BARTON FINK
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1991 Frank Maloney
BARTON FINK is a film directed by Joel Coen, written by Joel and Ethan Coen. The film stars John Turturro, John Goodman, John Mahoney, Judy Davis, Michael Lerner. With Jon Polito and Steve Buscemi. Rated R for language.
BARTON FINK is the most puzzling movie I've seen in a long time, which is not to say I didn't enjoy it. I did, I enjoyed the hell out of it. Just don't ask me what it's about.
I find it impossible to say anything about BARTON FINK that needs saying without possibly giving something away. This is a film that amazes and surprises in virtually every scene. So be warned:
!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!
You've probably heard about the story and I'm not going to get into that, except to say that Barton Fink (John Turturro) is a self-absorbed playwright with his first hit on Broadway who gets himself co-opted by Hollywood in 1941. Hollywood, in this case, is personified by mogul Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner). Fink is thrown into a totally unsuitable project, a B wrestling picture for Wallace Beery.
He lives in the Hotel Earle, which has got to be the Official Hotel for the Twilight Zone. The hotel is dark, hotel, vast, and populated exclusively by Fink, a very strange bell boy/room clerk Chet (Steve Buscemi), a superannuated elevator operator who thinks he may heard of the Bible, and Charlie Meadows (John Goodman), Fink's next-door neighbor, an insurance salesman with a gift for gab.
Fink also makes the acquaintance of another studio writer, W. P. Mayhew (John Mahoney) and Mayhew's secretary/lover, Audrey Taylor (Judy Davis).
If you're a Hollywood buff, you may find yourself caught up in the roman-a-clef aspect of the script: is Fink Clifford Odets, is Mayhew William Faulkner, Lipnick Louis B. Mayer with a touch of Harry Cohen? What do you do with the fact that Beery actually did make a wrestling picture, FLESH, in 1932, directed by John Ford and reputed to be a pretty good flick? Time is only one of the things that are out of joint in this film.
Indeed, there are whole lot of facta that I have no idea what to do with (if that's a sentence). The disgusting, sweating, peeling wallpaper, the fan that doesn't blow any air, the horrific murder, the flaming corridor that no one seems to notice. I keep returning to John Goodman charging down that hallway with his shotgun intent on mayhem and shouting "the life of the mind" over and over. Is this really what BARTON FINK is about: the life of the mind? If so what does it say about this? All the characters are frauds, a third of the action may or may not be happening to the characters in the same way it's happening to us, the audience. And then there's the pin-up over Barton's writing desk who seems to end the film on the beach. Barton says, "You're very pretty. Are you in the pictures?" She says, "Don't be silly." What? I gasped to myself. "Don't be silly"? Wait, I cried, don't end the movie now! If the movie itself a deliberate fraud? Do I want to hear that?
If you go to the movies to see wonderful performances, this is a choice for you. Turturro, who previously played the psychotic crybaby in MILLER'S CROSSING, is absolutely wonderful in the weird title role, making Fink interesting even while skewering Fink with his own ego. And John Goodman, sweating with a passion I've never seen from him, is alternately boobish and horrifying and enigmatic. Lerner as the mogul goes far beyond the call of duty in his portrait of the degeneracy of absolute power: a man who will do anything because he can. The other actors each create memorable characterizations, even as you shake your head over each one's mystery and corruption.
The camera work is bold, the editing tight and ingenious, the acting and direction totally over the top. Unfortunately, for the more conventional movie-goer BARTON FINK displays a kind of contempt for story-telling, dropping major story lines into the abyss of enigma. The Coens give no quarter and ask none.
I recommend BARTON FINK to anyone who can tolerate a movie that will leave him or her on his or her own, a movie that may give one something to talk about for a long time after leaving the theater. And I recommend it as full price. It's worth it.
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney .
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews