Barton Fink -- see it! (spoilers)
Doug Scofield
(but then i don't get out much :-). The Cannes jury (Best Picture,
Best Actor, Best Director) was right on about this one.
I've liked the Coens' work since i saw "Raising Arizona" in college.
Any movie which could make me laugh, give me plenty of film art
to chew on, and make me cry is some piece of work.
"Barton Fink" contains multitudes -- i can imagine this movie
discussed in film classes a generation from now. It seems that
every thirty seconds a new question or angle pops up.
Barton Fink is a playwrite and has just had his first major success.
He is not comfortable with being a critics' and Society darling and
finds their praise superficial, prefering to dwell on his dream of a
theatre of and for the Common Man, but his obviously sincere
expositions on the nobility of common life and common pursuits seem
ideolized while not quite trite. Is he guilty of the same surface
vision of the common as those he despises? How much of his revulsion
is actual and how much an unconscious compensation for a lack of real
contact with his preferred subject matter?
Not without trepidation (but still fairly easily -- as his agent
says, "the Common Man will still be here when you get back") he
leaves New York for Hollywood to pursue the big-bucks work of
scriptwriting. He checks into a common (and wonderfully quirky)
hotel, completely full of residents never seen. As he settles into
his room, muffled human sounds (weeping, ecstacy) -- strange in
their disembodiement -- seep through the walls, disturbing and
frightening him. With all these signs of life, why does he see no
one? How much do they see of each other? I bet more than Barton
sees of them ...
Weeping in the next room prompts Barton to complain. Imagine: a man
so completely in touch with the common man, bitching about the
anonymous suffering of one. Barton plays a reluctant host to his
neighbor, a travelling insurance salesman. You couldn't ask for
someone more "common" -- overweight, a perspiration problem, an open
and aw-shucks social demeanor, full of stories which Barton never
gives him a chance to finish.
Fink's first assignment: a wrestling picture, "you know the formula."
How much more common can you get? He immediately gets a severe case
of writer's block.
There's so much to say, it'd take a book to hold it. A few more
Neat Things:
o The nod to Faulkner ("Nebechadnezzar"! great choice :-)
o Those who truly care truly suffer, and their only distinction
seems to be a certain clarity of perception.
o Scenes of imaginary reality: over Barton's typer; in Geisler's
office; the play set; the New York street scene in the studio
restaurant. Extend and abstract this theme ridiculously, if you
like ... it's a major one.
o Whenever Barton is having trouble writing, we have a quick cut
to Geisler's secretary, banging away at her typewriter at 80
words per minute.
o The seascape over Barton's typewriter is small and minimal,
while the painting over Geisler's secretary is a large and
highly stylized Starving Artist type. A trivial point,
admittedly, but such attention to detail!
o Business vs. Art.
o "The writer is king at Capital Pictures" combined with the
anonymity of the Writer's Buildings. "If you threw a rock
in this room you'd hit a writer. And do me a favor: throw it
hard."
o Fans. The on and off of the fans seems indicative of
significant shifts in character or plot (but then again, maybe
not.)
o Heat, and the wallpaper!
o The anti-Semitism showed by some characters, even Jew to Jew.
Curiously dissociate -- perhaps since it is seen in big-shots
and lowly police detectives, it is a unifying element.
o Nice sequence during his writing -- the characters' voices
was a nice touch!
o Once Barton finishes what he considers his masterwork, _then_
he wants the recognition, wants to be singled out as an artist,
an uncommon man.
o Mundt's hearing the goings-on of the hotel "through the pipes,"
and later (Barton's?) symbolic decent down the plumbing. Does
he join Mundt in this expanded perception only, or in other,
more diabolical ways?
o Who killed the woman? Why?
o The detective's dialogue. Snap, crackle, pop. (sounds just
like a Gene Siskel review! :-)
o Are Barton's folks alright?
o What's in the box?
o Can one be a mass murderer and sincerely care for others? :-)
There's so much else. Truly an amazing film.
doog
--
doug scofield do...@ssd.csd.harris.com (preferred)
harris computer systems uunet!hcx1!doog
"Nothin' left to do but :-) ;-) 8-)"