Catch next week’s Coen Brothers Film Experience entry on Wednesday, November 11th: The Hudsucker Proxy

Quite honestly, the first time that I had ever even heard of “Barton Fink” was right before my viewing of “Raising Arizona” a couple of weeks back. I watched the trailer for “Raising Arizona” right before I watched the actual movie and decided to also peek at the trailers for “Miller’s Crossing” and “Barton Fink”, both of which appeared as extras on the disk. I had a pretty big “WTF” moment. I couldn’t believe I had never heard anyone speak of this movie. I looked it up online and had another “WTF” moment when I read that it had swept the 1991 Cannes Film Festival by winning the Palm d’Or as well as the prizes for Directing and Acting (John Tuturro as the lead).

I’m glad I finally had a chance to sit down and experience it. As with many of the Coen Brothers movies, it definitely is an experience.

Hit the Jump to read my take of “Barton Fink”.


“Barton Fink” is the story of a New York playwright, Barton Fink, played by John Tuturro, who decides, partially against his own will, to leave New York, and plunge himself into the world of Hollywood to boost the longevity of his career and to partake in the financial gain that comes with it. The film also stars John Goodman, as his hotel room neighbor, Michael Lerner, Judy Davis, John Mahoney, Jon Polito, Steve Bushemi, and Tony Shaloub.

To say that I understand a lot of the themes and symbolism crammed into this movie would be a lie. No wait, that’s not altogether true. In retrospect, I understand the symbolism however as I was watching the film, most of it was lost on me until I researched the movie afterwards. Wikipedia has a monstrous rundown of all of the themes, symbolism, and Coenesque also has a good discussion of some of the main symbolic elements.

Here’s my very simplistic take: Barton Fink is a writer that prides himself on getting into ‘the people’s’ mindset. When he migrates to LA, he is essentially told that he needs to pigeonhole himself and his work into whatever genre ( a wrestling picture, in this case) they need at the time. LA is a wildly different place than his native New York so the hotel and his room represent his retreat in a strange land. John Goodman’s Charlie is one of the people he claims to know so well, yet rarely listens to, and the wallpaper is a symbolic representation of his mind set as his experience in LA gets more and more difficult.

Aside from all of the symbolic stuff, there are some absolutely great characters in this movie. Chief among them, Michael Lerner as Jack Lipnick, the Hollywood head of ‘Capitol Pictures’. I absolutely loved this character. Associated with the Hollywood side of the story are Jon Polito and Tony Shaloub. The characterizations of Hollywood big wigs, assistants, and producers is absolutely hilarious. The doublespeak, contradictions, and back and forth dialogue is immensely entertaining. As well, we get some brief scenes with two investigative detectives looking for John Goodman’s character and every second they are on screen is pure gold. They instigate one of the best lines of the whole movie. They allude to the fact that Barton and Charlie had a gay affair and Barton responds with, “Sex?! He’s a man!…We wrestled!” The line and the way Tuturro delivered it had me laughing for minutes.

I’ll be honest. By the end of the movie, I was totally enthralled and yet when it was all over, I had a gajillion questions. I watched the trailer again after my viewing and realized that when I revisit Barton Fink a second time, I’m going to love it, especially after investigating the multiple elements at play that I missed the first time around. In the end however, whether you catch everything or not, “Barton Fink” is a very entertaining film if only to experience a Coen Brothers take of 40’s Hollywood.

The Bottom Line: 3.5/5. “Barton Fink” is a really difficult film to put my finger on. The long and short of it is this: would I recommend the movie? Sure thing*.
*As with much of the Coen Brothers’ work, it may not be for everyone. There are some absolutely awesome sequences but at the same time there will probably be a lot of moments that will make you cock your head to the side and go: “hmm?”.

This Film Experience is getting tough, I don’t want to put “Barton Fink” so low on my list of Coen favs but I did like “A Serious Man”, “Miller’s Crossing”, and “Blood Simple” more. After five films viewed for the Coen Brothers Film Experience, here is the list of films in the order of my liking:

1. A Serious Man (2009)
2. Miller’s Crossing (1990)
3. Blood Simple (1984)
4. Barton Fink (1991)
5. Raising Arizona (1987).

Want to see the trailer?

What did you think of “Barton Fink” the first time you saw it? Leave your comments below or find me on Twitter!