He has got a couple of minders to keep him on track (Tony Shalhoub and Jon Polito) and a studio benefactor, powerful producer Jack Lipnik (Michael Lerner), who is all-accommodating and full of praise and bear hugs until he can’t meet his new boss’s high but vague demands. Barton goes to Hollywood to turn his acclaim on the stage into success in the cinema. Barton trades his dream of creating “a real living theatre, of and about, and for the common man” for the promise of success in the movies. Most were looking for the stability a steady flow of cash would bring more than artistic liberation. “A writer writes from his gut – his gut tells him what’s good and what’s merely adequate”.Ī lot of playwrights were lured to Hollywood in the 1930s and 40s, including Clifford Odets (Barton’s reported real-world basis who wrote films such as Sweet Smell of Success) in the heyday of the studio film. Turturro as Barton is a classic film portrayal of a writer character inspired but coiled and awkward in any setting where he is forced to converse with more than one other person. Following a rapturous critical reception for his play, Barton is the toast of New York and is invited to Hollywood to bring a little of his magic to the silver screen, taking up residence in a dilapidated hotel and steadily losing his grip on reality in the process. The film opens with an image of uninspiring, brown, Art Deco patterned wallpaper, then the camera travels downwards to the bustle and tangled pulleys of the backstage area at a theatre, playwright Barton Fink (John Turturro) watching the performance nervously from the wings. Most critics loved it, but many audience members were left bemused. The screenplay might have been knocked out in three weeks, but it ended up being one of the Coen Brothers’ trickiest and most layered of narratives, going on to win them the Palme d’Or and Best Director at Cannes, and gain three Academy Award nominations. Starring: John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, Michael Lerner, John Mahoney, Tony Shalhoub, Jon Polito, Steve Buscemi, Richard Portnow, Christopher Murneyīarton Fink was Joel and Ethan Coens’ fourth film, written at a breakneck pace while they were still struggling with Miller’s Crossing and released only a year later.
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