बार्टन फिंक

I liken the Coen brothers to Haagen-Daz ice cream, i.e., various stages of good. I would argue this dark film, laden with more allegories than Dante, is not their best...but, it's good, damn good. To begin with, stellar performances form Turturro, Goodman, Mahoney, Buscemi and Lehner. The thing I find amazing is the skill in bringing so much darkness to such a bright, colorful cinemagraphic work-- remindful of Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers, in that regard-- that teeters on the edge. Goodman's last scene walking into the burning hotel room is eerie but very bright (why not? The damn place is burning down.) This is another great Coen brother film and let's hear it for Ethan and Joel! See it!

Re-watching this after I guess decades?

I enjoyed it but not overwhelmingly so. I think less than when i originally watched.

However I am reading, with amusement, the other reviews on here. They go on and on about how the movie skewers Hollywood and New York elites. No it doesn't. Instead this movie is dead simple: a playwright who says he is for the common man (and I mean man) is not really so. He is more interested in being seen as the great artist.

How do we see this?

He comes out to Hollywood and goes on and on in front of John Goodman about how he is for he common man while ignoring what Goodman had to say. Goodman repeated three times how he had stories to tell and Fink just ignored him.

Fink is more interested in himself as the great writer than actually focusing on the ask: write a wrestling movie, don't overthink it, write something similar to what others have done.

How do we see this? He insists on staying in a fleabag hotel as a sort of hairshirt to goose his artistic suffering and therefore creativity. But he doesn't need that creativity as he has been asked to write a straightforward wrestling movie in the style of past movies.

He could have stayed in a fancy hotel, enjoyed the lifestyle and written the wrestling movie.

Oh and those Hollywood elites? What the same ones who want to put out a wrestling movie that the public loves. Some elites huh!

Watched the film, understood 60% of it. Went to read its reviews after, understood 75% of it. Now i have to watch it again from another angle to completely get it. This is what the Coen brothers make you do.

I am absolutely amazed at the fantastic taste of the imdb readership, having loved this film for years and always been told by people I'd told about it and persuaded to watch that it was no good, I finally find some other people out there who love it as much as me, posting (mostly) extremely positive comments...This is a fabulous film, dripping with a brooding, sticky atmosphere that draws you in to the clammy world of Barton Fink, sat in his hotel room listening to the creaking of the wallpaper as it dribbles moistly from the walls, searching for inspiration in his tacky painting and dusty typewriter...Perhaps it is a little dark for some tastes, but as black comedy goes this is the blackest and the most biting there is, the Hollywood system and New York theatrical snobbery lampooned with equal viciousness. Deep insight into the nature of the creative spirit, a plethora of fine performances bringing at first stereotypical characters to full life (despite the unreal, fable-like atmosphere created by the slimy, glistening colours reminiscent of the films of Jeunet&Caro...), and many moments of hilarity make this a perfect movie, one I would not hesitate in recommending to anyone despite the fairly high probability they will hate it. A lack of any underlying morality, an absence of absolutes of right and wrong, good and bad, give this film a unique feeling that it could go anywhere. The last twenty minutes are about the most powerful I have ever seen in anything, at the end of almost every scene I thought it could end there and be an amazing film, yet each further scene only added further depth and poignancy. The first time I saw it, it left me drained, mind spinning, hands shaking, barely able to reach for the remote to rewind it to watch it again...

I knew I was entering the world of the insane when I picked this up. I wasn't disappointed. This is a dark comedy where people don't talk to each other, they just talk. Barton Fink is a big phony one hit wonder. He has these high ideals which he really doesn't understand. He's unable to see the forest for the trees. When he meets John Goodman's character, Charlie, he has an opportunity to find his muse, but he doesn't even listen. When he does, it's too late. The events of this film are wonderful, from Barton's speeches and his block. To Mayhew, the ersatz Faulkner, who drinks constantly and screeches. Barton Fink is so unlikeable that we don't even care what happens to him in other than a casual way. Goodman steals every scene he is in and ends up so much more that originally thought. This is a movie about taking everything to a higher pitch. It's about the artist and the dilettante. It's about the movies being a purely commercial enterprise. Wallace Beery is the king of the screen. It's a wrestling movie. For God's sake, they're asking for so little. Barton Fink is a whiny loser and he pays the price. The Coens are, without a doubt, the most refreshing thing of the last two decades.