Barton Fink (1991)

The film centers around a slightly pompous, idealistic, left wing playwright, Barton Fink (John Turturro), who in 1941, after becoming the toast of Broadway as the pretentious voice of the common man, goes west to Hollywood at the invitation of a major studio in order to try his hand at writing screenplays.

There, he meets studio head, Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner), and his yes man and whipping boy, Lou Breeze (Jon Polito). Asked to write a screenplay for a Wallace Beery vehicle about wrestling, a subject about which the bookish Fink knows nothing about, causes Fink to go into a professional tailspin.

Ensconced in a decaying old hotel, seemingly run by its slightly creepy and unctuous bell hop, Chet (Steve Buscemi), who bizarrely appears on the scene out of a trapdoor behind the hotel's front desk, Fink begins his ordeal . The elevator is run by a cadaverous, pock marked, elderly man. The corridors of the hotel seem endless. The wallpaper in Fink's room is peeling away from the wall, leaving a viscous, damp ooze in its wake. His bed creaks and groans with a life of its own. It is also hot, oppressively hot.

No residents of the hotel are apparent, except for the appearance of shoes outside the doors in expectation of the free shoe shine the hotel offers its denizens and for the noise made by his neighbors. Finks meets one of his neighbors, the portly Charlie Meadows (John Goodman), a gregarious Everyman, possessed of an abundance of bonhomie. A self-styled insurance salesman, Charlie cajoles Fink out of his shell, befriending him in the process. Little does Fink know that beneath Charlie's congenial exterior lies a horrific secret that will spillover onto him in the not so distant future.

At a luncheon with studio under boss, Ben Geisler (Tony Shalhoub), Fink meets a famous writer that he reveres, W. P. Mayhew (John Mahoney), a southern sot so steeped in drink that his companion/secretary, Audrey Taylor (Judy Davis), has to do his writing for him. Fink falls for Audrey but finds his overtures rebuffed. Still, she is willing to try and help him overcome his profound writer's block. In a classic Coen twist, it is this single act of kindness that acts as the catalyst for the nightmare that makes Fink's life become a living hell on earth. He goes from living a life of self-imposed isolation and angst to one that appears to have been created by a Hollywood hack, filled as it is with the most incredible situations, a real studio head's dream.

John Turturro is terrific as the introverted, tightly wound, pretentious, and neurotic Fink, who in Hollywood, away from the womb of the Great White Way, is like a lamb led to the slaughter. With his sculpted afro, horn rimmed glasses, nerdy clothes, Fink is the stereotypic Hollywood notion of the commie writer. John Turturro makes the role his with a purposeful intensity.

John Goodman is sensational as the garrulous Charlie Meadow, the epitome of the working class man about whom Fink likes to write. Unfortunately, all is not as it seems, as Charlie has a dark side to him, a very dark side. John Mahoney is excellent as the Faulknerian-like writer, and Judy Davis outdoes herself, as the self-sacrificing Audrey Taylor.

Michael Lerner will razzle-dazzle the viewer with his over the top portrayal of a fast talking studio head who is willing to pay big bucks for the cache of having a top Broadway playwright turn out screenplay swill for the masses. Jon Polito is very good as the Uriah Heepish, quintessential yes man he portrays. Tony Shalhoub is excellent in his role, underscoring the absurdity of the old Hollywood studio system.

Steve Buscemi, looking surprisingly small in his bell hop uniform, resembles an organ grinder's monkey, at times. The viewer may also expect him to bellow, "Call for Phillip Morris", as in the old cigarette campaign, though he speaks in a controlled, respectful monotone, at all times. Still, his very presence adds a slightly sinister quality to the film, though he does nothing remotely sinister, other than the way he makes his screen appearance. His entrance onto the screen in this fashion foreshadows what is to come.

This film is not for everyone, as it does not have a neatly wrapped ending. Instead, it goes beyond the standard expected ending into an absurdist foray. Still, those who love films by the Coen Brothers will not be disappointed by this satiric look at Hollywood. It is little wonder that this film became the darling of the Cannes Film Festival.

I won't recount the story. Plenty of other reviews do that. Not long ago I was tempted to interpret it. That still seems a valid course, as there is a genuine sense that, beneath its comic, surreal surface, Barton Fink is trying to tell us something urgent and important. Perhaps, but the primal forces in a writer's mind as s/he shapes a great story do that, anyway - often without the writer's specific knowledge.

Rather than a simple allegory, Barton Fink is a collection of surfaces, styles, textures, and mannerisms. That they seem to add up to more than the sum of their parts is the great trick, akin to the way a painter can suggest the dappled depths of a forest with a few deft pats of a fan brush. Which isn't to say the film is shallow. No; there is a lot going on here. But to suggest that this film has a specific meaning is also to suggest it has an answer. Only mediocre films (by the likes of, say, Stanley Kramer or Oliver Stone) provide answers in a attempt to make themselves more important. The Coens (writer Ethan, director Joel), like most of us, haven't a clue about the Mysteries of Life. So they don't try to "...tell us something about all of us, something beautiful..." as Fink himself professes. Instead, they enjoy "...making things up...", like the other writer in the film, the Faulkneresque W.P. Mayhew (played to perfection by John Mahoney).

Somewhere in here, though, the sleight-of-hand, the postmodern flourishes (wherein genres clash and surfaces spill over one another in unexpected ways), cracks appear. Through them we glimpse something else...something truly terrifying.

Barton Fink's resonances with the Holocaust are well-known (the sinister and Fascistic German and Italian cops, the Jewish Fink, the burning hallway, the story's year - 1941, the nice guy next door - also with a German name - who turns out to be a madman; on and on). These touches cannot be accidental. Yet, the Coens seem to have deliberately avoided any obvious throughline, any markers which would provide for a clear interpretation.

Perhaps this is the point - that there is no way to make sense of the madness. Barton Fink, the character, is a writer who tries to celebrate the "common man" - to write about "real life". Yet, real life is incomprehensible to him. Nice Guy Charlie Meadows (the excellent John Goodman) is a twisted murderer. His idol is a raving drunk. His muse is a purveyor of formula hackery. The authorities are openly anti-semitic. And his bosses - Lipnick (Michael Lerner) and Geisler (Tony Shalhoub) - are utterly indifferent to his craft. The events that unfold around him are too horrifying and strange to make sense of. Simply put, they cannot be explained by any rational interpretation. Which, if this film is really a parable of the Holocaust, is as it should be, since there is no rationale in genocide.

When it comes to "making things up", no one does it better than the Coens. Their skill in marshalling symbols is sublime: Mayhew's latest book is called "Nebuchadnezzar"; Lipnick, like king Nebuchadnezzar, has a dream he wants Fink to interpret (the wrestling film he's writing for Wallace Beery). At a critical point in the film, a dazed, sleepless Fink opens the Gideon bible to the page where Nebuchadnezzar threatens to reduce the Chaldeans' tents to a dung-heap if someone cannot interpret his dream. He flips to Genesis, and there, on the page, is the opening of his screenplay - the only part of it he's been able to write. It's a brilliant sequence, that truly adds up. Lipnick is Nebuchadnezzar; Fink is trying to be Daniel. There is (literally) Hell to pay if he cannot do the job.

Beyond a few moments like these, though, trying to impose a specific meaning on Barton Fink is folly - like trying to impose a specific meaning on any of Luis Bunuel's better films. There is something about it that, like Lynch's best work, goes right past the rational self and nestles more deeply in the unconscious. I get something from every viewing of this film, and part of its beauty is that I cannot articulate exactly what that is.

This DVD is nicely produced, with Roger Deakins' glowing cinematography looking better than ever, and Dolby Surround sound track well reproduced. A 5.1 re-mix would have been welcome, as would a serious commentary track, should the Coens ever be able to bring themselves around to doing one that doesn't poke fun of commentary tracks.

John Turturro is excellent as the title character. Judy Davis acquits herself nicely as Mayhew's secretary/lover/ghost-writer.

This is one of those films that's worth really thinking about, and watching again and again. Don't expect answers; expect an experience - and a powerful one at that.

The first is when Mayhew hands Barton a copy of his book, "Nebuchadnezzar" with the inscription "May this little entertainment divert you in your sojourn amongst the Philistines". (The little entertainment refers to the film itself!).

The second is the scene where Barton reads from the Book of Daniel in the Gideon Bible in his hotel room - the passage reads: "And the king, Nebuchadnezzar, answered and said to the Chaldeans, I recall not my dream,; if you will make known unto me my dream, and its interpretation, ye shall be cut in pieces, and of your tents shall be made a dunghill"

I believe the story of Nebuchadnezzar explains the film: In 604 bc King Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, is said to have had a disturbing dream. So he called on his astrologers to interpret the dream. If they couldn't tell him the dream and its interpretation, they were to be killed. One of them Daniel, asks God for an interpretation and he goes back to Nebuchadnezzar to explain what God told him. He says that in Nebuchad's dream, God revealed the future of the nation of Israel, represented by a metal man. Five different parts of the metal man were made of five different metals, each representing a different Kingdom that would rule over Israel. Two of the component body parts described by Daniel are significant in terms of the symbolism within Barton Fink, the head and the feet. The head was said to represent Babylon which was the first nation to rule over Israel and the feet were said to represent the antichrist which would be the last to rule over Israel, a period that - significantly - would last for seven years .....

So here's my interpretation ........ The film is set in 1941, seven more years before the birth of the nation of the Israel, and the beginning of aggression between the US and Germany (or the rule of the antichrist according to the ancient scriptures and God's interpretation of Nebuchad's dream to Daniel). The Hotel does indeed represent Hell and the shoes in the corridor represent the feet of the metal man, i.e. the devil. Babylon is represented by Hollywood and Nebuchad is represented by the studio boss, Lipnik (the king of Babylon). He asks Barton (Daniel) to write a screenplay (interpret his dreams). Barton struggles to do so, whilst at the same time making a pact with the Antichrist (Charlie Meadows). Barton's typewriter is an Underwood (Underworld) model. He even wears the devil's shoes.

Therefore, the film is a highly sophisticated allegory of the rise of the nation state of Israel, according to the prophecy given to Nebuchadnezzar by God. Barton is the prophet storyteller, representing the Jewish people and their struggle for truth, Audrey knows the truth of Babylon but she is murdered before she can tell Barton, Goodman represents the devil yet at the same time he is Barton's saviour (he releases him from being chained to the bed), the young woman looking out to sea on the beach at the end of the film represents hope and the future, and the eventual exodus to Israel.

There is a stack of additional symbolism in this movie - I still haven't worked it all out. It is a superb film, but I get the feeling that the Coen brothers are having a bloody good laugh at our expense.