One of the greatest sleights of hand in Barton Fink is how, sixty-five minutes into the film, it takes a startling turn and goes from being a subdued, claustrophobic comedy-drama about an aspiring screenwriter's grappling with writer's block to a full-blown and particularly gruesome whodunnit. Having invited Audrey into the Earle and allowed her to seduce him, Barton awakes the following morning to find her still at his side and, in an ostensible double victory, finally does away with the pesky mosquito who's been depriving him of sleep ever since he arrived in Hollywood. Then he notices that Audrey is dripping with blood and turns her over to discover that she has been messily butchered during the night. Oh shit indeed.
One of the film's more subtle tricks is that it doesn't actually give a clear answer to the whodunnit by the time the end-credits start rolling, although it does deceive us into thinking that it has. Likely, we'll take it as a given that Charlie somehow managed to off Audrey while Barton was sleeping, because we're told that Charlie leads a double life as serial killer Karl Mundt. He is implied to be responsible for a number of off-screen atrocities, including the death of Mayhew and, more hazily, Barton's own family, and if nothing else the audience gets a first-hand glimpse of his homicidal fury during the final showdown with Mastronatti and Deutsch. The bathroom sink shot, in which the camera plunges down into the grungy, sordid depths of the Hotel Earle piping while Barton and Audrey are making love in the adjacent room, would appear to link Charlie to the outcome, for his tortured cries become all the more audible the deeper we descend; it is as if he is reacting in anger and revulsion and Barton awakens to find the consequences the following morning. We even have a plausible motive - jealousy - when we take into account just how eagerly Charlie seems to vie for Barton's attention. I noted in my previous entry that the Earle and its many facets - Charlie, the wallpaper, the mosquito - seem to be locked in an eternal battle with the manifestations of feminine beauty - Audrey, the picture of the beach beauty - which offer Barton release from the barren confinement of the Earle. Charlie has his sights set on becoming Barton's muse, but not only does Barton turn to Audrey instead in his hour of need, he commits the ultimate taboo of inviting Audrey into the Earle so that they can have sexual relations right on Charlie's territory. It's hardly surprising that this should bring out the very worst in Charlie.
All the same, one of the recurring themes of Barton Fink has to do with the deceptive nature of outer appearance and the repeated intimation that we should not trust the superficial guises that the world at large would greatly like for us to swallow. The vast majority of the film's supporting cast are ultimately revealed to be fakers in some way. Charlie presents himself as a jovial, down-to-earth insurance salesman, but is revealed to have to an immensely sinister side. Mayhew is a literary heavyweight who's actually a drunken fraud, propped up by his long-suffering "secretary" Audrey. Lipnick insists that he likes Barton and wants that "Barton Fink feeling" for Capitol Pictures, but his use of the phrase loses all meaning as the film goes on. Truth in Barton Fink is a far more ugly, messy and sordid thing than most prefer to contemplate, so on that note should we necessarily trust our own assumption that Charlie killed Audrey based on what we subsequently learn about his character? Is it too facile a solution to the mystery, what with the lack of any really conclusive evidence to link him to Audrey's death beyond the reveal that he apparently has a habit of butchering people? At most, this accounts for why he's so proficient when it comes to disposing of Audrey's body, but it does not itself provide proof that Audrey died at Charlie's hands, nor address the improbable manner in which Charlie would have had to have pulled off the crime (how probable is it that Charlie could have entered Barton's room and killed Audrey without Barton noticing? Did he literally send his vengeful wrath up through the pipes?).
In the end, we cannot be certain that Charlie actually did kill Audrey, although it's a safe bet that he's not as innocent to what's gone on as he infers - earlier, he stated that he "hears everything that goes on in this dump" and the retching noises that accompany our journey down the bathroom pipes would suggest that he means this all-too literally. There are times when Charlie and the Earle appear to be one and the same and his character is given a kind of omnipresence which lingers long after Charlie has left Room 621, all of which indicates that his shock and revulsion upon being greeted with the murder scene are feigned. We know that Charlie is not to be trusted, but then who in this film truly is?
Supposing that Charlie is not Audrey's killer, are there any other plausible suspects? Hotel employees Chet and Pete seem too incidental as characters to be taken seriously as culprits, and we are not given evidence that there is anyone else in the hotel other than a couple making love in the room next to Barton's. The only other viable candidate would appear to be Barton himself (his lack of knowledge of the incident notwithstanding), which is a far more disturbing proposition than the suggestion that Audrey died at the hands of an accomplished killer like Charlie. Of all the figures in the film, the viewer is prompted to believe that they can at least trust Barton - while not blinded to the fact that he is a fool and a hypocrite, the viewer experiences Hollywood and the Earle through his eyes, remaining at all times as uncomfortably in the dark as he is. Barton is the viewer's ally in their mutual discombobulation; the notion that he could have done something so shocking and unpalatable behind the viewer's back is a troubling one. We're inclined to go along with Barton when he professes his innocence to Charlie, but should we?
In my previous entry, I dismissed a theory proposing that everything that happens from Barton's first night in the Earle onward is a dream on the grounds that "that's when weird things start to happen". The entire film, I argued, could be described as "weird", and no such distinction exists between the nature of the of weirdness that Barton initially experiences upon arrival at the Earle and what happens immediately after. I did, however, suggest that this theory might have a bit more weight if applied to the point where Barton wakes up to find Audrey murdered, because it's here that the film kicks into a completely different gear. Strangeness pervades every corner of Barton Fink, but it's from this point onward that the film starts to become strange in more extraordinary ways - whereas its sense of menace previously came from an eerie emphasis upon the mundane (mosquitos, noisy neighbours, peeling wallpaper), it now comes increasingly from far-out twists like waking up to find that your lover has been murdered or the revelation that your neighbour is a serial killer. Reality, of course, can be every bit as twisted and far-out, but here it definitely feels as if the film is taking a self-conscious wander into the territory of more sensationalist fiction. If we view the Earle as a representation of Barton's own inner mind then we might see Audrey's death as something that happens entirely for the purposes of changing the rules of the game. Audrey is sacrificed in order to give Barton - and Barton Fink - a release from the stifling monotony of his writer's block, one that grants him the forward momentum he needs to knuckle down and finish his screenplay. We get no clear answer to the whodunnit because one does not actually exist - Barton simply wakes up to find Audrey dead. The exact cause of her death is irrelevant. Having finally achieved sexual intimacy with the woman whose quiet, unassuming charm has been tantalising Barton eve since he first locked eyes on her, he drags her down into the darkest, most perverse depths of his psyche, whereupon she is ripped to shreds. The viewer is left to ponder not merely the horror of Barton's situation, but also the casual cruelty with which Audrey, by far the most compassionate figure encountered by Barton throughout his adventures in Hollywood, is reduced from character to prop in the blink of an eye.
We may recall that earlier on, during his second meeting with Charlie, Barton had summarised the duties of a writer as having to "plumb the depths" in order to "dredge up something from inside." This is Barton at his most hopelessly naive, oblivious not only to how well-acquainted his companion truly is with dredging up the gruesome inner details of the human condition, but also to the darker forces he unconsciously implies are lurking deep within his own soul. It's tempting to dismiss Barton's words as the empty pretensions of a would-be artist anxious to conceal the fact that he has no hidden depths to speak of, but the bleaker reality is that Barton is an unfledged dolt who knows little of the world, not least the chaotic impulses that lie in wait at the back of his skull, and his journey from Audrey's death onward is one of frightening self-discovery (albeit one which ultimately leaves Barton stranded in yet another limbo). The shot linking the love-making scene with the gruesome morning after discovery - our excursion through the dank, dark waterworks of the Earle - seems to deliberately evoke Barton's comments on plumbing the depths of the life of the mind and exploring the unpleasantness that lies within. We find ourselves swallowed deep by a hidden underworld of sickness and squalor, where the sounds of Barton and Audrey are slowly drowned out by the sounds of Charlie in a vomiting rage; this is the ugly, feverish anguish that runs all through the innards Earle and manifests on the surface as an abnormal stickiness leaking from the walls. Like the black bugs infesting the suburban grasses of David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986), this alerts us to the darker undercurrents at work in the Earle, which up until now have largely stayed hidden out of view; it also serves as a passageway from one part of Barton's brain to the next, slipping away from an awakening erotic fantasy and resurfacing in a nightmare scenario where Barton comes face to face with Audrey's desecrated corpse. Barton cannot account for what has happened; he has been caught off-guard by the cruelty and depravity of his own creative mind, which has moved to sacrifice Audrey on artistic whim and now proceeds to mock him with the consequences.
The most accurate answer to the film's whodunnit would be to say that Audrey was murdered by the Earle; that is to say, the same malevolent forces that caused the wallpaper to peel and brought a distinctly out-of-place mosquito into being. The question this immediately raises, of course, is who ultimately pulls the strings at the Earle - Barton, whose inner mind the Earle embodies, or Charlie, who appears to actually be a part of the Earle? If we view the Earle as a representation of Barton's inner head, then what are we to make of Charlie's accusation, toward the end of the film, that Barton is but a tourist with a typewriter and not naturally at home inside what is supposedly his own psyche? Is the cruelest twist of all that Barton should be rejected by his own inner mind, which dismisses him as merely a front, a constructed self belied by the chaotic demons that rage underneath? If Charlie resides in the murky depths of Barton's brain, then the implication would follow that he too is another facet of Barton's psyche, yet he appears to have a mind and will all of his own, and to be toying with Barton in a manner that seems by turns adoring and merciless.
Charlie too gets what he wants out of Audrey's death. He gets to be Barton's confidant and rescuer in his new hour of need, disposing of incriminating evidence and experiencing the satisfaction of having Barton weep feebly that Charlie is the only friend in Hollywood upon whom he can truly rely. Above all, he gets to impart words of inspiration that once again come back to the idea that Charlie wishes to be embraced and remolded by Barton - the suggestion that Barton "think about me...make me your wrestler." Charlie may be a raging inner demon, but above all what he yearns for is a companion with whom he can drink whiskey and swap anecdotes about the capriciousness of life, and to whom he can be extremely useful. He is, in effect, a terrible fiend who aspires to be the ultimate friend.
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