Barton Fink
Brooklyn playwright Barton Fink (John Turturro) is persuaded by his agent to move to Los Angeles to write movie scripts for Capital Pictures in Hollywood. He takes up residence in the Hotel Earle, where he develops a severe case of writer's block. A complaint to the desk clerk (Steve Buscemi) causes insurance salesman Charlie Meadows (John Goodman) to make a personal visit and soon they become friends. Charlie tries to share stories about life on the road, but is usually interrupted by Fink, who explains his desire to create a 'Theatre for the Common Man,' rather than the vulgar movie scripts he's been asked to produce for Hollywood. That Charlie is himself a Common Man and the movies a kind of Theatre seems lost on both of them. As a way out of the writer's block he seeks out the help of screenplay writer/novelist William Mayhew (John Mahoney, who does a fairly funny imitation of Faulkner) and his secretary Audrey Taylor (Judy Davis).
The movie isn't one of the Coen brothers' best, and I say that as a Coen brothers fan. Miller's Crossing is one of my favorites, and I liked The Man Who Wasn't There (seems to me that most people didn't). Barton Fink has some good moments, but neither the plot (of, say, Miller's Crossing) nor the dialogue (as in Intolerable Cruelty) is carried off all that well. Works okay as a parable about the creative process (B-movie lead into literary gold, Meadows as Barton's deepest demons), but that's only to paper over the absence of plot.
Here's a sample of the dialogue, courtesy of IMDb:
MAYHEW: Mister Fink, they have not invented a genre of picture that Bill Mayhew has not, at one time or other, been invited to essay. Yes, I have taken my stab at the rasslin' form, as I have stabbed at so many others, and with as little success. I gather that you are a freshman here, eager for an upperclassman's counsel. However, just at the moment, I have drinking to do. Why don't you stop by my bungalow, which is number fifteen, later on this afternoon, and we will discuss rasslin' scenarios and other things lit'rary.
GEISLER: Look, you confused? You need guidance? Talk to another writer.
BARTON: Who?
GEISLER: Jesus, throw a rock in here, you'll hit one. And do me a favor, Fink: throw it hard.
The movie isn't one of the Coen brothers' best, and I say that as a Coen brothers fan. Miller's Crossing is one of my favorites, and I liked The Man Who Wasn't There (seems to me that most people didn't). Barton Fink has some good moments, but neither the plot (of, say, Miller's Crossing) nor the dialogue (as in Intolerable Cruelty) is carried off all that well. Works okay as a parable about the creative process (B-movie lead into literary gold, Meadows as Barton's deepest demons), but that's only to paper over the absence of plot.
Here's a sample of the dialogue, courtesy of IMDb:
MAYHEW: Mister Fink, they have not invented a genre of picture that Bill Mayhew has not, at one time or other, been invited to essay. Yes, I have taken my stab at the rasslin' form, as I have stabbed at so many others, and with as little success. I gather that you are a freshman here, eager for an upperclassman's counsel. However, just at the moment, I have drinking to do. Why don't you stop by my bungalow, which is number fifteen, later on this afternoon, and we will discuss rasslin' scenarios and other things lit'rary.
GEISLER: Look, you confused? You need guidance? Talk to another writer.
BARTON: Who?
GEISLER: Jesus, throw a rock in here, you'll hit one. And do me a favor, Fink: throw it hard.
posted by Quin Finnegan at 3:14 PM
2 Comments:
For me, this is a movie that is imbued with the place and time I first saw it. I walked down the hill from the hospital where my dad was having bypass surgery and caught an early showing in a tiny theater above a restaurant. I think I may have been the only audience member. It was a good diversion from the peculiar boredom and anxiety of having a family member in the hospital.
Yeah, it's amazing how much time, place and circumstances can affect the enjoyment of a movie. I think it even works in the bigger multiplexes, many of which are as much a non-place as a bus depot or an airport.
And I have to say that just about any Coen brothers movie is bound to be better than most everything else out there. I havn't seen The Ladykillers, but I think that's about it.
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