We excitedly countdown to the 72nd Festival de Cannes with a different prize winning film each day.
Barton Fink, 1991
Palme d’Or – Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Prix de la mise en scène – Joel Coen
Prix d’interprétation masculine – John Turturro
Carter Burwell’s pondering, curious piano tinkles that open the great Coen Brothers movie, Barton Fink, is typical of the sibling filmmakers. This was the days before Fargo, before The Big Lebowski, before No Country For Old Men. Joel and Ethan were still fresh-faced in the eyes of those soaking up their seemingly genius, refreshing outlay of celluloid.
Original, dark, poignant, and sharp as a knife in all areas – the writing of comedy, the unforeseen narrative jolts, the immaculate framing and camera movement. And in the case of 1991’s Barton Fink, some extraordinarily engulfing production design. You’re transported into the early 1940s before you even realize it yourself.
And that very set decoration, a marvel throughout, is alive as part of the very story the Coens want to tell. Hotel Earle is nothing special as hospitality goes, but as a part of cinematic architecture, its very engaging. From the old, peeling wallpaper, to the pin-up framed on the wall, and, of course, Barton’s typewriter. Other various quirks occupy the hotel, that the clerk appears from a door in the reception floor, and the endless trail of tatty shoes left outside of the room doors.
In contrast to the bright, spacious world of the bigwigs movie producers in Hollywood. Those large windows to the blue sky, and lavish stone statues. The brash, bellowing Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner), a wide man in cream suit and silver hair, almost matches the decor. These pristine, or drab, environments offer windows into the mental arena of the characters.
“Original, dark, poignant, and sharp as a knife in all areas.”
At the Academy Awards, Barton Fink only nabbed three nominations. But two were for Best Art Direction (Dennis Gassner, Nancy Haigh) and Best Costume Design (Richard Hornung). Lerner also landed a Best Supporting Actor nod (not John Goodman). At Cannes, the film took the Palme d’Or, Best Director for Joel, and Best Actor for John Turturro. An unprecedented triple win, which prompted the festival to limit two competition prizes per movie thereafter.
Barton Fink (John Turturro) is the Broadway playwright of the title. The creative, troubled New York City artist, is simply not satisfied with the applause or the critical acclaim in the press. Fink wants more, a kind of recognition of the battling mind that the writer has to contend with relentlessly.
His current success, which is where the movie opens, sees Fink invited all the way across America to write film scripts for Hollywood. More specifically, Capitol Pictures want Fink to write a wrestling picture. He moves to Los Angeles, shacking himself up in the run-down hotel.
Soon enough, when Fink is perturbed by the noise from the room next door, he comes face-to-face with Charlie Meadows (John Goodman). A somewhat tamer beast than meets the eye, claiming to be a salesman, and befriending the playwright.
That’s one of a handful of eccentric characters the Coen Brothers bring into Fink’s world. Seeking any form of assistance with his struggle to get the typewriter tapping, he visits movie producer, Ben Geisler (Tony Shalhoub). He accidentally meets novelist, William Mayhew (John Mahoney), and in turn is acquainted with his secretary, Audrey Taylor (Judy Davis).
“Echoes of old Hollywood, the plight of the common man, and hat-tip to the cultural surroundings of 1941.”
As Fink drifts into a bleaker mental state, his reliance on others for inspiration grows. Not just the people he meets, but the picture of the bikini-clad woman in the picture. His situation to get this movie written hits a couple of significant stumbling blocks. Confounded quite literally by a bloody mess and overbearing heat.
The two cocky, uncompromising police detectives that pay Fink a visit, are straight out of classic film noir. Their clockwork wisecracks and borderline insults, back and forth between them, is a thrill to listen to. It’s easy to imagine this kind of to-and-fro rapport mirroring that of Joel and Ethan as they sit in front of their typewriter.
Barton Fink, as well as its echoes of old Hollywood, the plight of the common man, and hat-tip to the cultural surroundings of 1941, can easily be interpreted as a tale of writer’s block. The Coen Brothers would likely deny such as a primary theme, but apparently they wrote the screenplay for Barton Fink in just three weeks. During a rather tricky time with their wordsmithery on Miller’s Crossing, which is hard to fathom given the supremacy of both scripts.
Barton Fink also marked the end of one era, and a prosperous start to another. With at-the-time regular cinematographer, Barry Sonnenfeld, venturing off to direct (The Addams Family), the Coen Brothers hired Roger Deakins. And the rest is history. A rich, stunning history of elaborate, frame-filling film photography that demonstrated how Deakins and the Coens were simply meant to be.
“Snappy dialogue, ludicrously innovate plot turns, on an audacious canvas.”
Wanting as much artistic freedom of their own conceptions as possible, Joel and Ethan would create the pseudonym, Roderick Jaynes, as they edited the picture themselves. Technically, across the board, Barton Fink is top tier. And although the Coens would dabble in various periods in future projects, the 1991 film surely remains one of their greatest examples of filmmaking crafts at their finest.
Snappy dialogue, ludicrously innovate plot turns, on an audacious canvas, Barton Fink is a smart, funny, sometimes chilling motion picture. An unnerving sense of tension runs through the narrative, which fluctuates too often to register. As much as this, like many films by the Coen Brothers, defies a simple genre tag.
Barton Fink matches its physical grandness with a psychological texture, Amplified by the central performance from John Turturro. He has likely never been this good, carrying a range of fragile emotions, spilling many of them out as his journey into Hollywood provokes. Turturro’s blank stares, puppy-dog pessimism, and big hair demonstrate an everyman with similar worries to our own. But here, unforgettably so, branded with such distinctive, but never unfitting, traits, Barton Fink remains one of the most unique characters, and films, of the last few decades.
