Barton Fink is a great-looking, if somewhat uncanny, period piece as well as a suspenseful, incongruous, and sometimes hilarious character study. Its genre-blending and psychoanalytical aspects make it a bit hard to talk about in short form so forgive me if this is a bit perfunctory.
I saw this film for the first time at a Champo screening in Paris where, as 1991’s Palme d’Or winner, it is loved to death. It was a restoration and looked simply beautiful, which made the art direction really pop. Its deliberate use of color, costume, and decoration really work together to give us an externalization of the title character’s inner neuroses. But even better is the distinct American-ness of these neuroses; the key relationship, between Turturro and Goodman’s characters, is at least in part representative of the ideological conflicts between coastal narcissism – the urban culture-obsessed archetype – and the capitalist heartland-born “common man” (in Fink’s own words). As a side note, I think that this is precisely why the film went over so well at Cannes.
In the clip above, note the picture above Fink’s desk, which is a great detail that is revisited later on. Also pay attention to how light and sound are used to evoke anxiety and establish the atmosphere of the hotel, which is really one of the film’s strongest aspects.
-Chance
American Cinema: 1960-Present 