film: Barton Fink (1991)

[L2R]

w & d: joel & ethan cohen

s: john turturro, john goodman, judy davis, tony shalhoub, michael lerner, john mahoney, steve buscemi

Wow. just "Wow".

I finally saw this gem for the first time last night. What starts off as a bizarre and quirky comedy on a writer relocating into the lion's den of hollywood which would've sufficed as a light piece of solid, original entertainment, suddenly takes a spectacular turn for the amazingly horrific about halfway through.

I'm going to have to revisit it at least another time now that the entire first half has completely new meaning.

everything in this is first class. the cast, the dialogue, the pace, the cinematography, the sound, everything.

i see this as the cohen brothers' answer to lynch's eraserhead, which is one of my top three films ever (commonly #1).

What a film!

 

[tambourine-man]

Sounds like a recommendation.

Will procure and endure.

 

[psood0nym]

I think I voted this #1 in the "most underrated Cohen brothers film" thread a while back. In my opinion the Cohen brothers are at their most Lynchian in "Blood Simple": the single source lighting, the bug zapper, the dark drives on the highway... Watch it tripping sometime and see if some of those same moods don't just drip off the screen. Definitely recommend "Barton Fink" though.

 

[stinkfoot]

i saw this film in the theater.

it must have been 1992-ish.

loved it.

 

[L2R]

I think I voted this #1 in the "most underrated Cohen brothers film" thread a while back. In my opinion the Cohen brothers are at their most Lynchian in "Blood Simple": the single source lighting, the bug zapper, the dark drives on the highway... Watch it tripping sometime and see if some of those same moods don't just drip off the screen. Definitely recommend "Barton Fink" though.

ooh, i must get me some blood simple. aint seen that one.

 

[ego_loss]

^^
Blood Simple was a lot loser to No Country than any of their other films... maybe Fargo... Very dark and gritty.

Barton Fink is a great movie. I relate it a lot to The Man who Wasn't There in that both contain a LOT of symbolism and strange imagery.

I think that Barton Fink is a movie that ONLY the Coen's could have made. They are the only guys with the eyes that it take to construct such a visual masterpiece.

In all, it doesn't make my top 10, but it's certainly on my top 50.

 

[Sziontist]

finally got around to seeing this recently and i enjoyed it alot. better than No Country For Old Men, imo.

 

[ego_loss]

finally got around to seeing this recently and i enjoyed it alot. better than No Country For Old Men, imo.

Apples and oranges, man.

 

[Sziontist]

i like apples and i also like oranges. i like red apples and green apples, yorks and winesaps. i also enjoy navel, valencia and blood oranges. but through a system of comparison and contrast, based on my own personal taste, i can conclude that i enjoy red apples more than all of them.

 

[junglist15]

great movie. john goodman was awesome.

 

[Finder]

I saw this once a few months ago and really enjoyed it. The chemistry between Goodman and Turturro is exceptional. Like all Coen Brothers movies, I find they require--at minimum--a second viewing, so I need to get around to it. Thankfully, I picked up a Coen Bros. boxed set the other day containing Barton Fink, Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, Raising Arizona, and Fargo so I will get the opportunity.

(btw, the boxed set is $40 US at Borders if you're interested).

 

[Benefit]

Great movie.

When Hollywood satirizes itself it pretty much can't miss and this is true even for writers with less talent than the Coens. Set in the early 1940s, Hollywood's Golden Age and the last great days of the major studios, Barton Fink is one of my favorite movies. It's weird, it's funny, it's gloriously surreal and it's easily the best film the Coen brothers have made.

The reason Hollywood satires work so well is because the people making the film, from the directors and writers down to the production assistants and the grip, know that Hollywood is an acetone wash of superficial ego driven profit mongering; it was in the studio era and it is today. They know intimately the hyper callous and soul sucking landscape which they are delving and therefore it always has the ring of truth to it which is important in good satire. Sure, you're probably not going to find a Nobel laureate writing B pictures for MGM these days and the old school tyrannical studio bosses have been dead for half a century, but the ethos remains intact and Barton Fink gobbles it up. The scene were Lipnick dismantles Barton's script is money. Pure gold.

This is because Michael Lerner as the corpulent micromanaging egomaniacal studio boss Jack Lipnick is an exceptional performance. If you think John Goodman, John Turturro and Steve Buscemi combined are even half as good as Lerner's performance in this film then you are misguided and should stop watching movies. Tony Shaloub is one rung below Lerner with his portrayal of the slick, slimy producer Ben Geisler. Goodman and Turturro are decent in their roles, but are completely eclipsed by Lerner. The dad from Fraiser isn't great as W. P. Mayhew but he gets bonus points for being based on William Faulkner.

The surrealism is played up just right; not too weird to alienate people (paging David Lynch...) but just weird enough to make it really interesting. The influence from Roman Polanski's The Tenant is obvious and Barton's Eraserhead hairdo pays homage to the film's Lynchean roots while adding yet another surreal layer.

Anyway, I could go on for pages on this film because there is so much going on in it.

 

[L2R]

nice review as ususal, benefit


*insert waves crashing violently against rocks here*

 

[steinanwine]

I saw this once a few months ago and really enjoyed it. The chemistry between Goodman and Turturro is exceptional. Like all Coen Brothers movies, I find they require--at minimum--a second viewing, so I need to get around to it. Thankfully, I picked up a Coen Bros. boxed set the other day containing Barton Fink, Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing, Raising Arizona, and Fargo so I will get the opportunity.

(btw, the boxed set is $40 US at Borders if you're interested).

^ Thats a crazy good price for a box set. I'm what you'd call a Coen Bros virgin, I suppose, only having seen three of their films I think but for 40 bucks that boxed set really sounds worth it ... I'm fairly confident that it would be worth it to drop the money with only having seen Fargo out of the five films. It sounds like my movie collection really needs those films. I'm very tempted, I wonder if Borders still has it, hmm...

 

[steinanwine]

Finally saw this and I really enjoyed it! I am not sure I entirely understand it but I liked it a lot. For me it is not the best Coen Brothers but that does not mean the movie is anything less than great. John Goodman is so awesome. I think my one gripe is that I wish the "twists", that totally change the nature and course of the story, happen a bit sooner. I would have liked to seen them toy with those ideas more, but regardless, it was a really great movie.