Coen Brothers month: Barton Fink

A review by Brooks Rich

This is the Coen's weirdest film hands down. It's a bizarre film about the struggles of the writer, set against an old Hollywood backdrop. This has always felt like an outlier in their filmography. There's not really another one of their films I can compare it to. It is the closest they have ever come to making a surreal horror film.

John Turturro plays the titular character, a successful New York playwright who in 1941 accepts a contract to write for a Hollywood studio. Barton moves to Los Angeles and checks into the Hotel Earle, a bizarre run down creepy hotel. There Barton meets his odd neighbor Charlie Meadows and suffers from writer's block as he struggles to write a wrestling picture. That's all I can about Barton Fink without spoiling it.

Barton Fink is a film both about the struggles of the artist and what happens when an artist tries to change what they do. Barton's attempt to move from the stage to screen causes not only professional stress but personal as well. I guess Barton is having a midlife crisis in the film. Nothing is really black and white in this film. It's a baffling mix of horror, noir, and coming of age. Barton does go through a change throughout the film. What that change is and if it's a positive change is up to the audience to decide.

This film is art directed to within an inch of its life. The set of the Hotel Earle is so strange that it almost feels like a different film whenever a scene takes place there. Outside of the hotel, Hollywood is bright and welcoming. Inside the hotel, it's dark and gloomy, with low light and noises echoing through the hotel. There are moments where the Coen's create a mood better suited for a horror film. The scene where Barton first hears Charlie is right out of a ghost story.

This is will be the strangest film covered this month. The Coen's have even said that this film doesn't fit into a specific genre. It's closest genre is probably noir but even then it's not quite a film noir. Barton Fink is its own thing. I personally adore this film but I understand if it doesn't work for some people.

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