This is what we're watching: "Barton Fink" - the masterpiece from which the real Coen brothers begin

In this series Articles every week I talk about which films and TV series amazed me.

By 1991, Ethan and Joel Coen were perceived as masters of genre cinema. Neo-noir, farce comedy, gangster drama - the Coens used and developed the legacy of Hollywood, trying to push the boundaries of genre stories. “Barton Fink” was a breakthrough, after which Ethan and Joel became the faces of American auteur cinema.

Young and successful playwright Barton Fink receives an offer from Hollywood - a fashionable film studio wants him scenario. The hero moves to Hollywood, checks into a hotel and suddenly realizes that he has suffered a creative crisis. The work is hampered by the heat, noisy neighbors, and the client criticizes all the sketches.

The main theme of the film is the creative crisis that poisons life. The hero is unable to write a script, which is why not only his prospects are at risk, but also his very existence. The Coens take everything to an existential point where lack of inspiration equates to death. Watching the accompanying transformations is creepy, but too interesting. An external factor (in the form of a Hollywood conveyor belt) adds scale to the story - it becomes obvious that film production employs hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of these Barton Finks, suffering while writing the next script.

Despite the pain and nerves that permeate the picture, the Coens find room for humor even in such a situation. The level of absurdity is so high that it not only makes you laugh, but also highlights the tragedy. In this sense, the Coens were ahead of their time - in the last decade existential crisis are almost always filmed with irony (from BoJack Horseman and Fleabag to Bardot and The House That Jack Built).

But my favorite narrative of the film is Barton Fink's troubles with self-identity. He imagined himself to be the voice of the working class, the common people, without having anything to do with them. Moreover, in his works he depicts these people not as they are in ordinary life. The very first conversation with the “man of the people” reveals this discrepancy. It's easier for a playwright to invent an ideal simpleton than to run into him in an elevator.

Each feature of the main character is emphasized by John Turturro, who probably played his best role in Barton Fink. His character is a bundle of nerves. And if at the beginning of the film there is a minimum of emotions - the playwright is confident in himself, then by the middle of the film he turns into a broken, lost screenwriter. The actor brilliantly captures all the changes and emotions of the hero, from mild doubts to discouraging devastation.

“Barton Fink” has such a number of vivid symbols (from fire to peeling wallpaper) that the number of interpretations tends to be infinite. Perhaps that is why the film is still relevant and popular and is really I want to come back - there’s too much of everything in it.