A Day or a Lifetime - Some notes on context

I realise that I’ve said very little so far about the historical context of Barton Fink.  It would probably be a mistake to get too far into this series without addressing the matter, as many identify a political subtext to the film which I suspect I’m going to end up referencing sooner or later.  Roger Ebert, for example, saw the film, or at least specific aspects of it, including Charlie’s relationship with Barton, as an allegory for the rise of Nazism:

"[The Coens] paint Fink as an ineffectual and impotent left-wing intellectual, who sells out while telling himself he is doing the right thing, who thinks he understands the “common man” but does not understand that, for many common men, fascism had a seductive appeal. Fink tries to write a wrestling picture and sleeps with the great writer’s mistress, while the Holocaust approaches and the nice guy in the next room turns out to be a monster."

You can read Ebert's full review of the film here.

Barton Fink is set in 1941, the year in which the US entered World War II.  The impending threat of war goes unreferenced for much of the film – for a while, the only hint we get of what’s going on in the wider world outside of Hollywood is via the date 9^th December 1941 on the clapperboard in the wrestling picture dailies that Geisler orders Barton to watch.  This indicates that the latter half of the film takes place during the immediate aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor of 7^th December 1941.  Later, while out celebrating the completion of his screenplay at a USO hall, Barton runs afoul of a group of sailors who state that they are shipping out tomorrow.  Finally, when Barton meets with Lipnick at the end of the film, the latter is dressed, somewhat absurdly, in a military uniform assembled from the Capitol Pictures wardrobe department (an allusion to the real-life activities of Jack L. Warner – see below), ranting about how much he’d like to take on the “little yellow bastards.”  Lipnick ultimately dismisses Barton by telling him “there’s a war on.”

The film’s only direct reference to Nazism comes from Charlie, who says “Heil Hitler” at one point, although given the context the significance of this is unclear.  There is nothing else to suggest that Charlie’s actions are motivated by any kind of political agenda, although the implication that he might have murdered Barton’s family while in New York (perhaps the most chilling moment in the entire film) arguably carries overtones of the Holocaust.  Personally, I think that it would be flat-out wrong to interpret Charlie’s “Heil Hitler” as a sign that he is a Nazi sympathiser, or to assume that his treatment of Barton’s family is rooted in anti-Semitism, although the insidious nature of Charlie’s character arc does act as a reminder that charisma can be used as a front to disguise a variety of evils, and that the affable everyman has the potential in them to commit great atrocities.

If any characters in Barton Fink are suggestive of a Nazi allegory, it’s the two detectives on Charlie’s trail, Mastrionatti (Richard Portnow) and Deutsch (Christopher Murney).  Their names, Italian and German respectively, are a nod to the Axis Powers, which, coupled with the anti-Semitic and homophobic views they express in their encounters with Barton, is evocative of the rising threat of Nazism.  Significantly, it is Deutsch to whom Charlie addresses his “Heil Hitler” remark, while pointing a shotgun at his head, implying that Charlie is redirecting his ideologies back at him in a final taunt.

In addition to the WWII backdrop, Barton Fink contains multiple allusions to real-life figures who worked in Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s.  While the Coens have denied that any of the characters in Barton Fink are intended to be representative of real people, a number were used as starting points in devising their backgrounds and characterisation.  For example, Barton himself is loosely based on the left-wing New York playwright Clifford Odets, who wrote the Broadway plays Awake and Sing! and Waiting For Lefty in the 1930s, and went on to a career as a Hollywood screenwriter (albeit more successfully than Barton).  W.P. Mayhew, meanwhile, was inspired by the southern novelist William Faulkner, who worked as a Hollywood screenwriter throughout the 1930s and 1940s and had a tendency toward binge drinking – John Mahoney even bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Faulkner, which led to his casting.  Also noteworthy is that Faulkner, like Barton, got his start in Hollywood working on a Wallace Beery film about wrestling, Flesh (John Ford, 1932), although the "wrestling picture" was never a popular Hollywood genre in the manner that Barton Fink suggests.  Finally, Jack Lipnick takes inspiration from a number of different Hollywood producers of the period, including Louis B. Mayer of MGM (whom he most strongly resembles, and who originally hailed from Minsk, Belarus, like Lipnick), Jack L. Warner of Warner Brothers (who famously referred to screenwriters as "schmucks with Underwoods"), and Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures (whom Michael Lerner had previously portrayed in the 1983 TV film Rita Hayworth: The Love Goddess).

A Day or a Lifetime – Peeling Wallpaper #1 (and Mosquito Encounter #2)

As with the soft whines of the mosquito, the Coens’ ability to milk honest-to-god fear from something banal as wallpaper peeling is one of one of the things that I relish and admire most about Barton Fink.  For my money, this beats The Shining and its iconic imagery of blood gushing from a hotel elevator hands down.

Wallpaper is a fairly prominent motif in Barton Fink - the film is book-ended by images of the Earle’s wallpaper, which form the backdrop to both the opening titles and the end credits.  An obvious interpretation, and one that I’ve never seen much reason to argue with, is that it symbolises inner tensions and demons being covered up and kept below the surface.  Even the cheap and unattractive wallpaper of the Earle is a preferable sight to the sheer horrors that lurk beneath it.  Unfortunately for Barton, this façade is destined to come crashing down sooner or later, and the perpetually-peeling wallpaper becomes one of his greatest nemeses for the first half of the film.

Barton’s futile struggle with the wallpaper in his room originates after his first meeting with Charlie.  Despite his initial indifference towards Charlie, Barton admits that he is “alright” (he gave Barton the opportunity to behave self-importantly for the first time since coming to Hollywood, after all, so he’s not without his uses) and is glad that he stopped by.  His satisfaction is cut short, however, by the sounds of a strip of wallpaper peeling at one of the corners from above his bed.  As Barton attempts to reaffix the paper, he discovers that the walls are dripping with an unpleasant sticky substance.

As noted, dripping in Barton Fink is indicative of malaise and exposed ugliness, and it’s one of Charlie’s defining characteristics.  At this stage in the film, a first-time viewer, however attentive they may be, is unlikely to connect the substance on the walls to the moisture seen dripping from Charlie’s face, but the connection is reinforced in subsequent encounters, where Charlie discusses his chronic ear infection and his need to staunch the flow of pus with cotton.  Like Charlie, the Earle subsists in a state of perpetual sickness, and its feverishness makes it highly volatile.

Charlie seems to exude heat, or at the very least it follows him, so we might assume that it was his presence in the room which caused the adhesive to melt and the paper to peel.  It’s surely no coincidence that he was sitting on the bed, directly beneath it, during his conversation with Barton.  What’s particularly curious, however, is the suggestion that the picture of the sun-bathing woman may even have had something to do with this.  After Charlie has left the room, Barton’s gaze falls dreamily upon the picture, and it is at this point that the wallpaper begins to peel.  As Barton turns away from his desk and goes to investigate, the camera shifts its focus, intently, to the picture.  It’s as if the Earle has reacted with jealousy to Barton’s fantasies about a world outside of its own walls, by dragging him back into his immediate surroundings (personally, I subscribe strongly to the interpretation that Charlie is in love with Barton, and that there is indeed a homoerotic subtext to their relationship – more on that later).

Barton’s world, fragment by fragment, is falling apart.  To top it all off, we hear the whines of that troublesome mosquito from above him, reminding him that things are only going to continue spiralling out of his control.

A Day or a Lifetime – Charlie Calls #1

Charlie: Well, Barton, you might say I sell peace of mind. Insurance is my game.  Door to door, human contact, still the only way to move merchandise.  In spite of what you might think from tonight, I'm pretty good at it.

Barton: Doesn't surprise me at all.

Charlie: Hell yes, because I believe in it.  Fire, theft and casualty are not things that only happen to other people - that's what I tell 'em.  If writing doesn't work out, you might want to look into it.  Providing for a basic human need - a fella could do worse.

Prior to the dramatic reveal that turns his Hollywood experience into an all-out nightmare, Barton is visited three times by Charlie, his fellow tenant at the Earle, and the only one whom Barton or the audience ever actually sees.  The relationship between the two men becomes the emotional crux of the film – Charlie has an odd, imposing presence, but he brings in an air of geniality which is largely absent from Barton’s interactions elsewhere in Hollywood, while communicating a sense of isolation that makes his need to keep on returning to Barton’s room seem understandable.  Over the course of the three meetings, we see Barton progress from being standoffish toward Charlie to actually starting to exhibit a degree of dependence upon him – of course, by then the intense isolation he’s experienced at the Earle and in Hollywood as a whole has been getting to him too.  Even on subsequent viewings, when the viewer is aware that there is much more to Charlie than meets the eye, it is still every bit as fascinating, if not more so, to watch the bond between these characters as it develops.

Their initial meeting comes about when Barton, in the preliminary stages of writing his screenplay, becomes preoccupied with the noises coming from the room next door (Room 623) and telephones Chet at the front desk to complain about the disturbance.  At first, we might assume that these noises are laughter, but as the scene goes on it becomes increasingly unclear whether they are really the sounds of elation or of suffering.  Thanks to the tissue-thin walls of the Earle, Charlie’s reaction to Chet’s subsequent call to his room is audible, and he immediately heads over to have it out with Barton.  It is an uncomfortable moment, emphasised by the reliance primarily on external sound to signal the threat closing in on Barton, and by the accompanying shots from Barton's perspective, making the viewer feel as if they too have nowhere to run.

Charlie seems ready for a confrontation, but Barton sheepishly tries to explain that he called the front desk not to complain, but out of concern for Charlie – as he does so, we see a trickle of sweat (or is it a tear?) run down Charlie’s cheek, an indication that there are tensions bubbling underneath.  Barton states that he is trying to work and that the noise had been making it difficult.  This is followed by a long, awkward pause, during which Charlie glares at Barton quizzically – then, we see a change in Charlie’s demeanour as he appears to let things slide and suddenly becomes apologetic and jovial.  Charlie offers to make things up to Barton by sharing a bottle of whiskey (he does so in the manner of a standard pick-up line, the first hint that Charlie may be seeking more than just conversation), but Barton wants nothing to do with him, to the extent that he pointedly refuses to return the gesture when Charlie cordially extends out his hand.  Nonetheless, Charlie is intent upon coming in and becoming acquainted with Barton.

Barton is initially indifferent toward Charlie’s attempts to strike up conversation, although he becomes more amenable when it opens up the opportunity to talk about his work as a writer and how he envisions himself.  He becomes very animated and impassioned at this point, in fact.  It’s here that a recurring feature of his interactions with Charlie is established – Barton talks with great vigour about how much he wants to represent the dreams and aspirations of the common man in his work, yet whenever Charlie offers to tell him some stories of his own, Barton immediately cuts him off.  Barton’s hypocrisy in this scene is hardly subtle – he criticises writers who purposely attempt to keep the common man at bay, yet his interest in Charlie does not extend beyond his capacity to act as an audience to his own ego.  A few minutes ago Barton was not even willing to shake hands with the so-called common man for whom he so desperately wants to speak.

Charlie, for his part, is evidently not the unwitting simpleton that Barton has pegged him for, although he is quite happy to humour him in this regard.  There are points in their conversation where he appears to be toying with Barton – his impulsive laughter upon learning that Barton is working as a screenwriter for a Hollywood studio comes off as derisive, despite his insistence that he is merely embarrassed at having underestimated Barton.  He regards Barton’s condescension with obvious amusement, at times even willingly playing up to it (for example, when he states that Barton has caught him “trying to be fancy”, allowing Barton a smile of smug satisfaction).  Nevertheless, his irritation at twice being cut off by Barton when he attempts to weigh in with his own perspective is unmistakable.  As Barton goes into his spiel about a theatre for the common man, Charlie appears to be genuinely invested in what he is saying, although it is unclear exactly what is being stirred in him – his trembling movements and heavy breathing suggest that he is pained, possibly even aroused by Barton’s words.  The tensions from earlier continue to fester – when Barton refers to him as an “average working stiff”, another trickle of moisture can be seen dripping from Charlie’s nose.  As will later become apparent, dripping in Barton Fink is synonymous with sickness, desperation and all manner of exposed unpleasantness.

Barton is at his most condescending when he tells Charlie that, “to put it in your language, the theatre becomes as phoney as a three dollar bill.”  On top of everything else, it’s a phrase that Charlie (whenever he was able to get a word in edgeways) had never used, nor does he in any of their subsequent interactions.  When Charlie gives his response - “Well, I guess that’s a tragedy right there” - Barton fails to detect the sarcasm, much as he fails to grasp the implicit criticism in Charlie’s parting statement that, “Too much revelry late at night, you forget there’s other people in the world.”

What little information Charlie is able to divulge about himself is that he works as a door-to-door insurance salesman – crucially, he tells Barton that he “sells peace of mind”.  From the start, Charlie’s dialogue betrays a fixation with heads which will play into later revelations about his character, but it also points toward Barton’s own preoccupations with the life of the mind, and the idea that it is his unique responsibility, as a writer, to traverse this torturous, unmapped territory.  In a subsequent meeting, Barton will tell Charlie that he envies him for being able to live according to a daily routine that entails very little thought or pain.  It’s yet another condescending view of Charlie that’s derived from mere assumption, but if Barton had been more attentive to Charlie’s words then he might have picked up that his daily routine is very much attuned to the chaos of the world, and to the fire, theft and casualties that do not only happen to other people (on repeat viewings it’s hard to miss the implicit threat in Charlie’s sale pitch).  Charlie also spews the words “hell” and “damn” a lot – initially, this might be taken as a sign of a lively, unsophisticated personality that stands in refreshing contrast to Barton’s, but, coupled with Charlie’s persistent dripping, it later becomes suggestive of the dangerous levels of torment lurking within.

Charlie leaves Barton for the evening, at which point the latter has his first encounter with the peeling wallpaper of the Earle (coupled with his second mosquito encounter).  It’s such a wonderful and critical moment in the film, in fact, that it deserves to be set aside for its very own entry.

Farthing Wood Deaths Revisted: Series 1 - The Hedgehogs

We’ve reached the final deaths of the original series, and they saved the most heart-breaking for last.

Back in 1993, I was keen to archive every episode of Farthing Wood, and had a special VHS set aside for just that purpose (a good move, as the official VHS releases, when they came, were not much cop, shaving off bits and pieces from each episode in an effort to keep the overall running time down to 80 minutes or so).  Every week, we set our VHS recorder, and I would usually dedicate a portion of my weekend to watching and re-watching the latest episode, fully digesting it, while also having the option to revisit any previous moments from the Farthing Wood saga that took my fancy.  This episode was the anomaly -  it caused me so much upset that, not only did I watch it just once, but my mother insisted that I tape over my recording of it the following week.  This was not merely a preventive measure to ensure that I was never tempted to revisit it, but also a gesture geared toward somehow erasing the episode, and all the distress that had accompanied it, from the continuity of the show.  I happily complied, as I couldn't envision ever wanting to go back and watch this one again, completism be damned.  Doing so spared me the burden of having to hit the fast forward button every time I wanted to progress from episode 9 to 11 (although I did still have to skip through the recap sequence if I wanted to be completely clean of it), but it never really shook those final Hedgehog-related images from my head.  Their absence from subsequent episodes was in itself a sad reminder of what had come before.  It had happened, and there was no getting around that.

Unlike most of the animals who died en route to White Deer Park, the Hedgehogs were not what you would call useless.  They weren’t useful – like the Squirrels, there was very little they could do to benefit the party as a whole along the way (though they did help to rescue the rabbits during the river crossing episode, so there is that), but they were nonetheless capable and competent, and were able to get as far as they did without causing any trouble.  Unfortunately, the gargantuan task of having to cross a busy motorway caught them directly by their Achilles’ heel, and here’s where it ended for them.

Learning that they will have to cross a motorway in order to reach White Deer Park comes as a massive shock to the animals, as even their guide Toad had no idea what lay ahead.  It transpires that the motorway was still under construction when Toad initially crossed it, but now that it’s up and running and abuzz with traffic, getting across won’t be half as easy.  Fortunately for the Farthing Wood crew, traffic on one side of the motorway has come to a complete stand-still, so making it to the centre proves straightforward enough.  No such luck on the remaining side, however – all the animals can do is wait for a wide enough gap in the traffic and make a bolt for it.  As we all know, a hedgehog’s natural defence when faced with danger is not to flee, but to curl up into a tight, spiny ball, a tactic which works well against predators but is sadly of little use against cars.  The Hedgehogs themselves are painfully aware of this, but quelling their instincts in the face of imminent danger is another matter.  Badger purposely insists that the Hedgehogs, along with the Rabbits (fast but incompetent), wait until an especially wide gap has materialised, at which point he orders them to run.  In a particularly poignant exchange, the Hedgehogs express doubts as to whether they actually are capable of making it to the other side, but ultimately decide that White Deer Park is worth trying for.

Badger and the Rabbits make it across with little difficulty, but the Hedgehogs struggle to fight their natural urges to stop and curl up.  When a huge lorry starts tearing down upon them, this finally proves too much for Mr. Hedgehog, who becomes paralysed with fear.  Mrs. Hedgehog pleads with him to keep going, but to no avail.  Faced with the option of abandoning her mate and continuing without him, or remaining by his side and sharing in his imminent death beneath the wheels of the lorry, Mrs. Hedgehog chooses the latter.

HORROR FACTOR: 10. This is a real shocker, as we actually do see the wheels of the lorry roll right over them onscreen.  Naturally, the show doesn’t go as far as to show us their crushed and mangled bodies in the aftermath (although Adder does later insinuate that she can see them), but what we do see is still pretty horrifying.

NOBILITY FACTOR: 9. In the end, Mr. Hedgehog was a victim of his own instincts, pure and simple.  Mrs. Hedgehog, on the other hand, died one of the most courageous and honourable deaths in the entire series.  It does irk me a little later in the episode, when Owl informs Adder that, “Those cowering hedgehogs curled up and died.”  Nothing cowering about the way Mrs. Hedgehog died, thank you very much.  Not to mention, the mere act of trying took a considerable amount of guts on both their parts.

TEAR-JERKER FACTOR: 10. If this particular Farthing Wood death doesn’t move you tears, then none of them will.

OVERALL RATING: 29

The GOOD news is that everyone who makes it across the motorway goes on to make it to White Deer Park (Badger even spoils this fact in his opening narration to the subsequent episode when he states that “For the survivors the final hurdle had been overcome, and now nothing could prevent us from reaching White Deer Park”, so we could all rest easy).  There were further run-ins with pesticides, wedding attendees and golfers, but thankfully none of these proved fatal.

Problem is, White Deer Park is far from the all-out haven that the animals were hoping for, offering safety from the specific type of human encroachment that reduced Farthing Wood to tatters, but also a fresh set of perils in the form of hostile locals, limited food resources during a particularly harsh winter, and the odd human who assumes that they can pick off one or two creatures without the authorities ever knowing.  So, yes, for those animals formerly of Farthing Wood, the challenge was far from over, and I'll still have a lot to talk about for Series 2.

A Day or a Lifetime – Mosquito Encounter #1

Even before he is introduced to Charlie, Barton is never really alone in Room 621.  The room is also home to a mosquito who becomes active each night, disturbing Barton’s sleeping with her persistent humming and her tendency toward stealthily nibbling away at his face (since it feeds on blood then it’s safe to assume that this mosquito is a female, correct?).

Like the peeling wallpaper, the mosquito is a relatively mild, everyday type of intrusion that nevertheless comes to feel quite threatening.  On Barton’s first night at the Earle, the mosquito is introduced via an overhead shot that encircles him as he lies upon his bed, gazing helplessly above as if aware that he is being watched by forces beyond his comprehension.  For now the mosquito itself goes unseen, but its presence is indicated by an intrusive whining, just soft enough so that the cut to the next scene, in which Barton is stepping into Lipnick’s office to be greeted by his overly-enthusiastic hollering, comes as something of a sensory shock to the viewer.

Some see the tiny ectoparasite as a representation of the forces that have been draining Barton of his creative energies, possibly Hollywood itself.  To others, it’s just an elaborate set-up to one of the film’s more shocking reveals, which occurs after Barton and Audrey spend the night together.  Myself, I’m in two minds about the symbolism of the mosquito.  I’m mostly inclined to view it as yet another manifestation of Charlie/the Earle - its nocturnal predatory habits might foreshadow some of Charlie’s own sinister activities, but predominantly the mosquito’s menace arises from its invasion of Barton’s privacy and the sense that his every movement within the hotel is being pinpointed.  This is made all the more prominent by the mosquito’s initial lack of physical form – prior to their final encounter, the mosquito is represented only by camera movements and a disembodied whining.  Ben Geisler’s insistence upon the lack of mosquitos in Los Angeles prompts me to believe that we are intended to see the presence of this one as something quite spooky and otherworldly.

Given, as noted, the presumable femininity of the mosquito, my alternative reading leads toward it being a kind of counterpart to the beach-bathing beauty in the picture.  We know that the sexually-starved Barton is haunted by visions of femininity and that his perceived containment of it becomes a fresh source of creative energy in the latter stages of the film.  For the first half of the film, Barton is tormented by dual feminine presences that remain constantly outside of his grasp – one of which transfixes and tantalises him with a false window into a world beyond the Earle, the other of which emphasises his loss of control through its relentless disturbance, eroding his stamina while resisting all attempts to be located and disposed of.

If nothing else, the mosquito is useful as something with which to fill in the empty spaces – in an environment as eerily silent and alienating as the Earle, the soft whines of a tiny mosquito might very quickly be perceived as deafeningly intolerable.

A Day or a Lifetime – You can forget about that on account you’re a rez

The first character whom Barton encounters upon arriving at the Hotel Earle is Chet (Steve Buscemi), one of only two employees we ever see working at the hotel, the other being Pete the elevator attendant.  I’ll be sure to talk more about Chet in a subsequent entry, because he’s a pretty fun character, but for now I’m just going to note the information he gives Barton upon establishing that he’ll be at the Earle indefinitely – namely, “Checkout time is twelve sharp, only you can forget about that on account you’re a rez (resident).”  It’s curious enough that Chet would bother to impart that information only to immediately tell Barton to disregard it.  What’s really startling is the implicit suggestion that Barton should not expect to ever have to concern himself with checking out at all.  Upon arrival, the resident is instructed to surrender all hope of ever departing.

Having set up his typewriter upon his desk at the Earle, the first thing that Barton notices (before his gaze wanders to the image of the sun-bathing woman) is the hotel stationary – a small stack of letters and envelopes bearing the slogan “A Day or a Lifetime.”  This slogan is a reiteration of Chet’s statements about the Earle offering services to both the transient and the resident, and the threat of entrapment is once again implicit.  There is a pencil, but its point is broken, and when Barton moves it the markings underneath indicate that it has been lying there dormant for quite some time.  Has the room itself been vacant for as long?  This seems entirely plausible - the Earle as a whole is so eerily quiet and lifeless that it raises the question as to whether anybody besides Barton, Charlie and a couple of love birds (heard but not seen) is staying there at all.  Or maybe the sense of alienation is so overwhelming that few tenants ever feel the urge to make a connection with the outside world - the broken pencil calls to mind that old gag about there being “no point”, after all.

An obvious symbol of stifled creativity, it signals Barton’s oncoming onslaught of writer’s block, but also the sense of despair and isolation that pervades the Earle, severed from means of self-expression and communication.  W.P. Mayhew will later argue that the ability to write represents a means of escaping from oneself, something which the Earle is clearly stunted on.

The broken pencil is not, in itself, an obstacle to Barton, who has come equipped with his own typewriter.  But the threat of entrapment within the life of his own mind is potent nonetheless.

A Day or a Lifetime - Welcome to the Hotel Earle

Note: for the purposes of this commentary (and all subsequent entries in this particular series) I’m going to assume that the reader is already familiar with the Coen brothers’ Barton Fink.  This spares me from having to write out any particularly detailed synopsis, or having to provide much expository detail upon whom each of the characters are.  I’ll also be divulging spoilers frequently and without warning – beginning from the very first paragraph, in fact, so if you haven’t seen the film and wish for the various plot twists and intricacies to remain unspoiled, then you are advised not to read any further.

After watching Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1991 offering Barton Fink, viewers tend to come away with two lingering questions, both of which are explicitly posed through character dialogue in the film’s final sequence – namely, “What’s in the box?” and, all the more pressingly, “Are you in pictures?”  What are the contents of the mysterious box that Barton (John Turturro) retains, albeit with some uncertainty, as the credits start to roll (actually, we do get a pretty good inkling about the literal contents of the box, but the significance of this will always be open to question) and what, precisely, is the deal with the woman (Isabelle Townsend) whom he encounters on the beach in the closing moments?  Is she the same woman depicted in the kitschy picture that has been hanging above his workspace at the Hotel Earle, momentarily mesmerising Barton during his tortuous slog as a Hollywood screenwriter and, if so, what are we expected to take from that?  By ending the film with an obvious call-back to this recurring image, the Coens appear to be hinting that the picture holds the key to solving the entire mystery, although it’s just one of many curious and unsettling little details scattered throughout.

Myself, I don’t think that I really started to consider the contents of the box (or, more accurately, the significance of those contents) or the woman who may or may not be in pictures until around my second or third viewing.  Both registered, but neither immediately struck me as being the strangest or most troubling aspect of the film overall.  No, the question most prevalent on my mind after my initial viewing had to do with John Goodman’s character, Charlie Meadows (or should that be Karl Mundt?) - namely “just what was going on with that man and was I supposed to see that late character revelation coming?”  After all, when Charlie chastises Barton at the film’s climax, it’s with the heated accusation that he does not listen.  It’s a mistake that has cost Barton dearly, with the implication that Charlie has not only brought him his fair share of hell within Hollywood, but may even have snuffed out the life that Barton had left behind in New York.  Were there clues for the truly attentive viewer all along?  On my second viewing I was sure to pay particularly close attention to Charlie’s dialogue – I noted that he did betray a disturbing (with hindsight) fixation with heads in his speech patterns, and that he certainly cracked a knowing smile while Barton was supposing that one is inevitably stuck with the head they have, but there was nothing more obvious than that which appeared to hint toward his secret activities.  The odd and disturbing nature of Charlie’s character arc continued to trouble me, and I found myself going back to the film time and time again, ever eager to uncover further pieces of the puzzle.  After a time, I resigned myself to the likelihood that this puzzle likely had no definitive solution (if it does, then it’s known only to the Coens), but it didn’t quell my fascination with the film, nor my appetite for sniffing out and pondering its most minute details.

I realised that the real allure of the film, to me, lay in the film’s principal setting, the Hotel Earle, the grotesqueness of which I thought was wonderfully constructed.  Thematic parallels are frequently drawn between Barton Fink and The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980), both of which explore the effects of writer’s block upon a would-be author who has willingly isolated himself within the walls of a hotel that appears to have intentions all of its own, none of them savoury.  Unlike The Shining, however, Barton Fink does not establish this through overt spookhouse horrors, but through more mundane forms of everyday discomfort that could make any excursion or business trip take on a nightmarish quality.  The severity of Barton’s situation escalates once he convinces Audrey Taylor (Judy Davis) to spend the night there with him, but for the first half of the film it’s an assortment of tiny irritations that add up to make his experience at the Earle an overwhelmingly uncomfortable one.  These include the sweltering heat, the nightly whines of a mosquito that, according to producer Ben Geisler (Tony Shalhoub), should not be present in Los Angeles at all, the peeling wallpaper, and the occasional overheard noises from elsewhere in the hotel (some of which comes from Charlie, but there’s apparently also a couple making love at one point).  The picture of the bikini-clad sunbather gazing out to sea offers Barton a sparse form of escapism in all of this – prior to Audrey’s arrival, it’s just about the only aspect of his accommodation that’s in any way pleasing to the senses, as low-grade a decorative item as it might be.

More than just a setting, the Earle functions as one of the film’s dominant characters.  It has a presence which extends beyond merely providing a cheap-rate room for the tranz or the rez.  It lives, it breathes, it perspires (or oozes some form of secretion from its walls, which accounts for the inability of the wallpaper to remain in place).  There is a decidedly sinister aura to how it operates as a hotel, offering entrapment dimly disguised as comfort (the hotel’s slogan, as printed on the stationary that Barton finds in his room, is “A Day or a Lifetime”).  One of the supposed perks of staying at the Earle, the complimentary shoe shine, seems absurd when you take into account that none of the pairs of shoes we see lined up outside the doors apparently get any usage – aside from Charlie and the love-making couple, there is precious little evidence that the Earle is anywhere near as populated as those pairs of shoes seem to want to let on.  If there are guests at all in those rooms, then they do not appear to ever leave, rendering shoes, shiny shoes at that, something of a pointless commodity.  Most uncannily of all, the Earle appears to channel its energy through Charlie, to the extent that the two become indistinguishable as characters.  They seem similarly diseased – the Earle with its sickly dripping walls, and Charlie with his chronic ear infection that causes him to ooze unpleasant secretions of his own.  They also share a common fury - when, at the end of the film, Charlie reveals his hidden depths, the Earle obligingly goes up in flames in order to underscore his unleashed rage.  What truly sets the Earle apart from the Overlook, aside from its ostensible mundaneness, is the real sense of vulnerability that exists alongside the destructiveness.  The Earle may be a dangerous beast, but it’s also a sick and intensely pained one.

Having watched Barton Fink a number of times, I became eager to see what other people had taken away from it.  The very first analysis of the film that I read came from the "Pocket Essential Guide" to the Coens by Ellen Cheshire and John Ashbrook.  I no longer have a copy of this book to hand, but I recall their reading being fairly confident that the Hotel Earle was a representation of Hell.  There are certainly allusions that point toward Barton’s experience being something of a hellish one - the intense heat inside the Earle manifests as an actual fire toward the end of the film, Charlie appears to relish the words “hell” and “damn” as much as he does the word “head” (he loves a good "Jesus" too), and Barton and Pete the elevator attendant (Harry Bugin) can quite plainly be heard uttering three sixes between them at one stage.  In addition, the film’s promotional tagline was “Between Heaven and Hell there’s always Hollywood.”  Nonetheless, I never really interpreted Barton as having wandered into any kind of literal hell – such a reading always struck me as a bit facile, not to mention incidental to the wider story about Barton’s efforts to make it as a screenwriter in Hollywood.  Barton supposedly remains at the Earle because he sees it as contrary to kind of Hollywood glamour that he is looking to avoid during his stay there (not that he would get himself invited to any venue in Hollywood with even the slightest hint of glamour anyway), so are we to assume that he was simply unlucky enough to have ended up in a literal Hell that just so happens to exist inside Hollywood?  What are we to make of the external trouble and chaos that seems to pervade the non-Earle areas of Hollywood that Barton has access to, including those which have transformed the once respectable W. P. Mayhew (John Mahoney) into a drunken and abusive wreck?  Would Barton have fared much better, at least from a professional standpoint, if he’d been stationed at the Writer’s Building like Mayhew?  Is that another wing of the very same Hell?  There’s definite satire to be had in Barton Fink upon the nature of Hollywood and its regard (or lack of) for individual creativity, although this is complicated by Barton’s own character and the demons that he’s already brought along with him, fresh from his success in Broadway.

As for Charlie, interpretations of his character range from him being the Devil (which fits in with the Hell allusion, but likewise doesn’t really satisfy from a literal standpoint) to a figment of Barton’s imagination, perhaps even the personification of his writer’s block.  It’s certainly noteworthy that Charlie has a tendency to wander into Barton’s room just as the latter is about to knuckle down and type, and it’s during Charlie’s period of absence from the Earle that Barton is finally able to progress with his screenplay.  That said, it’s not so much the lack of Charlie that enables Barton to write as it is the unopened box that Charlie has left in his possession (or, more accurately, Barton’s realisation as to the probable contents of the box).  As previously indicated, I’m more inclined to view Charlie as a personification of the Earle itself, the human face and voice of a hotel that subsists in a permanent state of isolation and decrepitude within one of the most reputedly glamorous locations in the world (although one of the things I love about Barton Fink is that we never actually see any evidence of that side of Hollywood), even if the exact nature of the Earle remains a total enigma to me.

Whatever the Earle actually embodies, it’s Barton’s attempts to impose himself upon it that land him into trouble.  For all of Charlie’s seeming attempts to extend a hand of friendship to Barton, it’s clear at the end that he has never forgiven him for the initial overstepping of bounds that led to the two characters meeting in the first place – that is, Barton telephoning the front desk to complain about Charlie’s wailing.  It’s possible that Charlie has merely been sizing Barton up since then, looking for opportunities to exact his retribution, but then again he does seem genuinely stung by Barton’s subsequent refusal to allow him to be anything more than a sounding board for his own egotistical ramblings.  Furthermore, Charlie insists that he is motivated by empathy and a desire to help others out, something which he himself never receives in return (he is not the only character to put empathy at the centre of interaction - it is the code upon which the more gentle-natured Audrey insists).  Charlie has been reaching out to Barton, and his repeated offence, as Charlie informs him, has been not to listen.  The implication that Charlie might have killed Barton’s parents and Uncle Maury during his visit to New York feels particularly chilling in that regard, as telling Charlie whereabouts to find them arose from the only gesture of genuine kindness that Barton ever bestows upon Charlie.

In the end, Barton’s relationship with the Earle is as ill-fated as every other relationship that he forges in Hollywood.  Whereas Jack Torrance found himself right at home amid the murderously violent history that echoed around the halls of the Overlook (he’s always been the caretaker there, after all), the Earle chews upon Barton before ultimately opting to spit him out.  During their final confrontation, Charlie allows Barton to leave the hotel, but not without having already dismissed him as a tourist with a typewriter.  Barton is out of his depth within the ailing world of the Earle, incapable of understanding or making any useful contributions his own, and is better off permitted to quietly slip outside the door.  If only Hollywood as a whole could be so gracious toward him.

Farthing Wood Deaths Revisited: Series 1 - Baby Rabbit

I think it’s fair to say that the Rabbits were by far the most useless characters in the Farthing Wood menagerie.  Say what you will about the Newts and the Pheasants, but at least they never directly endangered anyone else with their uselessness.  The Rabbits, on the other hand, nearly got Fox and Badger killed in the fifth episode, and they never really grew or changed throughout the course of the journey.  Mr. Rabbit’s big shtick was that he was an insufferable hypochondriac, and would complain that he didn't “feel well” at the slightest sign of trouble.  Mrs. Rabbit’s big shtick (which I believe may have been ripped off wholesale from Clive Dunn’s character in the BBC sitcom Dad’s Army) was that she would freak out and scream “Don’t panic!” at the slightest sign of trouble.  Their offspring were largely voiceless in all of this, but shared their parents’ tendency to react badly in the face of danger.  Given that, as noted in an earlier entry, The Animals of Farthing Wood was blatantly riding upon the coattails of Watership Down, it is somewhat ironic that the rabbits here should get the short end of the stick when it comes to wits and fortitude.

It’s not too surprising, then, that one of them should wind up paying the price eventually.  Earlier in the series, and in a scene quite brazenly lifted from Richard Adams’ novel, the animals had stayed in a copse, where one of the baby rabbits became tangled in a snare and was saved thanks to the perceptiveness of Owl, who instructed Mole to dig the wooden peg out of the ground (this is also how Fiver and co. saved Bigwig, is it not?).  Sadly, the young rabbit has merely been living on borrowed time, with his luck finally running out when the animals have the misfortune to wander into a pheasant shoot, shortly after being reunited with Fox and joined by Vixen, Fox’s new mate, and Whistler, a heron.  The animals try to remain hidden, but are in serious danger of being discovered by the hunter’s gun dog.  Unable to bear the tension any longer, the baby rabbit panics and runs out into the open, where a single bullet does away with him.  Fortunately, the hunter’s blood lust has now been satisfied, and he and his dog leave without happening upon any of the other animals.

HORROR FACTOR: 6. The build-up to this death was less intense than I remembered it being, possibly because I couldn’t help but compare it to the similar, immeasurably more effective scene in Walt Disney’s Bambi, in which a group of pheasants struggled to maintain their cover whilst Man Was In The Forest (that scene alone is one of the great masterpieces of animation).  Still, it’s our second case of infant mortality in a row, and Badger even manages to rub a little extra salt into the wound by reminding us of the same young rabbit’s earlier misadventure with the snare – Owl had saved him from one grisly fate only for another to be awaiting him further down the road.

NOBILITY FACTOR: 8. It may have been an act more of blind panic than of conscious heroism, but by giving himself up the young rabbit ensured that the hunter and his dog didn’t stumble upon the other hidden animals.  As Fox states, he didn’t die in vain.

TEAR-JERKER FACTOR: 7. The image of that tiny, lifeless young rabbit certainly has to stir up something in you.  The exchange between his parents is pretty affecting too - given the sheer nonsense that often came out of the Rabbits' mouths, there is something genuinely disquieting in seeing them get such a sad and serious moment.

OVERALL RATING: 21

Next up is the Series 1 death which I truly am dreading having to subject myself to again after all these years, so I might take a little breather in order to steel myself up for it.  Normal service will resume shortly.