Archive for May 2009
Another Screenwriter-With-Writers-Block Film. This One is Great.
On the verge of madness
Before you say it, let me do so: I should’ve seen Joel Coen’s Barton Fink many years ago. Thankfully, I have the option of checking off those film history essentials that have been stacking my pile-of-shame for years, as I go down my cue of Watch Instantly titles on Netflix’s online reservoir. Needless to say for most of you cine-savvy type who have most likely already seen this flick a decade or more ago, I was almost immediately sucked in by this film from the very beginning.
Barton Fink tells the story of a New York theatre writer in the early fourties, who gets a shot at the ‘big time’ and runs off to Hollywood within the first ten minutes of the film. Barton Fink is played by John Turturro, and man is he good. Were it not for his incredible work in Miller’s Crossing, etching his name into my mind as the greatest pleading-for-ones-life performance to this day, I’d be fully cooperative in saying that his work in Barton Fink is great. However, he set the bar pretty high for me, as a subtly menacing freak inMiller’s Crossing, that I think it’ll be pretty hard for me to ever judge any other of his roles by their own merit.
Barton Fink, the character, is a quiet writer who warily accepts this offer by Hollywood to write a film about a wrestler, and checks into a hotel in Los Angeles. The bellboy is of course played by a Coen favourite of mine, Mr. Steve Buscemi. His role is almost nonexistent, yet awesome, nevertheless. What I loved about the set up of this move to Hollywood is that you really get to see how Barton Fink reacts to the eccentricity and strangeness of the place, and the characters he has to interact with to accomplish this task of writing a wrestling picture. Everybody around him is like a bizarre alien to Barton Fink, and there is some great comedy to be found in that – which somebody like Joel Coen certainly knows how to employ.
Barton has trouble beginning his script, never moving past the first three lines of the first scene, until near the very end of the film. This is essentially the plot of the film: lonely writer, alone in a hotel room, trying to figure out how to begin, and what to write. His neighbor, is an annoying yet kind John Goodman - another Coen player, whom Barton befriends and somewhat mines for material. He turns out to be more than a helpful friend as the story unfolds, but I will not spoil a thing. If you like the Coen brothers, their dialogue and Joel Coen’s direction, go seek this movie out. I enjoyed it quite a bit. What made me like it even more, similarly to the Coen’s previous effort, Raising Arizona, is that the story evolves into a nightmarish opposite version of what it was during the first half, creating a sort of fantastical bookend which somehow feels genuine and natural to the story. I don’t know how they do it, but the Coen’s are pretty good at that.
The reason I wish I had seen this many years ago is not only that I am a huge Coen Brothers fan, and the shame of having to say, “Noo…haven’t seen it yet. I know, I know” is torturous to my soul, but also because I am a Charlie Kaufman lover, and Adaptation is another favourite of mine. Since I plan on becoming a writer myself, these stories of artists trying to create and their journey toward the final product, are always incredibly interesting to me. And you know what? Ask me about Synecdoche, and my response will unfortunately consist of something like, “Noo…haven’t seen it yet. I know. I know.”
John Turturro, Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, Tony Shalhoub, and Jon Polito, all directed by the Coen Brothers. What more could you ask for?
