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.