![]() Well, we all know what happens to scribes in Hollywood, and though the Coens, in a predictable burst of disinformation, have insisted that making a picture about screenwriters could not have been further from their minds, on one level “Barton Fink” is an enormously amusing crackpot take on the underside of the Hollywood dream. Serious replies, the model of injured dignity, he wants to stay in New York and “create a new theater for the common man.” But, after his agent soothingly assures him that “the common man will still be here when you get back,” Barton reluctantly goes West. It’s a huge success, and Barton’s agent tells him he has an offer of a fat contract from Capital Pictures. The year is 1941 and the Barton of the title is glimpsed backstage at the Broadway premiere of his new play, “Bare Ruined Choirs,” a stirring drama of the working class. ![]() When “Barton Fink” begins, it does not seem like it’s going to be this perplexing. That experience is often invigorating, and the Coens’ skill is such that you’re not averse to following them anywhere, but every once in a while you can’t help wishing they weren’t so dead-set against throwing the rest of us at least a hint of what’s on their minds. Their films, and “Barton Fink” is no exception, are long, strange trips to places so indescribable you have no idea where you’re going even after you’ve been there. In “Barton Fink,” that means not only gifted actors like John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis and Michael Lerner, but also exceptional below-the-line personnel like cinematographer Roger Deakins, who shot both “Stormy Monday” and “Mountains of the Moon,” and production designer Dennis Gassner, who masterminded the look of everything from “Field of Dreams” to “The Grifters.” And the Coens never fail to infuse the whole with a sheer tactile pleasure in the hands-on mechanics of filmmaking that gives their films the welcome sheen of superior craft.īut-and with the Coen brothers there is always a but-the fact remains that their world is the most hermetically sealed imaginable. Their scripts are invariably clever and bemused, with a wised-up quality all their own and, like the old Hallmark boast, they care enough to hire the very best to bring them to life. The results of this curious methodology can be exhilarating, or frustrating, or, as in the current “Barton Fink” (at the Park Theatre), exhilarating and frustrating at the same time.īoth the exhilaration and frustration stem from the fact that the Coens, as their three previous films (“Blood Simple,” “Raising Arizona” and “Miller’s Crossing”) demonstrate, are filmmakers of considerable ability. Far from it it’s simply beside the point as far as they’re concerned. It’s not that they mind if other people get their jokes. More than any other filmmakers, co-writers Joel (who also directs) and Ethan (who also produces) Coen make movies to please themselves. If the Coen Brothers cracked a joke in an empty forest, would anyone laugh? More to the point, would the Coen Brothers care?
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