Barton Fink (1991) or, The Writer's Hell

11/25/2013

Barton Fink (1991) or, The Writer's Hell

♥♥♥♥♥

A mosquito is magnified against co-star John Turturro's forehead on this sepia-toned poster for Ethan and Joel Coen's Barton Fink

An impassioned New York playwright travels to the very commercially minded Hollywood in 1941, where he is employed to write a film that he can't seem to crack open. While things around him grow gradually worse, so does his writer's block.

Barton Fink is written by Minnesotan master filmmakers, co-writer/producer/co-editor Ethan Coen and his brother, co-writer/director/co-editor Joel Coen (Blood Simple (1984), both). It is the brothers' 4th feature.

I have warmed to Barton Fink, since first seeing it, and find that it grows on me. While first finding it a bit too smart for its own good, and disliking the ending for some reason, I have since found that I like it very much. It is unconventional and ambiguous and makes you think about stuff, - and that's a good thing.
The title character is played by the great John Turturro (The Big Lebowski (1998)) in perhaps his career's best part. He plays the moody intellectual with great resourcefulness, and particularly his dance scenes are memorable and fun. The film also has a wealth of great supporting performances: John Goodman (Storytelling (2001)) as Fink's likeable but insane murderer neighbor in the hellish Hotel Earle. Their scenes together are some of the best in the film. Tony Shalhoub (Monk (2002-2009)) is larger-than-life as a Hollywood producer, and Michael Lerner (Amos & Andrew (1993)) is even more hysterical as the slave-owner-like studio boss.

The photography (by Roger Deakins (Revolutionary Road (2008))) is entirely lovely, and the film is also heightened by atmospheric, great sets by Dennis Gassner and Nancy Haigh (Road to Perdition (2002)). Barton Fink is filled with meanings, some symbolism and many great scenes. A very entertaining film.

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Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 9 mil. $
Box office: In excess of 11.64 mil. $
= Uncertain but likely a big flop (projected return of 1.66 times its cost)

[Barton Fink premiered 18 May (Cannes Film Festival, main competition) and runs 116 minutes. It was written during a 3-week hiatus from the difficult work of writing the script for the Coens' preceding film Miller's Crossing (1990). Shooting took place from June 1990 - ? in California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #18 to a 268k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked at #13 and grossed 6.1 mil. $. The international gross numbers have regrettably not been released. However, online sources list that the film made 821k £ in the UK (approximately 1.4 mil. $), and that it sold 720k tickets in France and Germany (double as many in the former), coming to approximately 3 mil. $. It sold 210k tickets in Spain, approximately 863k $. It sold 34k tickets in Denmark, coming to approximately 287k $. With the remaining markets added, the total gross should be at least 15 mil. $, which would nevertheless still result in a big flop categorization. The film was nominated for 3 Oscars: It lost Best Supporting Actor (Lerner) to Jack Palance for City Slickers, Art Direction/Set Decoration to Bugsy and Costume Design to Bugsy as well. It won the Palme d'Or, Best Director and Actor prizes at Cannes in a rare feat, a David di Donatello award and was nominated for a Golden Globe, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. The Coens returned with The Hudsucker Proxy (1994). Turturro returned in Brain Donors (1992); Goodman in Little Richard: Good Golly Miss Molly (1991, music video) and theatrically in Babe (1992). Barton Fink is certified fresh at 89 % with a 7.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Barton Fink?

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11/25/2013