Barton Fink

Barton Fink (1991) is about a playwright brought to Hollywood who gets stuck in a hotel room. Barton has had a success on Broadway; he writes about the working class and wants to be the voice of the common man. A studio brings him in and asks him to write a wrestling picture. He moves into the Hotel Earle. The room is strange: the wallpaper peels in the heat, there are sounds from the ceiling, there is a mosquito, and nobody appears in the corridors. He sits at the typewriter and cannot write a line. Next door is an insurance salesman named Charlie. Talkative, friendly, and exactly the sort of man Barton claims to write about: an actual worker. But Barton never listens; he keeps explaining his theory, and each time Charlie says he could tell him a story and falls silent. The last section changes genre entirely and we will not describe it. The Coens wrote this because they were blocked on Miller's Crossing; they finished it in three weeks and went back to complete the other. A film about being blocked came out of being blocked. Something unique happened at Cannes: it took the Palme d'Or, best director and best actor together. The decision was argued over and an article was added to the festival regulations: a film can no longer take more than one of the major prizes, and acting awards can only be combined with a single major award. Barton Fink therefore remains the only film to have won the Palme and the directing prize together. The rule does not forbid three awards outright; in 2001 The Piano Teacher took the Grand Prix and both acting prizes, which is a permitted combination. John Turturro and John Goodman star. Roger Deakins photographed it. It runs 116 minutes. Good for: the Coen brothers, films about writing, and nightmare logic. Less good for: the film explains nothing and the last section is a hard change of genre.