Ten Days Of The Coen Brothers: Day Three

The Dark Heart of Humanity

♦ With the release of Hail, Caesar! in the UK on 4 March, Tripwire kicks off a look at all of the Coen Brothers films released to date. Yesterday we took a look at  their third film Miller’s Crossing (1990) and now our editor-in-chief Joel Meadows takes a look at their fourth effort, Barton Fink (1991). 

Barton Fink

Director: Joel Coen

Stars: John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, Michael Lerner, John Mahoney

Barton Fink came out only a year after the Coen’s previous film, Miller’s Crossing, but it feels light years ahead of it in terms of its script and characterisation. The Barton Fink of the title is a New York-based Jewish playwright, played by John Turturro, who finds critical acclaim with his latest work and is sent to Hollywood to work on movies with the head of Capitol Studios, the eccentric Jack Lipnitz (Michael Lerner). But serial outsider Fink soon finds himself well out of his depth thanks to falling in with soused writer WP Mayhew (John Mahoney, best known for his role in Frasier) and his girlfriend/ assistant Audrey Taylor (the brilliant Judy Davis). To complicate matters, Fink’s neighbour in the gothically sleazy hotel he has been sequestered to, Charlie Meadows (John Goodman) is very much not what he seems.

Barton Fink is set in a hermetically sealed world but it is a world that is wonderfully realised and brought to the screen by the Coens and their collaborators, including the Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins, who went on to do Skyfall, and production designer Dennis Gassner. Turturro is exceptional here as the nerdy Fink, a man who is so out of place in the twisted, contradictory world of 1940s Hollywood. Davis is exceptional too, bringing an easy charm to her role as the crutch for writer Mayhew, even though she meets a rather undignified end. Mahoney is also electrifying on screen as the writer who is much less than meets the eye. Lerner meanwhile is mesmerising on screen as the crazy studio head Lipnitz, who is so mercurial and flaky that he is a man who is impossible to please. The Coen Brothers also brought John Goodman back from Raising Arizona to play Fink’s neighbour Charlie and he is magnificent here. Plus there are some wonderful cameos from the likes of Steve Buscemi as bellboy Chet, Jon Polito as Lipnitz’s factotum Lou Breeze, and Tony Shalhoub as producer Ben Geisler.

Barton Fink is a film about the corrupting nature of Hollywood, and its dark, uncompromising heart. The film’s coda reaches its apogee with some wonderful scenes, including when we see Meadows striding through the fire he has set at the hotel, looking like the devil incarnate.

As with Miller’s Crossing the film is steeped in symbolism, but unlike its immediate forerunner, Barton Fink didn’t put a foot wrong in terms of its casting and its tone. It was the film that showed just what the pair were capable of, able to produce quirky (that horrible word), distinctive and thought-provoking cinema. There is a richness and depth to the film that they hadn’t achieved before. Barton Fink proved that the Coen Brothers were here to stay and it is as powerful and as imaginative a movie as it was when it was first released twenty-five years ago.

JOEL MEADOWS

Barton Fink www.tripwiremagazine.co.uk

Barton Fink [DVD]

Coen Brothers Day Two