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Barton Fink: Are You A Trans or Res?
I've always enjoyed Barton Fink, the Coen Brothers' Palme d'Or winning surrealist period piece from 1991. It's funny and strange and extremely well-shot by Roger Deakins, boasting a few terrific performances and typically ingenious direction from Joel Coen. In a way, unlike Miller's Crossing or Fargo or Hudsucker Proxy, to my mind Barton Fink was the minor masterpiece, the half-finished symphony. For some reason, watching the film recently, the pieces seemed to fit together with more clarity than before. Could this rather bizarre, allegorical film really be summarized in a straight-forward and logical fashion if you watch it enough times?
Surely, there is a "plot" to summarize. In 1941, a successful Broadway playwright Barton Fink (played by John Turturro was maximum bug-eyed fussiness) is called out to Hollywood to write for a major studio. Once arriving there, he moves into a dingy, cramped hotel and is assigned to write a wrestling picture for Wallace Beery. He forms a few friendships - with a once-brilliant novelist, the novelist's lover and personal secretary and an insurance salesman - and develops severe writer's block. After sleeping with the alcoholic novelist's girlfriend, Barton wakes up in bed to find her murdered and turns to his next-door neighbor and new buddy Charlie for help. Later, he becomes a suspect for a whole rash of killings apparently conducted by Charlie and, though he completes what he feels is a strong script for the movie, he's chastized and lectured by the studio chief.
The key error in my thinking up until now has been the Coen's attitude towards the character of Barton himself. Viewing the film as a satire about self-important writers, and more specifically a condemnation of Barton Fink's haughty air of superiorty over the "common man" he claims to lionize, only makes sense some of the time. Though there is ample indication that Barton brings his problems on himself, by ignoring the people around him and retreating inside his own head, Turturro's overall portrayal is sympathetic. Barton's not a monster or a megalomaniac, just a poor, lost and misguided sucker, enraptured of his own voice. He may not be perfect, but he's at least honest and well-intentioned.
So, clearly, the movie can't simply be viewed as a rebuke of New York playwrights on an ego trip. This can't account for all the strange imagery - the paper-wrapped parcel, the mosquito, the melting wallpaper, the picture of the beach - Biblical allusions and historical references, and it doesn't help to explain some of the film's most puzzling (and intriguing) sequences.
The key scene in the film comes at about the halfway point, where Barton eats a picnic lunch with his fellow screenwriter W.P. Mayhew (played by John Mahoney and based on William Faulkner) and Mayhew's personal secretary, Audrey (Judy Davis). Mayhew introduces the dichotomy that becomes the centerpiece of the film. "Writing is peace," Mayhew declares, enjoying a serene and intoxicated afternoon by a river.
Barton, however, strongly disagrees with this sentiment. In order to produce quality work, he argues, a writer must reach deep within him or herself, to dredge up some horrible pain that will hopefully provide worthwhile insights. To put it another way, a writer must travel to a certain kind of hell in order to find the kind of inspiration that allows for great art. Peace comes once the writing is completed.
For Mayhew, writing is the only solace he can find from the cruelty of the real world. Because he can not writing (possibly due to excessive drinking), he cannot escape a personal hell on Earth that has driven him gradually insane. Barton faces the exact opposite dilemma. For him, the process of writing is something brutal to be endured. He suffers through hell on Earth in order to produce great work, which would then allow him to return to the safety and security of his home in New York City. (Notice that, in this scene at the park, Mayhew drinks his usual whiskey along with a tall glass of milk. Previously, we have heard him in the throes of an alcohol-fueled fit in his bungalow on the studio backlot. He calls out for Audrey, angrily asking "Where's my honey!" Thinking Biblically, milk and honey equal salvation, presently denied Mayhew because of his writer's block.)
The majority of the film represents Barton's descent into Hell a.k.a. his writing process. The Coens structure the middle of the film as an allegorical representation of the writing process.
The loudmouth, aggressive studio chief (Michael Lerner in an Oscar-winning performance) and fast-talking producer (Tony Shalhoub) represent the pressure on Barton to create something not just worthwhile but marketable and commercially viable. The professional artist cannot content himself simply by writing, but by writing something that people will want to buy. The studio in Barton Fink is fittingly entitled Capital Pictures.
Lacking the space for a more in-depth analysis of the film's Second Act, I'll simply note some of the more immediately apparent connections:
• Barton experiences self-doubt, both about his own ability and his intentions in writing a wrestling movie
• Barton seeks solace from the strain of writing in women and alcohol
• The small hotel room isolates Barton causing him to develop anxiety and severe loneliness
• Forcing Barton to study the dailies from another wrestling movie, in which a big guy in tights trods towards the camera yelling "I will destroy him!," Shalhoub's producer sets him up in a screening room. Aside from the obvious violence connection (Barton's work is all about willfull destruction), he's also being directly confronted by the efforts of more successful, more famous and more experienced writers.
• The thrill of finishing a worthwhile project wears off quickly when Barton realizes that his work will find an uncaring and unsympathetic audience, if it finds any audience at all. He goes to a USO sponsored dance after finishing his script, only to be beaten up by the very "commen men" whom his script celebrated.
• Like most authors, successful or not, Barton tends towards self-aggrandizement, elevating his personal fantasies and inner thoughts to the level of penetrating philosophical discovery.
The Coens themselves were famously suffering from writer's block when they developed Barton Fink, and as a postmodern joke, they have structured the film as a desperate, grasping-at-straws writer might have. Elements and plot strands from all kinds of different genres are introduced only to be largely left ambiguous or incomplete. There's the beginnings of a love triangle story between Mayhew, Audrey and Barton, but it fizzles out when Audrey is murdered and Mayhew disappears from the film completely. (A briefly-seen newspaper headline confirms he's eventually murdered by Munt.) The central murder mystery, of who actually killed Audrey in Barton's bed and if it was in fact Barton himself, remains unanswered and the police investigation stalls out before it even begins. Munt indicates that he may have done something to Barton's parents back in New York, but again this concept is never explored. (A related mystery, concerning the contents of a mysterious box given to Barton by Charlie likewise remains unsolved.) Even the final scene provides no closure on these or any other stories. We sense that Barton Fink's troubles in Los Angeles will continue going on in similar fashion after the credits roll.
When Barton first arrives at the Hotel Earle, he's greeted by Chet (Steve Buscemi), who asks the quesiton "trans or res"? It stands for transient or resident. Will Barton be staying for only a few days or moving in permanently? Barton answers that his stay will be indefinite, so Chet puts him down as a resident.
But, of course, he's not a permanent resident. He's just spending some time in town while under contract to Capital Pictures. Fortunately, the Hotel Earle offers these dual options. A quick shot of the hotel's stationary confirms its motto as: "For one day or a lifetime!" The name "Hotel Earle" itself could be explained in two ways. Either as a vaguely disguised stand-in for "Hell on Earth" or for "Early Hell." Hell on Earth, of course, referring to Barton's favored writing location and Early Hell referring to the fact that Barton will stay temporarily in this place before hopefully returning home to his real life. He's not going to hell, just visiting.
Damnation imagery abounds in the hotel, reinforcing Barton's ongoing quest for salvation, which is his case means finishing his script and becoming free of his obligation to Capital. (At one point, this conflation is made explicit when Barton opens the Bible to see that the first chapter of Genesis has been replaced by the opening of his screenplay). Certainly, the Hotel is Hell-like. Everything creaks and looks old. It's hot all the time, so hot that the wallpaper peels slowly off the walls. At one point, Barton asks the elevator operator if he has ever read The Bible. "The Holy Bible?," he asks for clarification.
Which brings us to Barton's next-door neighbor, Charlie Meadows (John Goodman). At least, he starts off the film as Charlie Meadows, seguing eventually into vicious serial murderer Karl "Madman" Munt. Meadows works as a traveling salesman, keeping a permanent room at the Hotel Earle for business purposes. His character's frequently read as a stand-in for Satan, and certainly his psychotic killing spree in the corridor at the film's conclusion begs the comparison, but it may be a bit more complex than that.
As Meadows, Goodman comes to represent all that is good and pure about Barton's writing. He's the prototypical "common man" about whom Barton writes, an All-American hard-working average joe struggling to get along. He has an easygoing manner, a kind face, a generous spirit and he's quick to laugh. Barton grows to appreciate his company right away, and becomes genuinely agitated when he must leave for a few weeks at a time.
When he returns from one of his trips, Meadows has morphed into the villainous Munt. Certainly he hasn't been Satan this entire time? As Meadows, his kindness helped to inspire Barton's screenplay, which may be the author's best work yet. That doesn't sound particularly evil. Meadows, in fact, doesn't appear remotely capable of evil. In fact, I think this character may represent the dual nature of Barton's imagination.
Initially, the character represents the best of the American spirit. Of course, it's an oversimplified, folksy portrait of the working class. (It's implied throughout the film that Fink's intentions are better than his dialogue.) But he's how Americans would like to see themselves, albeit a little dumber and fatter, and more importantly, it's how Fink likes to portray everyday Americans. As Munt, the character represents the ugliness Fink is forced to confront through his art. His killing spree (along with the untimely murder of Audrey in Barton's bed) personifies the violence inherent in the act of Creation. (And creation. Big C and little c.)
Barton Fink does imply that to write is an act of violence. Authors create characters only to destroy their lives and kill them, build up whole worlds only to tear them apart. The Coens are no different in this film, carefully crafting Audrey only to mutilate her as she sleeps and introducing two amusing LAPD detectives only to have them die soon after from shotgun blasts to the chest. As he shoots down the cops, Munt seems to light the hallway on fire telekinetically. He screams "I will show you the life of the mind!," repeating the description Barton provided previously for the most difficult aspect of his job. Living the life of the mind, looking deep within oneself for truth, can be freeing but also deeply painful.
Barton, however, will get to escape this hell once his work is completed. Munt is condemned to dwell in this unquiet place forever, and seems justifiably upset. "Take pity on me, Barton," he says. "You get to leave. I actually live here."
The final scene, however, doesn't indicate that Barton will be able to leave Los Angeles. As punishment for writing a script without the requisite number of wrestling scenes, the studio head refuses to produce any films based on Barton Fink scripts while forcing him to remain in town as a Capital Pictures contract writer. The eerie final scene finds Barton wandering around on the beach near Malibu, clutching the unexplained box gifted him by Charlie. He spots a beautiful woman gazing out into the ocean, and slowly realizes that this image perfectly matches the small painting that hung in his hotel room.
Perhaps like Mayhew before him, who needs to write in order to escape constant grinding misery, Barton's spirit has been conquered by the darkness. Charlie at one point accuses him of being "a tourist with a typewriter," visiting the well of human misery for ideas but swiftly racing back to the serene comfort of mundane ignorance, but the Coens may be saying that such a thing is not possible forever. The life of the mind might inextricably end with flames and shotgun blasts, and even though Barton can grab his only copy of his screenplay and run out of the hotel and take a trip to the beach, he's still forced to confront the reality of the Hotel Earle and the things that he has seen there. He should have never told Chet that he was a res. That was his first mistake. |
