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.

Disney+ Scares Me

In my review of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I expressed concern over how Disney owns pretty much everything, and when I say everything, I do mean everything. Even before they purchased Fox which gave them ownership of The Simpsons and X-Men, they still had ownership over major film production companies such as Marvel and Lucasfilm, giving them The Avengers, Star Wars, and more. And it certainly helps that their own films are already as appealing as they are, just look at the box office numbers for the remakes of Aladdin and The Lion King.

They’ve become perhaps the single most dominant company in the entertainment industry, and the fact that they hadn't created a streaming service before is honestly surprising, which now leads us to Disney+.

For the two people out there who haven't heard of Disney+ yet, it is Disney's answer to Netflix (and get ready to see them get brought up a lot here), and they are filling it to the absolute brim. Every Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and Disney film ever made is being made available at launch, which is convenience at its finest. But wait, there's more! Similarly to Netflix, Disney+ will have plenty of exclusive shows and movies, many of which are based upon the previously mentioned properties, including the continuation of Star Wars: The Clone Wars! Wow! This sounds like Disney has created the ultimate streaming service! .....and that's what concerns me.

Not that I doubt the quality of the service itself, I'm sure it'll be just fine. But what scares me is its potential, the appeal it carries, and how destructive it may be to the film industry.

For starters, it's no surprise that when a film hits a streaming service, that's the one place where you can watch it. There are instances where those films do make it to theaters, but their distribution is so poor that most people would end up having to wait for the streaming release. Netflix has expressed interest in getting better theatrical releases for their films, but even with the latest Martin Scorsese film on the way they could only get it and all their other upcoming films a limited release for about three weeks before being made available via streaming.

Now that Disney is getting a streaming service, chances are we'll see the same issue arise here, and possibly in a much more harmful way. It's already been announced that the upcoming remake of Lady and the Tramp is coming exclusively to Disney+, and considering how massively successful Disney's live-action remakes have already been, it wouldn't be surprising if people subscribed to it just to watch the movie. If that were the case, Disney would see that they could easily get enough money through putting their new releases on the service more often, and then it could become a habit.

They could easily put the sequels to Black Panther and The Simpsons Movie on Disney+ without a theatrical release and still make a big profit. What about Rian Johnson's upcoming Star Wars trilogy who's to say that won't just be thrown on it, along with all other upcoming Star Wars movies? Then imagine what how other major film companies would see this. Naturally, they would likely see that they could make just as much money through the same means and create their own streaming services, like if Warner Bros. made Warner Bros.+ where you could watch every DC Comics movie ever made, and where all future DC Comics movies could be seen.

So, with all these movies on streaming services, what will be in theaters? Sure plenty of independent films could still be seen, but with films based on major IPs being made only available on those services, there's no way that theaters would be able to survive. Even if a big release would come out in theaters, the general public wouldn't find that form of releasing a film appealing anymore because of how common straight-to-streaming releases are, and the film would possibly flop, making the streaming service route evermore likely for companies.

Even if Disney ends up being the only film distributor to make a service like this, the fact that their films would be more commonly obtainable through Disney+ would still take a big toll on theater chains, regardless of what other films they would get, especially since Avengers: Endgame, a Disney owned property, just became the highest grossing movie ever. And with less successful theaters comes tons of closures, which means that not only would the theatrical experience suffer tremendously, but thousands would also end up being out of work.

The other issue that could result from this platform is that with such a major focus on beloved properties, independent filmmaking is likely to take a big hit. Look at Netflix, for example, say what you will about a good number of films that they've put out, but there is no denying that they've done a great job of bringing tons of smaller movies with new ideas through fruition. With a new major competitor though, this may come to a change.

Disney+ is obviously being made as a means to challenge Netflix, and with its wide number of beloved film series being made readily available there, Netflix will need to keep up. In order to do this, they'll need to focus more on getting bigger names to battle it out with Disney better. Thus, independent films won't be their priority anymore.

Netflix may not only one who supports indie cinema, the shift to an even wider focus on making big releases than there already is would mean that independent films would be made less and less, and even the studios dedicated to making those films would shut down because of a lack of interest. Not convinced? Well, remember how many people placed indie movies Lady Bird and Moonlight as among their favorite films of all time upon their release?

Perhaps the most harmful effect this service Disney+ may have would on the film industry though would be how it could effect some of the most important filmmakers of all time that are still working today.

Think back to the two previous points I made here. Netflix will likely start focusing more on household name brands in order to fight off Disney, meaning newer ideas will likely be rejected by them. Remember how Netflix got us The Ballad of Buster Scruggs from the Coen Brothers and Roma from Alfonso Cuarón? What if they have new ideas that they can't get anyone else to back? What will happen to their ideas then? It might get picked up by another company, but considering that Martin Scorsese's upcoming film The Irishman is only happening because of Netflix since Paramount turner it down, chances are some of the best ideas from your favorite directors will never see the light of day.

Even when they could get a streaming giant to pick up their work, it would likely suffer because far, far more often than not they were intended to be seen in theaters, and streaming services will most likely just put the film on streaming day one to be seen on mobile devices and TV screens. Think people won't care? There are tons of people online you can find who have watched movies on their phones and complained about the film because it wasn't great to watch on said phones. People will likely think less of their work, and directors will be more unsatisfied with their work because of how much streaming giants prefer skipping theatrical windows.

Indeed, the fall of the theatrical experience would certainly spell bad news for those directors. So many of them have expressed the desire of having their films shown in theaters, so what will happen when theaters are essentially gone? It wouldn't surprise me if some of them just quit making movies altogether because of it, I would definitely expect Quentin Tarantino to skip out on his tenth and final film if this were the case.

So there you have it, with Disney+ have as massive of a chance as it does of blowing up, you have the likelihood of a threat to theatrical screenings, indie filmmaking, and the craft of some of the most brilliant people in the film industry. That's not even all that worries me, as I could list even more consequences that could result from it. But hey, I get to watch every Star Wars movie and every episode of The Simpsons on one service now!

Maybe I'm wrong, though. Maybe the theatrical experience will carry on as it is now, and independent movies and projects from highly acclaimed filmmakers will still be able to find companies to back them just fine, even with Disney+ in the picture. But for now, I think it's best to stay by my skepticism. Because with Disney, you always know that a desire for some cash is gonna be involved.