Hollywood Hell in Barton Fink

SPOILER WARNING

Set in 1941 Los Angeles and chronicling the titular writer’s (John Turturro) discovery of the hell within Hollywood while staying at the Hotel Earle to now work for Capital Pictures, Barton Fink is perhaps the most expressive of the Coen Brothers’ filmography. Given that and the fact that it won three Cannes awards (including a unanimous Palme d’Or), it's surprising how it’s one of their lesser talked about films nowadays.

If anything, the film is an exploration of Fink’s mind and how he wraps himself around writing what’s expected to be a standard wrestling film, something he can’t bring himself to do, and the film doesn’t limit itself in that regard. It’s sprawling with symbolism and metaphors about his struggle, mainly through other characters and his interactions with them.

His point of view is captured spectacularly through Roger Deakins’ cinematography and the impeccable production design that demonstrates Fink’s mind; his process, his thoughts, and his difficult task to make sense of everything that happens to him.

And it doesn’t help that the people he’s working for are clearly not interested in making the film the way he is, so instead he gets help from the people he meets, including John Goodman’s Charlie Meadows, an insurance salesman who becomes Fink’s only friend in L.A. and also a motivation, as Goodman brilliantly portrays a friendly and talkative, yet mysterious man that helps him more than anyone else on the way.

This is especially true in how he discovers the effect of Hollywood in those he seeks out for help, with Bill Mayhew, who he considers to be the “finest novelist of our time,” who's now a disturbed drunk since coming to Hollywood, or producer of the wrestling picture Ben Geisler, who is abnormally desperate for him to write something that Capital Pictures head Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner).

Lipnick is perhaps the biggest roadblock for Barton, as he claims that he holds more respect for the writer than anyone else. He almost holds a little too much respect for him in fact, and from the getgo he seems overly confident that he knows exactly what he’s going to get. This pressures him even more because, as previously mentioned, he wants to write something better that the common man can relate to.

And with Charlie’s inspiration, he is able to accomplish that with what he considers to be his best work yet. However, he is mocked for his achievement, being seen as a freak at a party where he tries to celebrate this accomplishment, and then the first readers of his script mock his efforts, leading into a spell-binding climax that leaves him realizing how much his work means to him, and what it says about everyone he hopes will encounter it.

Then, Barton encounters Lipnick for the final time, who is astoundingly disappointed, and now plans to leave him in the dust in favor of many other writers who are stuck in the same lie as him, and can get him that same “Barton Fink feeling” that he was expecting here. And as Turturro has portrayed Barton as a man slowly following the path being paved by himself with a little help along the way, he now shows him as lost; nowhere to go. He simply sits, with no understanding about what’s next and, as even seen before his last meeting with Lipnick, nothing else to seek out or go to. He’s just stuck at a dead end as a part of a picture of someone looking at nothing ahead.

Maybe he’ll be able to escape this hell and return to being able to tell “something beautiful, something about all of us.” But as far as we know, he's just another victim of the film industry.


This post is apart of Filmotomy's Cannes Film Festival retrospective. Please visit their website by clicking here to see other Cannes-related reads they have in store for it.

A Quick Update

First off, I apologize for the lack of posts these past couple months. I've been busy with other things lately, mainly academics. Fortunately, I'm almost entirely done with that now, and can ensure that posts will be happening more frequently for the next couple of months.

Second, Oscars-related content will probably be taking a backseat for the time being. I technically do have a new batch of predictions mostly ready, but given the state of essentially everything right now, I think it might be best to hold off until on posting it until things look a little more certain. I also might do a quick write-up on the recent rule changes and the possibility of next year's show being delayed to early summer next year, but I haven't decided yet.

Finally, my next post will be apart of awards and film website Filmotomy's Cannes Film Fesitval retrospective, celebrating the festival's history during the time when it was originally planned to happen this year. It will be an analysis on Barton Fink, one of my all-time favorite films. Now I can finally have another essay to post! Yay!

Well, that's just about everything.

See you soon!

Film Review - The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

Perhaps the most unique of the Coen Brothers filmography, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is unlike anything else the beloved writing and directing duo have made before while still retaining what makes them great. It makes new territory for them, not just in that it's a Netflix film and, to the dismay of Quentin Tarantino, their first film shot digitally rather than on film, but it's also an anthology film, taking six different stories set in the west in which people die, a lot.

Being an anthology film is both the high and low point of the film. It's to its advantage since it has multiple stories as it creates for a great sense of rewatchability, but also makes for a gap of dissatisfaction. Not that any of the stories are bad, but as with films of this nature, some just aren't as good as the others for one reason or another, and just leaves a bit of a desire to see more be done with it. However, that rewatchability prevails here, as each story is still quite good.

It opens and ends with the two best stories of the bunch, with Tim Blake Nelson giving a hilarious and quotable performance that is easily his best in the first namesake story, and Mortal Remains featuring some of the best writing the Coens have ever put to screen. But this isn't to discredit the other four, with Tom Waits absolutely killing as a prospector in All Gold Canyon, The Gal Who Got Rattled offering a slow-paced but rather compelling look at social-discomfort, and the bizarre but truly fascinating Meal Ticket giving a limbless Dudley Dursley his time to shine (no, seriously). Even Near Algodones, maybe the weakest of the bunch, gives an enjoyable perspective on fairness, and who can ever forget a line like "PAN SHOT"?

And throughout each, the western aesthetic shines, with great sets and costumes to boot and a simply wonderful score from Carter Burwell to suit the mood. And although the digital cinematography as previously mentioned does show a bit too much at times, for the most part it beautifully captures the nature of each segment.

But the handling of each message behind the stories is what makes The Ballad of Buster Scruggs shine. Each one is has its own theme relating in some way to death and it tells of it in humorous, endearing, and heartfelt ways that makes it effective and endearing. It helps make it as memorable as it is, and gives for more to reflect on as any film from the Coens does.

This may not be the most consistent Coen Brothers film, but it is easily one of their most memorable for the characters and storytelling that it presents. It's by far one the best films Netflix has distributed, and it left me 99% satisfied... give me John Goodman and we'll discuss that other 1%.

Final Grade: A-