I'll Show You The Life Of The Mind: Barton Fink (1991)

I have seen quite a few films involving The Coen brothers, even going so far as to describe No Country for Old Men as an example of the rare perfect movie.  While I am used to their films being incredibly comedic and intensely centered in action heavy moments, Barton Fink provided me with an entirely different viewing experience, that while not the norm for the Coen's certainly proved to be enjoyable and incredibly intense.  Combining some stellar performances by both John Turturro and John Goodman, a film about intelligence, accessibility and the delving of one's psyche into the paranoid evokes the greatest of emotive responses one can imagine while watching a film.  I find this to be one of the most complex and introspective films in the Coen oeuvre and place it second only to A Serious Man in what I would claim to be my favorite film by Joel and Ethan.  Perhaps it is the centralization of character evident in both these works that make me love the films, or the complete lack of concern for spatial formality, but something about the magical realist nightmare evoked in Barton Fink makes for a stellar two hours of film viewing.  While this is somewhat early in the Coen's filmmaking career one can, nonetheless, find moments of their soon to be traditional touches, whether it be cameras focusing on events occurring outside of the room in which events are filmed, or fixation on seemingly arbitrary objects.  I personally could not help but pick up on some clear similarities to the world David Lynch creates in his seminal work Blue Velvet.  Barton Fink is a magnificently realized work that explodes into a much larger film than one will initially expect.  The work considers how we consider factual events in a biased narrative, as well as what role we place on creativity in a writer's output, especially when their work is always influenced by outside forces.  While many a films have been made about making films, I would place Barton Fink in the highest of rungs.

The film centers on a character of the title's sake Barton Fink (John Turturro) a New York based playwright who has found recent success with his gritty and minimalist plays focusing on the common man.  While we are shown him enjoying lavish dinners, he is offered high paying work to write screenplays in Hollywood, an offer he finds slightly offensive and counterproductive to his guttural desires to speak for the working class.  Agreeing as a means to gain money to pay for multiple plays in the future, Barton flies out Hollywood and stays at the surprisingly dilapidated and unoccupied Hotel Earle, with the exception of the the under zealous bellhop Chet (Steve Buscemi).  Once situated in his room, Barton attempts to begin writing a gritty "wrestling picture" only to undertake insufferable writer's block, a problem exacerbated by the distraction of continually peeling wallpaper and the constant interruptions by Charlie Meadows (John Goodman) a talkative, rotund life insurance salesman.  Barton seeks inspiration outside of the hotel, eventually running into a idol writer of his W.P. Mayhew (John Mahoney), who it becomes quite clear has spiraled into alcoholism, much to the disdain of his wife Audrey (Judy Davis), for who Barton begins to take a liking.  Eventually winning over Audrey and earning an extension on his script writing, Barton convinces her to spend time with him, however, upon awaking he realizes she has been inexplicably murdered.  Seeking help from his only friend Charlie, Barton disposes of the body, only to become a key witness in the investigation of Charlie, of who viewers learn is actually "Mad Man" Munch an infamous serial killer.  Needless to say, Barton's daily life becomes absurd all leading to an intense run in with Charlie/Munch that, nonetheless, allows him to burst through his writers block and provide Capitol Studios with a script, one that is instantly despised and leads to his being put on restriction, although he is told to stay in Hollywood as he is still on contract.

One of my favorite elements of Barton Fink are the multiplicities of interpretation allowed for this work.  Of course some of the more obvious interpretations center on the creative process, or class consciousness.  However, it is many of the more obscure yet equally tangible elements of the film that I find intriguing.  It almost has a The Shining element in that one  can pick up various possibilities for commentary.  One element of note is the suggestion of a critique of Fascism within the narrative, particularly in that it represents a clearly Jewish character in Fink avoiding the suppression and attacks of fascist nationalism.  This is overtly emphasized when he is accosted by detectives Mastrionatti and Deutsch whose clear German and Italian ties draw upon Fascism.  Similarly, a reading involving ideas of slavery has emerged, citing the singing of slavery songs and spirituals as an example, although a connection to notions of possessing intellectual property could certainly add some validity to this specified reading.  Finally, and of course most notably is the fact that this could all be an imagined film, which begins with the fact that we are shown moments through the eyes of Barton, especially since it begins with him watching his own play, a fact that is never verified to exist outside his own mind, a quick cutting to a near point of view of him entering into a ritzy restaurant almost solidifies it, if not at the very least helping to rationalize the absurd moments in which he witnesses a hotel become engulfed in flames only to seem fine moments later.  We are never sure what his rejected script consists of, but perhaps that has been what we were shown up until this point, after all there is a wrestling scene between Charlie and Barton that could serve as the inspiration for the script, amidst all its latent homoeroticism.

Key Scene:  For the key scene please refer to the quote in the title of this post.

I watched this on Netflix via Watch Instantly, but was so enamored with it that I intend to purchase a copy and would certainly urge you to do the same, although I would hold out for a bluray release.

Appearances Can Be...Deceptive: Burn After Reading (2008)

I am coming to realize a very tragic flaw with The Coen Brothers as they relate to popular cinema.  This being that their most provocative and provocative films have proven to be the least well received to regular cinemagoers.  Their Oscar winning film, No Country For Old Men, while spectacular is far inferior to their existential drama A Serious Man, which failed to prove as profitable as the previously mentioned film.  The same fate occurred with Burn After Reading, which was released shortly after No Country For Old Men and proved relatively unsuccessful as far as the Coen's films are concerned.  Burn After Reading is certainly not as thrilling as No Country For Old Men and arguably lacks the same unique characters, but to dismiss this film entirely is certainly a tragic action.  What is offered from the Coen's with Burn After Reading is a very intimate look into a group in American society that many seem to deem unfilmable.  Yet as this film shows, this group, which I will discuss later, provides some of the most joyously fantastic humor available in a dark comedy and it really makes me want to revisit the entire Coen Brothers' oeuvre to find similar subject matter.

Burn After Reading, like so many of Joel and Ethan's movies, involves multiple narratives which by some unseen fate become cruelly intertwined.  The film opens with an aging CIA agent named Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) discovering that he is being asked to resign from his job, due to various reasons, most notably his continually problematic alcoholism.  This announcement comes at a terrible time for his wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) whose vanity becomes threatened with a sudden cessation of money.  Instead of supporting her ailing husband, Katie decides to pursue her affair with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), a sex-crazed employee of the state department, who dismisses not only Osbourne, but his own wife Sandy (Elizabeth Marvel) as nothing more than an author of tacky children's stories.  This entire narrative of infidelity is arched by the discovery of Osbourne's memoirs at a local gym by two mundane employees, the jockish Chad (Brad Pitt) and the aging Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) whose desire to get plastic surgery challenges even Katie's vanity.  This group of characters began to cross each others paths', assuming that large scale spying is occurring and that Osbourne's memoirs are a major component to refueling the Cold War ideologies in the United States.  Despite being arbitrary, Osbourne's memoirs being leaked, prove to lead to larger amounts of infidelity, murder and political corruption.  All of this blows up in the faces of the characters involved and proves rather tragic.  Yet as the film shows in its closing monologue of a CIA Superior (J.K. Simmons) while  stating that the group "tried its best" that the lives of those men and women involved in this conspiracy were indeed full of sound and fury, but as always signified nothing.  It is a truly existential film that has an equally bleak ending, similar to its predecessor No Country For Old Men, but so much funnier.

As I noted earlier, this film is concerned with a very specific group of the American demographic.  Burn After Reading is preoccupied with middle-aged ennui, a great subject given that it likely reflects The Coen Brother's own personal struggle to stay relevant in an ever evolving world of cinema.  Burn After Reading is all about individuals staying relevant when younger generations are vying to take their place.  From the onset Osbourne reflects this given his removal from the CIA for younger agents.  Instead of proving his worth to the CIA, he quits and commits to discussing the better days of the agency, a classic action of middle aged individuals to become nostalgic as opposed to relevant.  Similarly, both Katie and Linda find themselves loosing their relevance in very physical terms, a particularly notable issue given that both of the characters are women.  Yet, neither attempts to adapt to the situation, but instead rely on medical advancements to rekindle their youth.  Finally, even George Clooney and Brad Pitt's characters, which are implied to be relatively young, are preoccupied with being hypermasculine to a fault, with Clooney being a philanderer and Pitt being fanatical about working out to a fault.  The ultimate problem in the film is that each character's desire to remain relevant becomes hazardous to the group as a whole causing very physical problems in their realities and their inability to acknowledge that they are not indeed "doing their best" is a very dire problem.  With that being said, I should note that I think The Coen's are doing their very best at their age and their relevance is undeniable, certainly in their ability to reflect on a film of ages gone by and rethink it for a new generation, this being of course their glorious adaptation of True Grit.  Burn After Reading is a call to adapt, or else flail in a new generation with differing ideologies which manifest themselves in a variety of forms.

This is an excellent Coen Brothers film that I strongly suggest owning.  Getting a cheap copy of this film is relatively easy and you will not regret it, I promise.