The basic motif of the novel consists of the endless wrangles and cons that characterize the making of a movie with a tiny budget, a movie that almost nobody wants to make and that almost nobody will pay to see. They couldn't have been any more operatic if the film had been a megastar superproduction like ''Cleopatra.''

The lower the stakes, the more frenzied the power struggles . . . and the more often the word ''genius'' is thrown around. Chinaski, the drinking-gambling-typing persona that runs through Mr. Bukowski's writing, refuses to be impressed by hyped-up art house deities such as Wenner Zergog and Jon-Luc Modard. Need I say, this is fiction disguised thinly enough for even non-cinephiles to see through the pseudonyms.