The legend goes that the Coens were suffering from an acute
case of writers’ block while penning the screenplay for Miller’s Crossing
(which deserves an honorable mention), and what gushed forth from
their minds in a matter of weeks was Barton Fink. Winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s
prestigious Palme d’Or back in 1991, the oft-maligned Barton Fink comes with a reputation of being intentionally ambiguous and confusing. While it could be argued that this reputation may be justified, the fact remains that, in
this writer’s humble opinion, the Coens’ tale of a playwright who sells out for
a shot at the big leagues and his subsequent descent into hell (literal or
metaphorical, it’s all up for debate) may just be their greatest accomplishment
to date.
Barton Fink is a successful 1940s playwright whose critical
acclaim has gotten him the attention of Capitol Pictures, a big studio out west
in Los Angeles. Surrounded by the flattery of the sycophantic elites of New York,
the self-aggrandizing Barton is clearly conceited and full of himself, claiming
to just be a humble writer who only seeks to shed light on the plight of “the
common man”. A noble claim indeed, but as we soon shall see, the claim proves
to as hollow as the man who makes it. Making the big move to Hollywood, he
checks in to the strange and seemingly deserted Hotel Earle and after a
bewildering meeting with the fast talking head of the studio, he gets assigned
to write a new boxing picture featuring the big star of the time, Wallace Beery.
In an unfamiliar setting and faced with the task of scribing a story he feels he
possesses neither the motivation nor the knowledge to write about, Barton’s
typewriter promptly falls silent.
In what is yet another indictment of Hollywood, this movie
targets the cynical and artistically vacuous process of making movies just for
the sake of making them. Barton faces a conflict and inner turmoil that the
Coens themselves have encountered their whole careers: the desire to make great
movies within the confines of a system that fixates on the pre-eminence of the
all important bottom line. The Coens perfectly capture the agonizing and
torturous process of writing and of creativity in general with this film. We
become entrapped with Barton in the claustrophobic environs of his seedy and
dilapidated hotel room as he becomes consumed by the utter isolation of his
mind and soul. Everything suddenly turns into an excruciating distraction. Peeling
wallpaper, an uncatchable mosquito on the ceiling, mysterious sounds of sobbing from
next door; the minutiae of everyday life all appear to be working in tandem to
thwart his efforts.
Now it’s unclear how much of what happens in the Hotel Earle
is real or not and how much of it is just a manifestation of what is clearly
a troubled mind. Besides the overeager concierge Chet (played by Steve Buscemi, who incidentally
is in all of the top three films of this list), there doesn't seem to be
many other people around the walls and corridors of the ethereal hotel. He also soon encounters Charlie
Meadows (you guessed it, John Goodman makes yet another appearance), a lonely
and clearly troubled insurance salesman who happens to be the source of the
mysterious sobbing. And it’s their relationship (or lack thereof) that defines
this film. Right under his nose, Barton finds a “common man” who might just be
the key to solving his writers’ block but Barton is too caught up in himself and
too lacking in empathy to see it. To complicate matters, Barton also becomes
involved with Audrey, the secretary of the famous W.P. Mayhew, a drunken
novelist and screenwriter who may be a bit of nasty foreshadowing of what
working too long as a screenwriter does to you. And through it all, the plight
of the common man is forgotten.
It’s hard to put into words exactly what makes this movie
great but it grows on you the longer you watch and the more immersed in it you become. With deadlines approaching and pressure quickly mounting, the tension piling
up on the helpless Barton soon becomes unbearable when events start to take a very
dark and surreal turn. But even though Barton is an unlikeable man in many ways,
the Coens still manage to imbue him with a decency that makes us unable to not still
root for him. A flawed and cowardly character, you get a sense that his desire
is genuine but his failure in sticking to the integrity he holds up so loftily
may be his ultimate downfall. The Coens almost seem to be making the claim that
Barton fears too much to be a truly great writer.
Notorious for offering very little insight on
their own films, the Coen brothers’ work here takes the cake. There are many
layers to peel away and inspect here and the movie leaves many things unresolved but
one question remains once it’s over that stands above all the others: what exactly is in that mysterious box? We can take a guess at the answer but in the end, perhaps the point is that we’re just not supposed to
know.
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