Barton Fink
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.05 You Save: $5.93 (59%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.60 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of Barton Fink
Movie Review: You're just a tourist with a typwriter. I Live Here!
Summary: 5 Stars
"Why me, Charlie?" "Because YOU DON'T LISTEN!"And with that, Barton Fink learns from Madman Mundt what he never would from Charlie Meadows. Barton, a Clifford Odets-like 1930's-style socialist playwright come to Hollywood to write a screenplay for a Wallace Beery wrestling picture, has his pretense of condescending social conscience blown all to hell and gone by his experiences in Hotel Hell, somewhere in Hollywood.
Barton believes he writes from inner pain, and this pain transcends and transforms his work to echo the existential pain of the "common man". Barton believes he is one with and the voice of "the people"; that his understanding of the struggling masses is exceptional and he is their champion. The problem is, Barton doesn't know Jack Cheese about the common man and "he doesn't listen". He patronizes Charlie, the only "common man" he knows, and he is pompous and self-deluded; but, his experience in Hollywood, the "land of make-believe" is ironically going to introduce Barton to the real world in ways unforgettable to him and to we the viewers.
Possibly one of the lesser accessible of the Coen films, I think Barton Fink is one of their finest. There are clever observations of the time and place, with terrific,wry bits by the supporting players as the Hollywood mogul and the producers and Yes-men around him, not to mention John Mahoney as a William Faulkner-type alcoholic Southern novelist turned hack screenwriter, and Judy Davis as his long-suffering mistress/assistant.
But the show belongs to John Turturro as Barton, and John Goodman, absolutely perfect as Charlie. Turturro gets just the right note of crackpot sincerity, all the while conveying the angst and delirium of the worst case of writer's block ever depicted on film. His Barton Fink believes his own BS, and when he finally realizes what a "life of the mind" really means, his total shock and disorientation is that of one whose last bit of self-importance and self-delusion has been stripped bare. John Goodman's Charlie is simply stunning. He hits every note right on the nose as he reveals the complexity underlying this seemingly simple and superficial man. Absolutely wonderful.
I have read where some are put off by the left turn this film takes midway. I couldn't disagree more. What had been an arch, wry, satiric riff on old Hollywood, writer's travails, moguls etc., that would have been amusing and clever and little more, suddenly descends in a mad plunge into something else altogether. I think that roller-coaster dive into madness & mayhem that hurls Barton into a figurative and literal Hell on Earth is what changes Barton Fink from a trifle to something indelible and unforgettable. God Help Us when "things get balled up at the Head Office".
As in all Coen movies the devil is in the details, and their attention to detail here is, as is usual with them, superb. The peeling wallpaper, the ooze and drip of the glue, the sleepless torment of Barton's writer's block, the sharp Studio pros, the cryptic cops, and, finally, the absolutely tangible heat. With wonderful sound and camera work, the movie has its own destinctive look and atmosphere.
Not for everyone, certainly, I find Barton Fink an exceptional film, worth viewing many times. Five stars for Coen fans, and those that love films that are defiantly their own worlds.
Movie Review: Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Even the most avid fan of Joel and Ethan Coen can watch Batron Fink repeatedly over a lifetime and not figure the ending out. It is a funny film, but certianly not the comedy of Big Lubowski or Fargo.
A quick and inaddaqute summery: Barton Fink goes to 1941 Hollywood to write for the old studio system. He stays at a fleabag hotel, and befrineds his neighbor Charlie Munt. The morning after a trist with another writer's wife, she is found dead in his bed. He is questioned by the police, but before the crime is solved, the police are killed by Barton's neighbor.
You really need to see the film, but for those who have, let's poke at meanings of the ending. When Munt kills the detectives, he runs down the hallway, followed by flames. He bellows "I'll show you the life of the mind" when blowing the cops away with a double barrel.
Has Barton gone to hell? Certianly his enslavement by the studio system and the flames at the murder suggest that. He seeks to write for "the common man" but is trapped because he has no empathy with his intended audiance. He cannot even see the stories of those around him--in one part, Munt could have given him the whole story for the screenplay, but Barton rambles about the life of the mind. Is Munt the devil, walking Fink through hell, showing him with butchery what he is too self-involved to grasp through everyday experiance.
Look at it another way: Barton Fink is set during the Holocaust. Fink is American and Jewish, but does not seem to pick up on the anti-semitism thrown his way. Munt kills the detective, who had insulted Fink ethnically, saying "Hial Hitler." This is a dig on the cop, but it may also be a way of bringing bigotry to Fink's attention. Fink has big ambitions, but wastes them on self-agrandizment and b-movie scripts. When Munt yells "I will show you the life of the mind" while killing the police, he is really talking to Fink. Fink holds a box which most likely contains his dead lover's head, but he carries it without opening or finding out what is in there. He CHOOSES not to know. Like America during this time, Fink is too wrapped up in himself to see evil until it is in flames outside his door. When asking Munt why he picked Fink, Munt shouts "BECAUSE YOU DON'T LISTEN." Is the Hotel or the studio a concentration camp? It is rare Fink is seen outside either.
I am not this brilliant: the hell idea was mine, but the alternate holocaust theme I'll freely confess has been around for years. The filmmakers have not been forthcomming with the meaning of the ending, leaving it subjective for the audiance. But since the end of the film has events that could not happen--the spontainous fire which Munt carries with him--it is not a streach to argue that the ending takes place in Hell, Nazi Occupied Europe, Fink's mind--or in any number of places at the same time.
The common thread of possible themes is not in real time or physical space, but in Fink's self-involvement and apathy and how they return to haunt him. The Coen's have meanings here, but they are liquid meanings, that can absolutely co-exisist.
Oh yeah. Great flick.
Movie Review: Why this is Hell, nor am I out of it.
Summary: 5 Stars
Okay, "Barton Fink" is a satire on the old studio system. It may also well be a symbolic depiction of the Holocaust. The Book of Daniel certainly features strongly in the mix. And it's an attack on the foibles of the twitchy intellectual, particularly the self-righteous left-wing "voice of the people" type. But, just to keep the pot boiling, let me point out that the film's narrative framework is adapted from the legend of Faust. In large part, Christopher Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus".The Faust figure is Barton, needless to say. Charley/Karl is Mephistopheles. And Audrey is Gretchen/Marguerite, the admired female figure who turns out to be a little less than what was desired. Barton is frankly devoted to the life of the mind, obsessed with creativity and the longing to learn the secret of life and bring it home to the Little Man, the Common Man. Charley/Mesphisto offers his assistance (by teaching him wrestling--this is a Coen brothers film, remember). He fails, but at last Barton does sell his soul--to Audrey, the no longer idealized "eternal female". And as the deal is sealed with a bout of sex, the camera glides to the bathroom sink, where it slides down (I stole this part from John Simon) straight to Hell, which is ruled not by friendly, easygoing Charley, but by Madman Mundt (the real Karl Mundt, by the way, was a notorious right-wing congressman of the period, for what that's worth).
So okay, it's not a one-to-one correspondence. But neither was "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" perfectly congruent with the Odyssey. (e.g. which one was Homer--the old black guy with the beard or the country DJ?) The Coens use these sources not as road-maps, but as takeoff points, which is as it should be.
As is often mentioned below, the cinematography here is outstanding, obtaining a kind of rotten lushness comparable only to "Blue Velvet". The Coens have always been standouts in dealing with actors, and this film is no exception. If Turturro wasn't so goofy-looking he'd be a superstar on the strength of this picture alone, but then he wouldn't have been in the picture. Seeing Lerner here makes me wonder why he isn't used more often. But the standout, as is so often the case, is Goodman. It's not easy to continue thinking of him as the jolly fat guy after seeing his "You don't listen." soliloquy at the climax.
A lot of people view the Coens as the cinematic exemplars of pomo, but I don't think that's true. Pomo demands you take the theories dead seriously while mocking everything else. The Coens reverse the formula, mocking all forms of intellectual pretension while taking life in general--and the horror that lies behind it--very seriously. That's a rarity in any art form, particularly film. So take a look, and be shown the life of the mind.
And oh yeah--I don't know what they're doing with that ending either.
Movie Review: All About Heads
Summary: 5 Stars
It starts with a clip of the film's vicious penultimate sequence and the main menu is navigated over a hotel's familiar hallway in blazes. It's a nice way to begin.
Counting their new adaptation of "True Grit" (which is being filmed as I type this), Roger Deakins has collaborated with Joel and Ethan Coen on eleven of their sixteen features. This first pairing (probably their most striking until "No Country for Old Men") produced one of their most gorgeous films; Deakins' photography is lustrous and shadowy, perfectly complementing the production's exacting '40s period design. That's this disc's strength: the quality of the cinematography is preserved by an SD transfer that's as good as any you'll see. The 2.0 stereo Dolby track sounds just fine, too. Hopefully, a remastered DTS-HD soundtrack will be featured on a Blu-Ray edition of this release if it ever surfaces. This movie's sound design is every bit as expertly crafted as everything else, and its surrealist touches would have made the late Alan Splet proud.
White subtitles in English and Spanish are included. These are ably translated, easy to read and - for those of you with 16x9 TVs - mercifully placed within the confines of the picture. Two dubbed soundtracks can be accessed: a middling Spanish dub and a much better French dub. What's especially impressive about the latter is that the voice actor tasked with John Goodman's dialogue sounds so much like him! Unfortunately, he can't bellow with quite the ferocity of the big man himself.
The special features are only of mild interest. Three mediocre theatrical trailers for "Fink," "Miller's Crossing" and "Raising Arizona" are included, though they don't really convey the sensibilities of their respective pictures. Eight "deleted scenes" are actually numerous shots cut from eight scenes; the retained footage is wisely presented in black and white to distinguish it from the cut portions. These are all negligible, save three: a bit of extra dialogue between Fink and Mayhew when they first meet that suggests the veteran writer is a bit sharper than he later seems; an incident involving an overflowing sink foreshadows later events; a delivered postcard adds an extra dollop of irony to the movie's sole inspiring sequence. A still gallery exhibits numerous attractive photos shot on the sets and locations of the film, both during and between takes. For whatever reason, Goodman isn't to be seen in any of them.
It could be the Coens' best so far...but they're not done yet.
Movie Review: Surreal and Hallucinatory; The Coens' Best Film
Summary: 5 Stars
In this film from the Coen brothers, the titular character, Barton Fink (John Turturro) travels from his liberal New York enclave where he wrote about "the common man" from a comfortable distance to a dumpy hotel outside Los Angeles, where he wrestles with a common man. Fink is brought out after getting positive reviews on Broadway and is put to work writing a wrestling picture which proves beyond his abilities--fooling the upper crust about the average Joe is one thing, but it's significantly tougher to fool actual common men into thinking he knows them. Fink seeks out assistance from the Faulkner-esque writer W. P. Mayhew (John Mahoney), which turns out to be a futile maneuver, and finally winds up getting some inspiration from his hotel neighbor Charlie (John Goodman), who might or might not be a serial killer who likes to lop off his victims' heads.
Saying all of this by no means spoils things. Barton Fink is a movie that isn't afraid to consistently up the ante and make things even more bizarre and conceptual. Ultimately, what does it all add up to? What is fact and what is fiction is difficult to figure, but Barton's inability to grasp the reality of life is a sin which is visited upon him in this film, and his life eventually unravels into a succeedingly surreal series of deus ex machina-type twists. Clearly, this is not a movie for everyone, but if you're still reading, you'll probably enjoy it. It is one of those movies which can spawn almost infinite conversation as to what it means, or it can be merely enjoyed as it is. Oh, and by the way, it's really funny, with John Goodman uttering one of the most hilarious red herrings ever heard on film (it's near the end, and if you see the film, you'll recognize it).
Ultimately, this most strange and quirky of Coen films turns out to be their best, in the opinion of this reviewer. If you enjoy movies that make you think and that stay with you for an extended period of time, than this might be up your alley. It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, but, tragically, it never broke out here in the states. This is essential viewing for fans of the Coens, as well as for adventurous viewers everywhere.