Scare Me On Fridays: The Coen Brothers: Barton Fink

Sunday, June 12, 2011

The Coen Brothers: Barton Fink

This is a great example of a neo noir. Although it is set time reasonable of the beginning of the actual recognized films noir period (it's actually a bit early), it is solidly in the neo noir category, and not just because it's in color. Though many of the characters are based on real historical characters, such as Mr. Lipnick (Michael Lenner in the Coen old man part) is based on David O. Selznick, the film is in no way a historical one. Many of the conventions applied to it actually come from horror movies--not classic horror, but recent horror (such as the projects they helped develop with Sam Raimi--the universe of the Evil Dead, for example). The Coen's are also known for constructing mysterious elements in their scripts that don't really get solved--also very modern. So apply that stuff to a period piece about movie wiring, and you get something weird, dark, slightly scary, and very, very funny in places.

The movie features a lot of actors that had already either worked for the Coen's (many of whom who would again, again) and some new comers that showed up later Coen films. Barton Fink (John Turturro), the young pretentious playwright from New York--summoned to Hollywood by Lipnick to write screenplays. Actually to write a wrestling picture for star Wallace Beery, He checks in a strange dark hotel and meets his next door neighbor, Charlie Meadows, who tell Barton that he is an insurance salesman--but there is something more to his story, only Barton is so wrapped up in himself, he never sees the clues to this. In the melting heat of the hotel, Barton soon starts to suffer from writers block. This is really the reason that this film exists in the first place. The Coen's found themselves experiencing that themselves while working on Miller's Crossing; this script was a way to take a vacation from Crossing, and it is unclear whether they ever intended to actually shoot it. It is littered with very talented actors of all walks: Judy Davis, Steve Buscemi, Tony Shahloub, John Mahoney, John Polito, all in addition to Turturro, Goodman and Lenner fill out the cast.

Trivia:

It is often reported that actor Wallace Berry never made a wrestling picture, that it was the one genre that he never got around to starring in. That is actually not true. He actually starred as a German wrestler in the 1932 Flesh that was directed by an uncredited John Ford, and penned for the most part by an uncredited William Faulkner. At the time Barton Fink was penned, it is thought the Coen's were unaware of this picture, which would make their character of W. P. Mayhew doubly ironic, since he is based in some great degree on Faulkner.

Voices of Barton's play in the opening of the film are Turturro, Joel's wife Frances McDormmand, and Barry Sonnenfeld, who was at the time, the Coen's DP.

Barton's wrestling script is entitled "The Burlyman."

The parts of Turturro, Goodman, Polito and Buscemi were all written for them.

The first film to win all three top awards at Cannes (Palme D'Or, Best Director and Best Actor)

The name of Karl Mundt (murderous Charlie's name) comes from a real US House of Representatives who became the vice chairman for the House Un-American Activities Committee.