barton fink

Okay. So here's the deal. I was at work tonight and for the life of me, I could not stop thinking about the tantalizing tale of Barton Fink. Seriously, I couldn't let it go. So, I decided to come here and write a little bit of what I thought about the movie.

First off, I have to get some things off my chest. This really was an outstanding movie, and it offered a lot to all viewers. Also, I think that the movie was pretty straightforward (but in a slight bit of contradiction, I'm going to bring up many things that seem to be deeper and though unintentionally cause many more loopholes in my theory of it being a simplistic movie). So, you might think it lame, but I looked up some facts about the movie. I can feel you pointing and laughing already. I found out that it only took Joel and Ethan Coen three weeks to write it. I looked at that and I seriously thought to myself, "No way. No way they could do that!" But, they did, and it's incredible.

Okay, on to the actual movie though. Does anyone remember at the beginning, when Fink is standing backstage as the play? Well, I vaguely remember the opening actor's bit, and what I heard was a startling parallel that ran the lines of the actual movie. The actor says, "I'm blowin' out of here, blowin' for good. I'm kissin' it all goodbye, these four stinkin' walls, the six flights up," And he goes on and on talking. Anyways, Barton's room was not only on the sixth floor but also accompnied by four walls that were perpetually oozing (and indubitably horrible on the olfactory nerves). To me, this was a key compnent in intertwining Fink's 'inner-struggle' with his work.

Well on the topic of Fink's 'inner struggle', I think Fink's whole idea behind the glorification of the common man was simply an idea. Fink has the abstraction embedded in his mind that he is able to empathize with the common man. The catch here is, that to have empathy for the common man, you need to understand the common man. Barton has put himself up so far on a pedestal that it's nearly impossible for him to percieve the plight of the common man. When he gets to his room in Hollywood (where he honorably tried to get a room where he could immerse himself in the common man's world). Behind his four walls though, Fink is barely able to do anything. His contact with the common man (as well as most of the world) is simply cut off. The only one who really frequents his room is good old Charlie Meadows. But ironically even when Charlie is over and offers to tell some of his (Charlie being one of the common men that he's trying to understand) stories, Fink dives off on random tangents and in effect furthers the barrier that prevents him from understanding the straits of the common man.

What's in the box? Well, frankly the only thing I can say about what is in the box is that it will forever be open to interpretation. The contents of the box are not the main point of the movie, hence we weren't told the contents of the box. The idea behind it is great, because it leaves it up to the film viewer to put something in that box. Other than the one time that we heard something thump inside the box, there's really nothing that gives anything away. It's rather an abstract idea that goes to say (in my opinion), that inspiration can come from places or things that we don't have the slightest idea about. Fink knew there was something in that box, but never felt the need to open it. He really came through with the whole, 'ignorance is bliss' philosophy. If he would have opened it I think that it might have fallen short of his expectations and in all reality provide him with nothing. His ability to not open the box merely on impule really showed his maturing through the movie. To Barton, the box was his inspiration. It was not the contents of the aforementioned box, but the absract idea of the box.

Another interesting topic in this movie, and perhaps the one that we were supposed to concentrate on most was Barton's assiduous case of writer's block. Fink's specific case of writer's block is a primary focus of the movie, and throughout the movie we see as a twisted series of distractions causes Fink to spiral into a more complex psychological inability to write. Of course, who would be able to do anything given the odd events that seem to follow poor Barton around?

When we finally see Fink open up and start to write, it's only due to the fact that Charlie has 'taken care of' Barton's messy little problem. Fink goes on to blaze through the Wallace Beery wrestling picture saying it's, "Not big in the sense of large - although it's that too. I mean important. This may be the most IMPORTANT work I've done." Sadly however, Fink was merely befuddled and did not realize that this piece of work was garbage. Not only did he write a completely irrelevant picture, but it was eerily similar to the script he had penned at the beginning of the movie (note how both pictures contain the phrase, "We'll hear from that kid. And I don't mean a postcard." as while as the formulated structure of the fishmongers and complex inner struggle).

Overall, it seemed that Fink simply lost his head. Fittingly appropriate, throughout the film there were twenty-six references to cranial spaces. Almost all the characters made some overt reference to the noggin somewhere in the film. Lou comically delivered the line to Fink, "Right now the contents of your head are the property of Capitol Pictures, so if I were you I would speak up." We also had Charlie sporadically skip town because he states, "Things have gotten all balled up at the Head Office." And still, there is the liquored up Mayhew, "It's when I can't write, can't escape m'self, that I want to tear m'head off and run screamin' down the street with m'balls in a fruitpickers pail."

Every character makes at least a little bit of sense in a movie that begs the viewer to try and walk away with more than what was there. The reason we seem to find so many complexities is in my opinion because we all have things 'balled up at the Head office', and in watching the movie, it helps to bring to light the circuitous puling gray matter that is our brain. It may not help us figure it out, but it damn well brings up a lot of topics that spur an infinite realm of questions we may ask ourselves. After all, every writer is a little bit of Barton Fink.