Dantes Inferno
Posts: 4883
Joined: 27/10/2007
From: Norway
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What? 
Curtain fall now....
 Spoilers included…
Picture the situation: in front of you there is a typewriter. You are in a hotel room in Los Angeles. You’re supposed to write a wrestling picture, a gig you’ve landed because of the fantastic praise your one play received back in New York. You want to write about the “common man”. No, scratch that. You not only want to write about the “common man”, you want to write for him. You want to capture his essence in a bottle and make wine from it. Sweet, tasty wine. There’s only one problem: you’ve got one hell of a writer’s block. Every time you type a few lines, you end up wondering where you are going to go next. The wallpaper peeling of in your room doesn’t give much inspiration. The same goes for the moaning next door. What you don’t know is that certain events have been set in motion. What kind of events? The kind that would make you wish you stayed back in New York.
This is the situation that the titular character (John Turturro) faces in Barton Fink, the fourth feature by the Coen brothers. Let me save you the trouble of wondering what I think of it by stating right away that I find to be the best film made by the siblings. It is also one of the best films ever made. That’s an opinion that I seem to share with the jury of the 1991 Cannes film festival, who not only awarded the film with the Palme d’Or, but also prizes for Best Director and Best Actor, an unprecedented event that hasn’t happened since.
Barton Fink is a film that breaks with the Coens tradition of either letting the film be a hardboiled thriller or a screwball comedy. Of course, there is a little bit of the hardboiled stuff here and there is some black comedy as well, but there is also a mysterious element that seems curiously reminiscent of another American visionary, more specifically David Lynch. For most of the time, though, the film plays like a traditional Coen brothers film. There is, for example, the odd receptionist played by Steve Buscemi who keeps repeating his name (that’s be Chet). Then, there is the presence of John Goodman as Barton’s neighbor Charlie, a high-spirited fellow who offers plenty of tips about the wrestling business (and a lot of other things as well).
But, at the same time, a dark presence lurks just beneath the surface, and Barton is completely oblivious about it. Then again, he’s oblivious about most things, including the simple fact that the film he’s struggling to write is becoming an intellectual snogfest that has little to do with the “common man”. He tries seeking consult with an alcoholic writer named W.P. Mayhew (John Mahoney), who is clearly intended to be William Faulkner, but as it turns out, most of Mayhew’s work was written by his secretary, a dame by the name of Audrey (Judy Davis). She offers her own services to Barton.
Barton Fink is such an enjoyable film to watch, because the Coens manage to find a way to be self-indulgent and get away with it. One of my problems with Miller’s Crossing was that the film didn’t manage to walk the tight rope between the serious and the absurd as well it should, but that’s not an issue here. Barton Fink is a film bursting with imagination, which is ironic, considering its central theme being about the lack of it. It is also, arguably, the first film where the Coen brothers’ jazz-like syncopated dialogue made its first entry, best seen in the scene where Barton meets the Hollywood executive Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner), who talks so much he never stops long enough to think of something worthwhile to say. And then there’s Ben Geisler (Tony Shalhoub), who talks even more. The Coens would frequently go on to employ actors who have mastered the craft of talking really, really fast, but rarely did they choose as wisely as with Lerner and Shalhoub.
Everything is just so… perfect in Barton Fink. The art design of the hotel is so marvelously done you shouldn’t be surprised if you feel like just pausing the film and admiring its elegance. The actors find exactly the right notes to play, which is an admirable feat considering how absurd everything could have turned out in the hands of less talented actors. To choose standouts would be like choosing between your own children.
Coen films are usually shallow affairs, and are always more successful as films than carriers of ideas. I don’t mind that, but I also don’t mind that they broke that shallowness with Barton Fink. I am still not exactly sure what happens at the end of the film, but I usually find myself guessing the same boring thing: the flames represent hell, and Charlie is either the devil or an employee of him. But it’s not just the ending that has caused people to speculate. The most famous interpretation of the film sees it being read as an allegory for the rise of Nazism, with Barton Fink being the left-wing intellectual that think he has graced the concept of the “common man”, but is only a wall away from a monster who has a much better understanding of what the “common man” really is. That Barton is so blissfully unaware of the imminent dark events of his stay in L.A. says a lot about his ignorance, and a lot about the ignorance of the left-wing politicians in Germany during the 1930s.
First and foremost, though, Barton Fink is a film that is just as much enjoyed when it is watched as when it is mused over. It can also be seen as somewhat of a helpful guide to struggling writers, with the most important tip being: if you have writer’s block, write about it. It helped Fellini, who gave us 8 1/2, and it helped Charlie Kaufman, who gave us the brilliant Adaptation. And it gave us, as you can tell by this review, the very brilliant Barton Fink.
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