As filmmakers, Joel and Ethan Coen have long been a couple of smart alecks-”Blood Simple,” ”Raising Arizona,” ”Miller`s Crossing,” all movies with vastly more style than soul. Now, with ”Barton Fink,” they`ve become smart alecks of genius.
The new film, a strange, funny and furiously inventive nightmare comedy, puts the Coen brothers in a whole new league. What seemed tight and supercilious in their work suddenly seems freely associative and highly expressive. They`ve redeemed the emptiness that haunted their earlier work by taking emptiness itself as a subject-the ultimate post-modern gesture.
”Barton Fink” explores the plight of an artist with nothing to say and finds a great deal to say about it.
The title character, as meticulously created by John Turturro, is a Broadway playwright of 1941 who looks like George S. Kaufman (a shock of curly black hair, a pair of stern, black glasses) and writes like Clifford Odets, in a torrent of self-important, preposterously romantic street poetry.
Barton`s latest drama, which is called ”Bare Ruined Choirs” and appears to be a cornball celebration of ”the common man” that appropriates and devastates Odets` ”Awake and Sing,” has just opened to wild critical acclaim on Broadway. Barton`s agent gives him the fateful news: An offer has come through from Hollywood, and if the lofty, idealistic bard of the streets can tolerate the idea of compromising his artistic standards, there are some bucks to be grabbed.
Arriving at Capitol Pictures, the quizzical, perpetually appalled Barton is greeted by studio chief Jack Lipnick (a hilarious, unbalanced turn by Michael Lerner) and his craven, sweaty yes man Lou Breeze (Coen regular Jon Polito) and is assigned to create a wrestling picture for Wallace Beery.
Though the wrestling genre is almost entirely a Coen brothers invention
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(the one available model is ”Flesh,” a minor 1932 John Ford film with Beery), it comes complete with an elaborate history and complicated rules that must not be broken. Barton, who considers himself an original (even though his own work is as highly codified and formulaic as any B-movie script) is immediately and monumentally paralyzed.
The Coens` Hollywood is a sinister, claustrophobic, eerily underpopulated place, where nature is limited to a quick view of the Pacific blocked by a huge rock, and most of the action takes place in the dank and cavernous confines of the Hotel Earle, an oppressive institution (”For a day or a lifetime”) that has seen better days but still features a complimentary shoeshine each night.
The Earle`s only other visible guest is hale and hearty Charlie Meadows
(John Goodman), an insurance salesman who has the room next door to Barton as well as an always handy pint of whiskey, which he`s happy to share. Charlie is clearly the perfect embodiment of Barton`s common man, and for that reason, Barton chooses to entirely ignore him. ”Oh, I could tell you some stories,” Charlie says, while Barton obliviously talks right over him, expanding on his beautifully redundant desire to ”forge something real out of everyday experience.”
If ”Barton Fink” is a movie about how hard it is to tell a story, for a long time it (deliberately) doesn`t succeed itself, progressing instead through a compulsive accumulation of detail and atmosphere. At the studio, Barton meets another exiled writer, the legendary, Faulkner-esque Southern novelist W.P. Mayhew (John Mahoney, very sharp) and his secretary-mistress Audrey Taylor (Judy Davis, likewise).
Meanwhile, as Barton sits staring silently at his typewriter, the Earle becomes more close and hellish. In the stifling heat, the ghastly green wallpaper oozes from its moorings, giant mosquitos buzz through the room and Barton`s only escape is through the pinup picture that hangs on the wall: a beautiful girl in a bathing suit who gazes out to sea.
When something finally does happen, it`s an event that turns Barton`s life, quite literally, into a raging inferno.
The fascination of ”Barton Fink” lies in the tension between its fully realized, compulsively detailed imaginary world and the film`s underlying elusiveness-its refusal to declare itself in terms of a clear plot line, single emotional tone or unambiguous moral statement.
The film`s internal logic is impeccable and developed in remarkable depth (a biblical allusion, linking Barton to the exiled prophet Daniel in the Babylon of King Nebuchadnezzar, also runs gracefully through it), yet the sense of the action is always delicately delayed, leaving the viewer, like Barton, in a state of constant wariness and uncertainty. Threat is everywhere, motive non-existent, and the Coens` still-stunning technique turns every image into a puzzle to be solved.
Traces of films past can be found in ”Barton Fink”-the Hotel Earle might belong to the same chain as the mountain resort of ”The Shining”;
Barton in his room begins to resemble Roman Polanski`s ”The Tenant”-but the overall effect is one of startling, almost aggressive originality.
It`s the kind of film that inspires multiple viewings in hopes of ferreting out its secrets; its essential mystery, however, seems likely to remain intact and compelling for years to come.
”BARTON FINK”
(STAR)(STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
Directed, written and produced by Joel and Ethan Coen; photographed by Roger Deakins; production designed by Dennis Gassner; costumes designed by Richard Hornung; edited by Roderick Jaynes; music by Carter Burwell. A Twentieth Century Fox release; opens Aug. 23 at the Fine Arts theater. Running time:
1:56. MPAA rating: R. Violence, adult situations.
THE CAST
Barton Fink………………………………………….John Turturro
Charlie Meadows……………………………………….John Goodman
Audrey Taylor…………………………………………..Judy Davis
Jack Lipnick………………………………………..Michael Lerner
W.P. Mayhew…………………………………………..John Mahoney
Ben Geisler………………………………………….Tony Shalhoub
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Lou Breeze……………………………………………..Jon Polito
Chet………………………………………………..Steve Buscemi