Barton Fink (R, 1991) Directed by Joel Coen. Written by Joel and Ethan Coen. Starring John Turturro, John Goodman.
The Coen brothers have made a name for themselves largely through their wacky tales of crime gone wrong, such as Fargo and Raising Arizona. In Barton Fink, however, they craft what is probably their best and most personal work to date by tackling a different subject: the arts and entertainment business.
On one end of the spectrum are the movie moguls, such as the studio executive who hires the film's protagonist, a young New York playwright named Barton Fink (John Turturro), to write a B-grade wrestling movie and warns him against "fruity" stories. On the other end is Barton himself, a pretentious writer who aspires to "art" at the same time that he claims to be writing for the "common man." Indeed, this claim seems a little shallow when Barton actually encounters a "common man" such as his neighbor Charlie (John Goodman); he welcomes Charlie's company, but he also occasionally insults him without seeming to realize it and doesn't seem all that interested in his lifestyle and tastes.
Flawed though he may be, Barton is not wholly unlikeable; there is a sense that he means well and that he at least has an artistic vision to which he wants to remain honest, even if he is naive about its supposed social relevance. The film follows Barton as he is gradually made aware of two unpleasant truths-that the Hollywood establishment is cynical and cheap, and that he needs to be more sensitive to those for whom he claims to be writing. For example, when he meets W.P. Mayhew, a screenwriter whom he has always admired, he discovers that the man is an alcoholic and that his secretary wrote most of his scripts and novels. Meanwhile, through his relationship with Charlie, he slowly begins to realize what it really means to respect the common man and repents of his earlier condescending attitude.
What really makes the film so special, however, is the vivid yet surreal manner in which the story develops. The satire of Hollywood is achieved partly through more traditional comedy, such as when the goofy executive fires his assistant for failing to kiss Barton's feet, but there is a much more subtle and disturbing aspect of the film as well. That is, Barton is nervous and uncomfortable just about everywhere he goes, especially in his hotel room where he sits for hours on end in front of the typewriter, afflicted by a bad case of writer's bock. Through the Coens' visual mastery and attention to odd details, such as a peeling piece of wallpaper, a strangely distracting painting, and bizarre sounds that echo through the long hallways, as well as Turturro's outstanding performance as Barton Fink, we get the sense that Barton is simply out of his element and should not be in Hollywood.
The surrealism is heightened in the second half of the film, when Barton awakes one morning to find a bloody corpse in his bed and begins to think Charlie may have been responsible after he is questioned and harassed by two anti-Semitic cops. The story grows increasingly bizarre-at one point Barton and Charlie are seen talking in Barton's hotel room, seemingly unalarmed by the fact that the hotel is burning down around them-to the point that we start to think that this can't possibly be "real" and that Barton is having some sort of nervous breakdown. What "really happens," however, is not nearly as important as the truths that are revealed to Barton, about himself and about the dangers of selling out, through these sequences. Barton Fink is a classic-and outstandingly successful-example of a story that is told through abstract, symbolic images rather than through carefully defined plot developments.
Like most of the Coens' efforts, then, Barton Fink is clever and at times uproariously funny, but it makes the final leap from good to excellent because of its character-oriented focus and its note of personal tragedy in Barton's descent into sell-out hell. I was not there myself, of course, but I would be willing to bet that Barton Fink deserved the three awards it won at the Cannes Film Festival in 1991, and as of now it stands as the Coens' one unqualified masterpiece. Grade: A+
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