![]() Despite this unprecedented (and still unmatched) sweep, the film reportedly failed to recover its budget in cinemas. Legacyīarton Fink claimed the Palme D’Or, Best Actor, and Best Director awards at Cannes Film Festival. His neighbor, jovial insurance salesman Charlie Meadows, tries to help, but Barton continues to struggle as a bizarre sequence of events distracts him even further from his task. Staying in the eerie Hotel Earle, Barton develops severe writer's block. In 1941, New York intellectual playwright Barton Fink comes to Hollywood to write a Wallace Beery wrestling picture. Feature Presentationīarton Fink, written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Like many Coen Brothers films, Barton Fink resists genre classification due to its embrace of many styles and influences. Many have drawn comparisons to the work of Roman Polanski, particularly his 'apartment trilogy.' The peeling wallpaper in Fink’s hotel room is reminiscent of the cracking plaster in Repulsion, and arguably in both films the destruction of the protagonists surroundings mirrors the disintegration of their mental health. Studio head Jack Lipnick echoes the infamous film producers of the golden age, like Louis B. ![]() Mayhew shares some traits with William Faulkner, an alcoholic Southern writer who once wrote a wrestling film for John Ford. Barton is loosely inspired by Clifford Odets, a playwright similarly concerned with the proletariat. The Coens drew inspiration from a range of sources writing this film, and its final form is something of a pastiche. Mastrionotti: Jesus! Ain't that a load off! However closer analysis of this dynamic and speculation about the true subtext of the film has led to a range of interpretations that are too numerous to list.īarton: I - I've got respect for - for working guys, like you. This is arguably the central explicit conflict of the film: the perceived disjunction between high art and the people, and Fink's inability to reconcile the two. He's too busy struggling with writer's block and loudly lamenting the absence of the common man to notice the one right under his nose, embodied wholeheartedly by John Goodman. Indeed Turturro's tortured artist is so self-absorbed and blind to his own flaws that it’s hard to believe he was written as a reflection of the duo. The screenplay was written in three weeks whilst they were having trouble with the intricacies of their previous film Miller's Crossing, yet they insist it is not autobiographical. The film explores the agonies of creation that the Coens were likely familiar with: writers block, boorish studio heads and industry pressures. The movie is intentionally ambiguous in ways they may not be used to seeing. In Barton Fink, we may have encouraged it – like teasing animals at the zoo. They said the same thing about Miller’s Crossing. Several critics interpreted Barton Fink as a parable for the Holocaust. That's how they've been trained to watch movies. This interpretation is textually supported (as are many interpretations) but the Coens deny any fixed meaning: It's a rousing call for fan theory that even Roger Ebert indulged, calling it an allegory for the rise of Nazism and the failings of communism. Barton Fink is positively dripping with ambiguous imagery and dialogue.
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