more general history, like me, knows. Thus, The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell is an engaging and incredibly interesting documentary digging into the life of an odd man to try to find out just who he might truly be.
You probably know someone like Bill Bartell in whatever scene you’re in. That guy who knows everyone. Any event worth attending, he’s there. In between those times that he crosses your path, he lives a big life, flying out to New York for a random concert, disappearing to Hawai’i for some adventure. Somehow, within all that, he has the time to continually call and talk to everyone he has a number for (but no one knows his, or knows where he lives). Pops up as an extra in something you’re watching (for Bartell, noticeable in the crowd at a concert in Penelope Spheeris’s The Decline of Western Civilization). He’s likeable and gregarious (to most, several call him a pushy ass, albeit one they liked). The sort who seems to live untethered from the reality the rest of us have to stay within. But in all those adventures, all those people and events, all the long conversations, he remains an enigma. That’s Bill Bartell: a mustachioed madman with his fingers in every pie. Bill Bartell is well known, but unknown, in the same breath. As Walt Whitman said, “We contain multitudes.”
More than once in my notes while watching is: “Who IS this guy?” Of course, that’s what Markey is trying to figure out. The man was a puzzle. And a puzzle on purpose. A strange example of compartmentalizing one’s life. Might he be a substitute teacher (like me!)? A cop? And a big influence on punk? A massive contradiction. He might be asexual. Or gay. Or dating Stevie Nicks? All those mights of who he is and what story is true under any purposely exaggerated claims (or are they?) to hide his real self, are attempted to be peeled away. Across interviews, archival and new, from over 45 people who knew him such as his band members, or members of Sonic Youth & NOFX, filmmaker Allison Anders, plus archival footage such as the aforementioned Cobain bits, and just good ol’ fashioned research, Markey tries to find the full life of Bill Bartell, from growing up in the Inland Empire near San Bernardino, to his band White Flag (purposely taking from Black FLag), the countless other endeavors such as bringing Os Mutatos, the 5 6 7 8s and Shonen Knife to US audiences, to his death in 2013.
It’s hard not to give away the documentary’s secrets. I’m jazzed (punked?) and excited. I want you to go and seek this out. I watched with a sly knowing smile of shock and ease. Markey, who has made several punk documentaries such as 1991: the Year Punk Broke and My Career as a Jerk, puts it all together wonderfully, sliding in and out of time (as Bill seemed to) following the whims of the interviews, in a way that both flows and disjoints. Fitting. But not just in the “what was the wider look at him,” but the why? Why live this way? Why give little snippets and different faces to so many?
Even if you’re not a fan of punk, The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell crafts a fascinating and curious documentary of seeking answers to a mystery. Dave Markey puts together something special and wholly interesting.
The Package
MVD Visual presents The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell on a single-disc Blu-ray or DVD. The two-sided sleeve has the movie poster/specs on one side and a photo of Bartell in a (his?) cop car on the other.
The Presentation
The documentary looks great, especially considering so much is archival on various visual levels. But even the more sketchy material is upscaled enough to follow and look great mixed in with the clear, newly filmed portions. Audio and subtitles are in English.
The Features
Additional Film
Noted as a film, but 46 minutes of deleted scenes. Ones that further explore whole facets of Bartell that didn’t come up in the documentary. Wow. Stories for days. Per the Q & A, there were over 75 HOURS of interviews, so that’s literal. I can’t imagine what the other 72.5 hours hold. 
Q and A from Slamdance 2025
A good look at the creation of the film from the after feature at Slamdance. The first time this film was attempted was in 1994. Markey speaks to the complications of figuring it out and taking all those 75 hours into something cohesive and moving, finding the story. He describes the film as a Greatest Hits of Bill Bartell. I’d love a deep cuts album to follow! (16m)
Trailer
Final Notes
I loved this documentary. I adore documentaries that explore strange subjects in new methods, shining a light into a corner I’ve not really explored. That’s what Markey does with The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell. Highly recommended if any of this struck you. The documentary and extras give us two hours and forty minutes of Bartell, but he can go on forever.