Barton Fink (1991)

Title: Barton Fink (1991)

Director: Joel Coen

Cast: John Torturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, John Mahoney, Steve Buscemi, Tony Shalhoub

Ask anybody who writes for a living and they’ll tell you, writing can be a noble, rewarding and even cathartic affair, but most of all, it can also be hell. In Barton Fink, the Coen Brothers captured this sentiment perfectly by telling the story of Barton Fink, a playwright who writes stories about “the common man”, the working stiff, Barton wants to be a voice for them. The good thing is that Barton’s plays are getting rave reviews; he’s finally getting a taste of success, of recognition. It’s at this same time that a Hollywood mogul offers Barton a job “writing for the pictures” paying him a thousand dollars a week. Barton accepts the job offer because he sees it as a way of making money that can later allow him to write more plays, not because he is thrilled at the idea of writing movies. So off Barton Fink goes to Hollywood. He stays at Hotel Earl, a name that sounds a lot like Hotel Hell, which I’m sure was the Coen’s direct intention. This is hell for Barton, because it’s where he intends to write his first screenplay, it’s where he intends to escape into the “life of the mind”. And so starts Barton Fink, a film that portrays Hollywood as a place filled with wound up, greedy and downright crazy people, a place that is not as glamorous as some might think.

So that’s the premise for Barton Fink, a film that’s a double edged sword because it’s both about the struggles of a writer and the hectic life of a Hollywood mogul, so it’s both a film about writing and about filmmaking. The life of the writer is covered by the character of Barton Fink, a character attempting to write his first screenplay. We follow him right down to that intimate moment when the writer sits in front of his type writer trying to write that first sentence, that first original thought, that first spark of an idea that will get that screenplay going. Barton Fink really goes into that mental struggle one must go through in order to write a story. This struggle has been addressed in many films about writing like Naked Lunch (1991) and Spike Jonze’s Adaptation (2002), it’s a common thing that writers go through: how to get started, where to begin. At times Barton just stares at the blank page, unable to type a single thing. Every little thing distracts him, he tries to write and a fly buzzes by. He tries to type and his neighbor comes knocking at the door. He tries to write and the wallpaper is peeling off the walls. When he does write, he writes about the same themes he’d write in his theater plays, he writes about “the fishmongers”, the working class; an interesting way in which the Coen’s point out how sometimes, all throughout their body of work, writers and filmmakers end up talking about the same themes  repeatedly. So be ready for a film that analyses the nature of writing and as a result, is a very brainy, complex film.  

On the Hollywood filmmaking side of things we get to see Barton meet film producers, which are portrayed as a hectic bunch, always speaking at lightning fast pace, which perfectly captures the way Hollywood moguls think, always trying to be one step ahead of what’s hot, what’s in, always trying to stab each other’s backs first. If you know anything about Hollywood, then you know what a wrestling match it can be to write a film with some depth to it and then finding  someone willing to fund it. 90 percent of the time, all Hollywood cares about is making the next Transformers movie. There’s always that fight between the brainy writer and the money hungry producer. In Barton Fink Hollywood is a stampeding train looking for someone to ram and if this film is any indication, it’s the brainy, poetic writers artistic integrity that is on its tracks. Even though they’ll tell you they love you “kiss this man’s shoe!” in reality, they don’t want you to write a sad, fruity picture. As soon as he arrives to Hollywood Barton meets Jack Lipnick, a Hollywood producer who says he is where he is because he is meaner and louder than anyone else in town. Lipnick (which by the way sounds like “limp dick” and I’m sure this was intentional) wants Barton to write a film about wrestling in order to make a quick buck, but Barton doesn’t want to write a silly b-movie . In accordance with the persona of a writer, Barton is a more cerebral kind of guy, so Barton is confronted with a conundrum: should he write a commercial film about wrestling? A film that follows a formula? Or can he turn this would be film into a commentary on the struggles of the common man?  I enjoy how the film explores these ideas, this dichotomy: to make an intelligent film that can actually say something about life or to make a meaningless film that says nothing?

As is the case with practically any Coen Brothers film, the cast is top notch. On Barton Fink we have two great actors who take up a big part of the screen time and these are John Torturro and John Goodman, two actors whom the Coen brothers continually work with. These two characters are at the crux of what this film is about. On the one hand we have Torturro playing Barton as the brainy writer who struggles with his own mind; he is continually asking perfection of himself. ”Shouldn’t your first duty be to your gift?” He is a writer determined to do something worthwhile, sometime that matters. Though at the same time he comes off as a hypocritical character, at times advocating for the common man, but then not even listening to the stories that he might have to say, one could say that Burton sees himself as superior to the common man. He sees himself as more refined, than the common man. Then on the other hand we have Goodman playing Charlie Meadows, a guy who in the eyes of Barton represents the common man that he wants to write so much about. In a way, one feeds off the other. For example, Charlie enjoys talking with Barton because he’s an intelligent individual who always has something insightful to say. In Charlie’s eyes, Barton is not an idiotic sheep in the heard. To Charlie, Barton is special and he admires him for that. Barton tells Charlie things like “the life of the mind…there’s no road map for that territory…and exploring it can be painful” and Charlie just eats it up. For Barton, Charlie is the complete opposite. To Barton, Charlie is the quintessential common man, working for the system as an Insurance Salesman; a sheep in the heard, slaving away to have a little money with which to eat and drink his nights away. But boy, could he tell Barton some stories; unfortunately, most of the time Barton won’t listen to his stories, he just talks about himself. But they continually meet, bouncing off their musings on life. Their encounters lead to a very unexpected place.

An interesting aspect of Barton Fink is that it is a film filled with many symbolisms and possible interpretations; it speaks about many things at the same time. Ultimately, Barton Fink will end up meaning different things to different people, much like a David Lynch film. Actually, visually speaking this film has many homage’s to Lynch’s own Eraserhead (1977), starting with John Torturro’s crazy hairdo. Multiple interpretations aside, at heart, more than anything, the film expresses the frustrations involved with artistic compromise. The film itself has a very somber mood to it, very film noir, very dark…we get the feeling that Hotel Earl is indeed hell. Every character that stays in Hotel Earl is always dripping in sweat. The heat and humidity are extremely palpable here. “Sometimes it gets so hot I want to crawl right out of my skin” says Charlie at one point. One of the many interpretations for this film is that Hotel Earl is hell and that John Goodman’s character can be representative of either fascism, Satan or a figment of Barton’s own mind, take your pick! I’ve also read that since Barton lives “the life of the mind” that Charlie represents his physical side? There’s even another take on the film that says that Barton’s hotel room represents his mind and that everything that happens in the hotel is representative of what’s going on inside his head! So just be ready for a movie that’s open to various interpretations. All these wild interpretations make sense, especially when we take in consideration that the film takes a turn towards the surreal side of things.

It should be noted that Barton Fink came to be as result of the Coen’s suffering from writers block while writing the screenplay for Miller’s Crossing (1990). You see, writing Miller’s Crossing proved to be such a daunting task for the brothers that they took a break from it; a hiatus so to speak. Now, the Coen’s being such gifted writers, their hiatus involved writing another masterpiece, which ended up being Barton Fink, a film that won critical acclaim and numerous awards at the Cannes Film Festival! It’s a very special film that I place next to Sunset Blvd. (1950), Adaptation (2002) and Ed Wood (1994) as some of the best films about filmmaking out there. If you enjoy writing and would like to see all your struggles to get that script, book or play off the ground represented in a film, then do yourself a favor and check this excellent film out, the common man will be here when you get back.

Rating:  5 out of 5   

The Artist (2011)

Title: The Artist (2011)

Director: Michael Hazanavicius

Cast: Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller, Malcolm McDowell

Review:

The Artist has gotten 10 Academy Award nominations this year, it is second only to Martin Scorcece’s Hugo (2011), which I placed on the number one spot on my Top Films of 2011 list a while back. But it’s easy to see why The Artist would be the second most nominated film of the year. It is a happy, lighthearted, ‘feel good’ movie and it does this while being an almost entirely silent film. Yes my friends, only one line of dialog is spoken through out the whole film! And it’s in black and white!

The story is all about an actor called George Valentin who when the movie begins is enjoying being at the top of his cinematic career. He has fame, money and everything that goes with it. If he tells the producers he wants that actress in the film, then that actress is in the film! He has one preoccupation though: the silent era of filmmaking is coming to an end and filmmakers and producers want to start using dialog and sound effects in film, something that Mr. Valentin doesn’t want to accept. You see he is of the mind that if a movie is to be good, it’s to be silent. He considers sound vulgar somehow. Because of his reluctance to accept this change, he’s career is starting to plummet. Will Mr. Valentin ever adapt? Or will his career come to a screeching halt? And who is the beautiful bomb shell dancer/actress who he’s just met?

I imagine that French director Michael Hazanavicius must have had a difficult time getting this movie green lit. I mean, telling producers you want your next film to be not only silent but also in black and white is like telling them you want your film to be a hard R! These aren’t exactly words producers love to hear. But the success of Hazanavicius’s French films gave him the leverage he needed to convince them he knew what he was doing and so The Artist got made. And it’s gotten 10 Oscar Nominations, so Hazanavicius knew what he was doing after all.

You ever see a silent film? Granted, watching a silent film can take some adjustment, you have to get in a certain mindset to watch them. You won’t hear sound effects or dialog, the dialog is transmitted through title cards and the constant classical score might get on your nerves after a while, but this Film Connoisseur says that watching a silent film can be just as rewarding as watching a ‘talkie’. Ever had the pleasure of watching F.W. Murnau’s Faust (1926)? Now there’s an awesome silent film; every bit as spectacular and fantastic as any modern special effect film. How’s about Friz Lang’s Metropolis (1927)? That film left me speechless, so many themes, such rich visuals, so symbolic, such a work of art! The art direction on some of these silent films is still mind blowing in my book. I mention Faust and Metropolis because to me they are the finest examples of silent cinema; I still revisit both of these films on a regular basis because there is always something new to see in them. Silent films can still be enjoyed, if you bring your sugar rush levels down to normal levels. Sad to hear that some theaters have had to do refunds because people walked out of The Artist because they didn’t know it was a silent film. That’s just wrong. Silent films are a whole different experience, and a valid for of storytelling. They shouldn’t be shunned like that. Silent films are simply different, they rely more on images, on the visuals, on facial expressions and performances to tell your story. Plus it’s not like every single film is going to be a silent film now. The Artist is retro, it’s a look back at how things were, and it should be enjoyed for paying respects to the origins of cinema.   

The film benefits from having a fantastic supporting cast, including the great John Goodman!

  

The best thing about The Artist is that it will more than likely leave a smile on your face. It has that charm and happy go lucky feeling that movies from that era  had. Characters are smiling most of the time, the whole film has a good sense of humor to it. I couldn’t help having a huge smile on my face during the films final dance sequence. These characters won me over with their charm and charisma. Jean Dujardin, the actor who plays George Valentin is an accomplished French actor who’d work with Michael Hazanavicius in the past on Hazanavicius’s successful spy spoofs OSS 17: Cario, Nest of Spies (2006) and OSS 17: Lost in Rio (2009) two films that spoof James Bond films and spy films in general. I guess now Jean Dujardin’s career will really blast off, he’s just earned an Academy Award nomination for best actor! Berenice Bejo, the actress who plays  Peppy Miller is actually Michael Hazanavicius’s wife! In this way, Hazanavicius reminds me of Fellini, who also used his wife in a lot of his films. Bejo has also received a nomination for best supporting actress, which means we will also be seeing more of her in the movies. Both actors exceeded in their roles, they have a happiness to them that’s infectious. You almost feel like that happiness is fake sometimes, which is probably true. Back in the days of silent cinema, actors always exaggerated their emotions for the screen. They always gave that dashing spectacular smile whenever cameras where rolling. Hazanavicius cought that very well on his film as well. But also, there is that kind of innocence that older films always exude, loved how the director managed to capture that era of filmmaking so well. The Artist achieved what it was going for, capturing an era.

The film plays with themes of change. About how we need to adapt to changes, or die, the world is ever changing and so should we. The Artist plays with the idea that we can’t be stubborn and try and live in the past, the past dies and we must move on. A lot of actors back in those days were stubborn and didn’t want to accept the fact that films were now going to talk. The best example was Charles Chaplin himself! Chaplin really didn’t want to talk in his films at all! This is most obvious in Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) a silent film (Chaplin’s last silent film by the way) that was made during the time when films already talked; yet Chaplin refused to talk on it. Other actors talked, but he didn’t. Sound effects were heard, but we never heard Chaplin talking English. In fact, the one scene in which we do hear Chaplin’s voice in Modern Times is in a scene in which he made up his own language that sounds like Italian, but isn’t! I guess that was his way of telling us that we didn’t need words to understand him, he could talk gibberish and we could still laugh and even understand what he was trying to convey. You watch that scene in Modern Times and you do get the feeling that you understand him! But Chaplin’s stubbornness to talk shows just what an issue this was at the time for actors who were used to transmitting their performance through performance and emotion alone.  This is what The Artist is about.

 Chaplin eventually adapted and talked in his movies, and when he talked he really talked! The Great Dictator (1940) is a powerful film not only because of Chaplin’s amazing performance, but also because of the amazing script, the dialog is really astonishing on that film! It’s as if Chaplin said “so you want to hear me talk? Fine! Here it is, let’s see if you can take what I have to say about the world!” The Great Dictator remains one of Chaplin's most controversial films. As for The Artist, I will say that it isn’t the deepest film in the world, which is kind of odd, because films chosen for “Best Picture of the Year” are usually deep, heavy stuff. But I guess The Artist has charm to spare, and sometimes charm can take you a long way. This is a rather simple film, but it accomplishes what it sets out to do, it looks beautiful and has charismatic characters. It entertains and charms the hell out of you, what’s not to like?

Rating: 4 out of 5

Red State (2011)

Title: Red State (2011)

Director: Kevin Smith

Cast: Michael Parks, John Goodman, Michael Angarano, Kyle Gallner

Review:

In the United States of America, the term ‘Red State’ is used to describe a state whose population leans more towards voting Republican, and in America Republican usually stands for Christian and conservative. Red State is a great title for Kevin Smith’s new film because it deals precisely with people who lean towards the extremely conservative side of things, which is as much of an extreme as extreme liberals. I’m always happiest living my life somewhere in between these two schools of thought; a happy medium where everyone is respected. Ultimately, I don’t lean towards any given group because I don’t like to ‘belong’ to anything and follow anybody but myself. To me we all see the world in our own different ways, and that’s fine. But as Red State helps us see, there are twisted ways of looking at this world. Not everyone believes in ‘live and let live’. Not everyone says ‘let’s co-exist’. Some say ‘kill those that don’t think like us…because the bible says so!’

In Red State we meet a trio of teenagers who are excited because they’ve just hooked up with some chick over the internet who says she wants to have sex with all three of them at the same time. So, off they go on their sexual escapades…too bad for them that it’s all part of a trap being set up by the members of the ‘Five Points Church’ to eradicate homosexuals from their community. You see to the Christians of this film, homosexuals are beasts, sick people with twisted desires. Some church going folks have no problems in expressing their hatred towards homosexuals. Ever seen the members of the ‘Westboro Baptist Church’ holding those “God Hates Fags” signs in their protests? Never mind that the bible teaches people to love your enemy, or love thy neighbor,  that part of the scripture is ignored when gay people come into play. In Red State we meet a group of gay hating Christians who gather the ‘sinners’ and kill them systematically. Will the three sexually adventurous teens escape the religious cult with their lives?

So basically, this is one risky movie for Kevin Smith to make and I applaud him for making it because when you decide to analyze religion and preachers and cults, well, movie studios tend to back away from producing films like that. You know how studios are when it comes to religion and politics, they hate referencing these themes because they know it will alienate a large part of the audience. Filmmakers that try to address these themes (however important they may be to express) always have problems when it comes to getting their ideas produced. Just look at Paul Thomas Anderson, an amazing director, a true talent that makes amazing films, yet the latest film he is trying to get made called ‘The Master’ has faced all kinds of problems. Why? Because it’s about religion, that’s why. With Red State, Kevin Smith wanted to say his bit about religion, he knew he couldn’t spend a lot of money on a film that was presenting an unpopular idea, so he went and made it for a mere 4 million dollars which is loose change when it comes to making a film. But still, a film that’s this ‘in your face’ about exposing the many faults of religion, well, you have to be ready for a bit of a backlash.

These are real people on the above pics by the way. 

And so, same as with Kevin Smith’s Dogma (199) people protested. Most of the protesters came from the churches that felt were being referenced in the film, like the Westboro Baptist Church for example. What they didn’t expect was for Kevin Smith to pull his own comedic counter protest! But this kind of backlash is expected with a film such as this; after all Smith is talking about real events and real people. For example, some of the events that take place in Red State are entirely based on the events that happened in real life with David Koresh and his ‘Branch Davidian’ sect; a sect that masqueraded as servants of God, started to arm themselves with all sorts of guns. In the end, the Branch Davidians ended up going up against the U.S. government themselves. Of course, they lost the battle; a small group of people going up against the all powerful U.S. government is never a good idea. And so, the Davidian church was burned to the ground, with all its followers inside, including women and children. Depending on whom you believe, either they burned themselves down in mass suicide, or the government saw them as too much of a threat to society and burned them all down. After seeing the documentary Waco: The Rules of Engagement (1997), I lean towards the idea that it was the government themselves who made this sect disappear because they were deemed too dangerous and out of control. This is basically, the same type of scenario that we see in Smith’s Red State, a showdown between the government, and a crazy cult.

 A similar situation also happened with Jim Jones and his “Peoples Temple”. This guy created his own society as well, with his own rules and regulations. What helped Jim Jones’s cult grow was that he used the bibles teachings to back up his craziness. People saw him as a man of god, because he preached on! He was to lead them to “paradise” so he created his own community where he was king. The result was the death of more than 900 men,  women and children who literally “drank the Kool-Aid” and killed themselves because their religious leader told them to. If you want more information on this terrible story, check out the fascinating documentary called Jonestown: The Life and Death of the Peoples Temple (2006). That documentary is a real experience to watch, I dare you not to cry while watching it. What happened in ‘Jonestown’ is also a similar scenario than the one seen in Red State; a crazed religious leader with a God Complex who decides to build his own society and his own reality. Unfortunately, the government doesn’t appreciate this type of thing very much; especially when you put the life of others in danger because of your beliefs. The point this film is trying to make is, you may believe whatever you want, but when you put the life of innocent people in danger, then your going to get wiped out, because then your going against the law.

Red State reminded me of all these horrifying real life events, but it also felt like Kevin Smith’s answer to Martyrs (2008), an incredible movie that addresses many of the same issues and situations as Red State did. True, Martyrs is a far superior picture, but this is not to put Smith’s film down. In fact I would dare say that Red State is one of Kevin Smith’s best films to date. The dialog and situations actually feel a whole lot more real than any of Smith’s other films, which usually have very wooden and refined dialog; so refined that it doesn’t come off as natural. On Red State everything just flows more naturally and realistically. I have to commend Michael Parks for his portrayal of the religious leader in the film, and kudos to Smith for writing such an amazing dialog for his character, there is a scene where Parks has this incredible monologue that says many truths about religion and the bible. The truths spoken in this dialog simply can’t be denied, by anybody, which is probably what irritates so many people, so much. Smith obviously did his research when it came to writing the script because the dynamics between the religious leader and his group is extremely accurate and realistic. 

        

Sadly, a film of this nature, a film that’s so truthful about so many things gets flamed because its basically saying that the product of faith are crazy loons like Reverend Abin Cooper and his followers. But the truth is that in many cases, this has been absolutely true. Okay, so not everybody who reads the bible and goes to church will turn into a gun totting crazy person, that’s true. But some do. The real problem is that the bible gives the tools necessary to pull these types of crazy things off, because the bible does teach some truly questionable things! I’ve personally heard Christians say that yes, they would kill their son or daughter if god told them too, just like he told Abraham to. How crazy is that? In the film, Reverend Abin Cooper quotes the bible directly on many occasions, and then says “This is scripture!” and then he repeats it: “This is scripture!” as if to make the point clear, as if saying “I know this sounds extreme, but this is the bible I’m quoting here and don’t you dare defy it!” True, many of the things taught in the bible defy logic and moral, yet unfortunately, since its “the word of god” it gives the perfect excuse to any  loon out there to do them and say they were doing ‘gods will’. Kevin Smith and his new film had the guts to say this, unfortunately, the world is so programmed by religion that they uniformly rejected Smith’s film. Even if it’s a good one. Im not just saying Red State is good because I agree with it’s message, I’m saying its good because it really is. It has some really great tense moments. Its got one twist after another. It’s incredibly engaging. But even though Red State is actually good, the expected barrage of bad press came, and to be honest, the bad press doesn’t even feel truthful or objective; it just feels like they say these bad things about the film simply to get everyone to distance themselves from a film that might help them see religion and the bible differently. Red State ended up being too controversial for even a proper theatrical release; instead it went straight to DVD. Not because it’s a bad movie (because it isn’t) not because it sucks, but because what is saying is deemed too dangerous to air on such a mass medium as movie theaters. This shouldn’t surprise anyone now should it? After all, the truth is rarely popular thing in this world.

Rating:  5 out of 5