96-499: Barton Fink is a 1991 American black comedy film written, produced, edited and directed by the Coen brothers . Set in 1941, it stars John Turturro in the title role as a young New York City playwright who is hired to write scripts for a film studio in Hollywood , and John Goodman as Charlie Meadows, the insurance salesman who lives next door at the run-down Hotel Earle. The Coens wrote
192-564: A colonel's uniform, which is really a costume from his company. Lipnick has not actually entered the military but declares himself ready to fight the "little yellow bastards." Originally, this historical moment just after the United States entered World War II was to have a significant impact on the Hotel Earle. As the Coens explained: "[W]e were thinking of a hotel where the lodgers were old people,
288-405: A comic manner. Comedians like Lenny Bruce , who since the late 1950s have been labeled as using " sick comedy " by mainstream journalists, have also been labeled with "black comedy". Sigmund Freud , in his 1927 essay Humour ( Der Humor ), although not mentioning 'black humour' specifically, cites a literal instance of gallows humour before going on to write: "The ego refuses to be distressed by
384-583: A crucial dichotomy between two 'views' of artifice: the world created by the protagonist (his play) and the world outside it (what goes into creating a performance)." The film also employs numerous foreshadowing techniques. Signifying the probable contents of the package Charlie leaves with Barton, the word "head" appears 60 times in the original screenplay. In a grim nod to later events, Charlie describes his positive attitude toward his "job" of selling insurance : "Fire, theft and casualty are not things that only happen to other people." Much has been written about
480-504: A far ridere su un argomento talmente drammatico di cui si ride perché non c'è altra soluzione possibile, si ha quella che nei cabaret di Berlino degli Anni '20 veniva chiamata la "risata verde". È opportuno distinguere una satira ironica, che lavora per sottrazione, da una satira grottesca, che lavora per addizione. Questo secondo tipo di satira genera più spesso la risata verde. Ne erano maestri Kraus e Valentin. Modus operandi A modus operandi (often shortened to M.O. or MO )
576-424: A genre in which dark humor is a core component. Cartoonist Charles Addams was famous for such humor, e.g. depicting a boy decorating his bedroom with stolen warning signs including "NO DIVING – POOL EMPTY", "STOP – BRIDGE OUT" and "SPRING CONDEMNED." Black comedy differs from both blue comedy —which focuses more on crude topics such as nudity , sex , and body fluids —and from straightforward obscenity . Whereas
672-430: A lush array of flora. Barton meets Lipnick in one scene beside an enormous, spotless swimming pool. This echoes his position as studio head, as he explains: "...you can't always be honest, not with the sharks swimming around this town ... if I'd been totally honest, I wouldn't be within a mile of this pool – unless I was cleaning it." In his office, Lipnick showcases another trophy of his power: statues of Atlas ,
768-616: A man who grasped things by reason and never by feeling, and who enclosed himself in skepticism; [...] Swift can rightfully be considered the inventor of "savage" or "gallows" humor. Des termes parents du Galgenhumor sont: : comédie noire, plaisanterie macabre, rire jaune. (J'en offre un autre: gibêtises). humour macabre, humeur de désespéré, (action de) rire jaune Galgenhumor propos guilleret etwas freie, gewagte Äußerung Walter Redfern, discussing puns about death, remarks: 'Related terms to gallows humour are: black comedy, sick humour, rire jaune. In all, pain and pleasure are mixed, perhaps
864-517: A rare sweep, it won the Palme d'Or as well as awards for Best Director and Best Actor (Turturro). Although the film was a box office bomb , only grossing $ 6 million against its $ 9 million budget, it received positive reviews and was nominated for three Academy Awards . Prominent themes of Barton Fink include the writing process; slavery and conditions of labor in creative industries; superficial distinctions between high culture and low culture ; and
960-605: A relatively straightforward example of detective fiction , the Coens wrote their next script, Raising Arizona (1987), without trying to fit a particular genre. They decided to write a comedy but intentionally added dark elements to produce what Ethan calls "a pretty savage film." Their third film, Miller's Crossing (1990), reversed this order, mixing bits of comedy into a crime film . Yet it also subverts single-genre identity by using conventions from melodrama , love stories , and political satire . This trend of mixing genres continued and intensified with Barton Fink (1991);
1056-415: A rock. The Coens edited the film themselves, as is their custom. "We prefer a hands-on approach," Joel explained in 1996, "rather than sitting next to someone and telling them what to cut." Because of rules for membership in film production guilds, they are required to use a pseudonym; "Roderick Jaynes" is credited with editing Barton Fink . Only a few filmed scenes were removed from the final cut, including
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#17328588183091152-608: A script to Deakins and invited him to join the project. His agent advised against working with the Coens, but Deakins met with them at a café in Notting Hill and they soon began working together on Barton Fink . Principal photography began in June 1990 and took eight weeks (a third less time than required by Miller's Crossing ), and the estimated final budget for the film was US$ 9 million. The Coens worked well with Deakins, and they easily translated their ideas for each scene onto film. "There
1248-428: A sink drain just before Audrey is murdered earlier in the film. Inspiration for the film came from several sources, and it contains allusions to many different people and events. For example, the title of Barton's play, Bare Ruined Choirs , comes from line four of Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare . The poem's focus on aging and death connects to the film's exploration of artistic difficulty. Later, at one point in
1344-1304: A spese di chi è più ricco e potente di te. Io sono specialista nella risata verde, quella dei cabaret di Berlino degli anni Venti e Trenta. Nasce dalla disperazione. Esempio: l'Italia è un paese dove la commissione di vigilanza parlamentare Rai si comporta come la commissione stragi e viceversa. Oppure: il mistero di Ustica è irrisolto? Sono contento: il sistema funziona. racconto di satira grottesca [...] L'obiettivo del grottesco è far percepire l'orrore di una vicenda. Non è la satira cui siamo abituati in Italia: la si ritrova nel cabaret degli anni '20 e '30, poi è stata cancellata dal carico di sofferenze della guerra. Aggiungo che io avevo spiegato in apertura di serata che ci sarebbero stati momenti di satira molto diversi. Satira ironica, che fa ridere, e satira grottesca, che può far male. Perché porta alla risata della disperazione, dell'impotenza. La risata verde. Era forte, perché coinvolgeva in un colpo solo tutti i cardini satirici: politica, religione, sesso e morte. Quello che ho fatto è stato accentuare l'interazione tra gli elementi. Non era di buon gusto? Rabelais e Swift, che hanno esplorato questi lati oscuri della nostra personalità, non si sono mai posti il problema del buon gusto. Quando la satira poi riesce
1440-428: A train entering a tunnel, used by director Alfred Hitchcock in his film North by Northwest . Barton Fink uses several stylistic conventions to accentuate the story's mood and give visual emphasis to particular themes. For example, the opening credits roll over the Hotel Earle's wallpaper, as the camera moves downward. This motion is repeated many times in the film, especially pursuant to Barton's claim that his job
1536-514: A transition scene to show Barton's movement from New York to Hollywood. (In the film, this is shown enigmatically with a wave crashing against a rock.) Several scenes representing work in Hollywood studios were also filmed, but edited out because they were "too conventional". There is a sharp contrast between Fink's living quarters and the polished, pristine environs of Hollywood, especially the home of Jack Lipnick. The spooky, inexplicably empty feel of
1632-429: A writer. Critic Donald Lyons describes the film as "a retro- surrealist vision." Because it crosses genres, fragments the characters' experiences, and resists straightforward narrative resolution, Barton Fink is often considered an example of postmodernist film . In his book Postmodern Hollywood, Booker says the film renders the past with an impressionist technique, not a precise accuracy. This technique, he notes,
1728-450: Is "typical of postmodern film, which views the past not as the prehistory of the present but as a warehouse of images to be raided for material." In his analysis of the Coens' films, Palmer calls Barton Fink a "postmodern pastiche" which closely examines how past eras have represented themselves. He compares it to The Hours (2002), a film about Virginia Woolf and two women who read her work. He asserts that both films, far from rejecting
1824-409: Is a rendition of "Down South Camp Meeting", a swing tune. Its lyrics (unheard in the film) state: "Git ready (Sing) / Here they come! The choir's all set." These lines echo the title of Barton's play, Bare Ruined Choirs . As the celebration erupts into a melee, the intensity of the music increases, and the camera zooms into the cavernous hollow of a trumpet. This sequence mirrors the camera's zoom into
1920-531: Is a standard pick-up line : "I'd feel better about the damned inconvenience if you'd let me buy you a drink." The wrestling scene between Barton and Charlie is also homoerotic. "We consider that a sex scene," Joel Coen said in 2001. Many of the sound effects in Barton Fink are laden with meaning. For example, Barton is summoned by a bell while dining in New York City; its sound is light and pleasant. By contrast,
2016-401: Is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo , particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discuss. Writers and comedians often use it as a tool for exploring vulgar issues by provoking discomfort, serious thought, and amusement for their audience. Thus, in fiction , for example, the term black comedy can also refer to
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#17328588183092112-620: Is an acknowledged coping mechanism. It has been encouraged within these professions to make note of the context in which these jokes are told, as outsiders may not react the way that those with mutual knowledge do. A 2017 study published in the journal Cognitive Processing concludes that people who appreciate dark humor "may have higher IQs, show lower aggression, and resist negative feelings more effectively than people who turn up their noses at it." Examples of black comedy in film include: Examples of black comedy in television include: Examples of gallows speeches include: Military life
2208-415: Is an individual's habits of working, particularly in the context of business or criminal investigations, but also generally. It is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as ' mode (or manner) of operating ' . The term is often used in police work when discussing crime and addressing the methods employed by criminals . It is also used in criminal profiling , where it can help in finding clues to
2304-399: Is asked by the friendly bellhop, Chet, ( Steve Buscemi ) if he is "a trans or a res" – transient or resident. Barton explains that he isn't sure but will be staying "indefinitely." The dichotomy between permanent inhabitants and guests reappears several times, notably in the hotel's motto, "A day or a lifetime," which Barton notices on the room's stationery. This idea returns at the end of
2400-429: Is full of gallows humor, as those in the services continuously live in the danger of being killed, especially in wartime. For example: Workers in the emergency services are also known for using black comedy: There are several titles such as It Only Hurts When I Laugh and Only When I Laugh , which allude to the punch line of a joke which exists in numerous versions since at least the 19th century. A typical setup
2496-406: Is going to New York for several days, and asks him to watch over a package he is leaving behind. Soon afterwards, Fink is visited by two police detectives, who inform him that Meadows's real name is Karl "Madman" Mundt. Mundt is a serial killer whose modus operandi is beheading his victims. Stunned, Fink places the box on his desk without opening it and he begins writing feverishly. Fink produces
2592-626: Is informed that he is to remain in Los Angeles; although Fink will remain under contract, Capitol Pictures will not produce anything he writes until he "grows up a little". Dazed, Fink wanders onto a beach, still carrying the package. He meets a woman who looks just like the one in the picture on his wall at the Earle, and she asks about the box. He tells her he does not know what it contains nor who owns it. He asks her if she has ever been in pictures, and she says no, with perceptible disinterest. She then assumes
2688-400: Is repeated at the end of the film, when he meets an identical-looking woman at an identical-looking beach, who strikes an identical pose. After complimenting her beauty, he asks her: "Are you in pictures?" She blushes and replies: "Don't be silly." The Coens decided early in the writing process to include the picture as a key element in the room. "Our intention," Joel explained later, "was that
2784-439: Is that someone badly hurt is asked "Does it hurt?" – "I am fine; it only hurts when I laugh." The term was part of the language before Freud wrote an essay on it—'gallows humor.' This is middle European humor, a response to hopeless situations. It's what a man says faced with a perfectly hopeless situation and he still manages to say something funny. Freud gives examples: A man being led out to be hanged at dawn says, 'Well,
2880-587: Is to "plumb the depths" while writing. His first experiences in the Hotel Earle continue this trope ; the bellhop Chet emerges from beneath the floor, carrying a shoe (which he has presumably been polishing) suggesting the real activity is underground. Although Barton's floor is presumably six floors above the lobby, the interior of the elevator is shown only while it is descending. These elements – combined with many dramatic pauses, surreal dialogue, and implied threats of violence – create an atmosphere of extreme tension. The Coens explained that "the whole movie
2976-474: The Titan of Greek mythology who declared war on the gods of Mount Olympus and was severely punished. Barton watches dailies from another wrestling film being made by Capitol Pictures; the date on the clapperboard is December 9, two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor . Later, when Barton celebrates the completed script by dancing at a USO show, he is surrounded by soldiers. In Lipnick's next appearance, he wears
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3072-484: The Coens began looking for a new cinematographer, since their associate Barry Sonnenfeld – who had filmed their first three features – was occupied with his own directorial debut, The Addams Family . The Coens had been impressed with the work of English cinematographer Roger Deakins , particularly the interior scenes of the 1988 film Stormy Monday . After screening other films he had worked on (including Sid and Nancy and Pascali's Island ), they sent
3168-426: The Coens insist the film "does not belong to any genre." Ethan has described it as "a buddy movie for the '90s." It contains elements of comedy, film noir , and horror , but other film categories are present. Actor Turturro referred to it as a coming of age story while literature professor and film analyst R. Barton Palmer calls it a Künstlerroman , highlighting the importance of the main character's evolution as
3264-564: The Coens since their first film. Unlike earlier projects, however – the Irish folk tune used for Miller's Crossing and an American folk song as the basis for Raising Arizona – Burwell wrote the music for Barton Fink without a specific inspiration. The score was released in 1996 on a compact disc, along with the score for the Coens' film Fargo . Several songs used in the film are laden with meaning. At one point Mayhew stumbles away from Barton and Audrey, drunk. As he wanders, he hollers
3360-594: The French humour noir ) was coined by the Surrealist theorist André Breton in 1935 while interpreting the writings of Jonathan Swift . Breton's preference was to identify some of Swift's writings as a subgenre of comedy and satire in which laughter arises from cynicism and skepticism , often relying on topics such as death. Breton coined the term for his 1940 book Anthology of Black Humor ( Anthologie de l'humour noir ), in which he credited Jonathan Swift as
3456-425: The Hotel Earle and atmosphere of various scenes also reflect the influence of pre-World War II film-making. Even Charlie's underwear matches that worn by his filmic hero Jack Oakie . At the same time, camera techniques used by the Coens in Barton Fink represent a combination of the classic with the original. Careful tracking shots and extreme close-ups distinguish the film as a product of the late 20th century. From
3552-463: The Hotel Earle was central to the Coens' conception of the film. "We wanted an art deco stylization," Joel explained in a 1991 interview, "and a place that was falling into ruin after having seen better days." Barton's room is sparsely furnished with two large windows facing another building. The Coens later described the hotel as a "ghost ship floating adrift, where you notice signs of the presence of other passengers, without ever laying eyes on any." In
3648-466: The Hotel Earle, a set created by art director Dennis Gassner . The film's climax required a huge spreading fire in the hotel's hallway, which the Coens originally planned to add digitally in post-production. When they decided to use real flames, however, the crew built a large alternative set in an abandoned aircraft hangar in Long Beach, California. A series of gas jets was installed behind the hallway, and
3744-540: The Pacific, and from there I'll ... improvise." Other academic allusions are presented elsewhere, often with extreme subtlety. For example, a brief shot of the title page in a Mayhew novel indicates the publishing house of "Swain and Pappas". This is likely a reference to Marshall Swain and George Pappas , philosophers whose work is concerned with themes explored in the film, including the limitations of knowledge and nature of being. One critic notes that Barton's fixation on
3840-460: The case that we were suffering from writer's block," Joel said in a 1991 interview, "but our working speed had slowed, and we were eager to get a certain distance from Miller's Crossing ." They went from Los Angeles to New York and began work on a different project. In three weeks, the Coens wrote a script with a title role written specifically for actor John Turturro , with whom they'd been working on Miller's Crossing . The new film, Barton Fink ,
3936-445: The comedy is used to mock the victim. In the last cases, the victim's suffering is trivialized, which leads to sympathizing with the victimizer, as analogously found in the social commentary and social criticism of the writings of (for instance) Sade . Among the first American writers who employed black comedy in their works were Nathanael West and Vladimir Nabokov . The concept of black humor first came to nationwide attention after
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4032-428: The contrary notwithstanding). She further notes that the camera focuses on Barton himself as much as the picture while he gazes at it. At one point, the camera moves past Barton to fill the frame with the woman on the beach. This tension between objective and subjective points of view appears again at the end of the film, when Barton finds himself – in a sense – inside the picture. Critic M. Keith Booker calls
4128-499: The day is certainly starting well.' It's generally called Jewish humor in this country. Actually it's humor from the peasants' revolt, the forty years' war, and from the Napoleonic wars. It's small people being pushed this way and that way, enormous armies and plagues and so forth, and still hanging on in the face of hopelessness. Jewish jokes are middle European jokes and the black humorists are gallows humorists, as they try to be funny in
4224-890: The definitive recipe for all punning' (Puns, p. 127). En français on dit « rire jaune », en flamand « groen lachen » Les termes jaune, vert, bleu évoquent en français un certain nombre d'idées qui sont différentes de celles que suscitent les mots holandais correspondants geel, groen, blauw. Nous disons : rire jaune, le Hollandais dit : rire vert ( groen lachen ); ce que le Néerlandais appelle un vert (een groentje), c'est ce qu'en français on désigne du nom de bleu (un jeune soldat inexpéribenté)... On voit que des confrontations de ce genre permettent de concevoir une étude de la psychologie des peuples fondée sur les associations d'idées que révèlent les variations de sens (sémantique), les expressions figurées, les proverbes et les dictions. Q: Critiche feroci, interrogazioni parlamentari: momenti duri per la satira. A: Satira è far ridere
4320-401: The eerie sustained bell of the Hotel Earle rings endlessly through the lobby, until Chet silences it. The nearby rooms of the hotel emit a constant chorus of guttural cries, moans, and assorted unidentifiable noises. These sounds coincide with Barton's confused mental state and punctuate Charlie's claim that "I hear everything that goes on in this dump." The applause in the first scene foreshadows
4416-421: The end of the film and for us to suggest thereby that he actually inhabited a reality greater than what is depicted in the film. In any case, it is always artificial to talk about "reality" in regard to a fictional character. There are homoerotic overtones to Barton's relationship with Charlie. One detective demands to know if they had "some sick sex thing" and Charlie's first friendly overture toward his neighbor
4512-461: The entire script in one sitting and he goes out for a night of celebratory dancing, returning to find the detectives in his room, who inform him of Mayhew's murder and accuse Fink of complicity with Mundt. As the hotel is suddenly engulfed in flames, Mundt appears and kills the detectives with a shotgun, after which he mentions that he had paid a visit to Fink's parents and uncle in New York. Fink leaves
4608-436: The extent that it's important to know ... What isn't crystal clear isn't intended to become crystal clear, and it's fine to leave it at that." Regarding fantasies and dream sequences, he said: It is correct to say that we wanted the spectator to share in the interior life of Barton Fink as well as his point of view. But there was no need to go too far. For example, it would have been incongruous for Barton Fink to wake up at
4704-399: The face of situations which they see as just horrible. At least, Swift's text is preserved, and so is a prefatory note by the French writer André Breton, which emphasizes Swift's importance as the originator of black humor, of laughter that arises from cynicism and scepticism. When it comes to black humor, everything designates him as the true initiator. In fact, it is impossible to coordinate
4800-427: The film, Fink phones Taylor and begs her for assistance. Taylor visits him at the Earle and they have sex. Fink awakens the next morning to find that Taylor has been violently murdered. Horrified, he summons Meadows and asks for help. Meadows is repulsed but disposes of the body and orders Fink to avoid contacting the police. After Fink has a meeting with an unusually supportive Lipnick, Meadows announces to Fink that he
4896-452: The film, residents' shoes are an indication of this unseen presence; another rare sign of other inhabitants is the sound from adjacent rooms. Joel said: "You can imagine it peopled by failed commercial travelers, with pathetic sex lives, who cry alone in their rooms." Heat and moisture are other important elements of the setting. The wallpaper in Barton's room peels and droops; Charlie experiences
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#17328588183094992-547: The film, when Charlie describes Barton as "a tourist with a typewriter." His ability to leave the Earle (while Charlie remains) is presented by critic Erica Rowell as evidence that Barton's story represents the process of writing itself. Barton, she says, represents an author who is able to leave a story, while characters like Charlie cannot. In contrast, the offices of Capitol Pictures and Lipnick's house are pristine, lavishly decorated, and extremely comfortable. The company's rooms are bathed in sunlight and Ben Geisler's office faces
5088-453: The film. In 1941, up-and-coming Broadway playwright Barton Fink accepts a contract from Capitol Pictures in Hollywood to write film scripts for a thousand dollars per week. Upon moving to Los Angeles, Fink settles into the cheap Hotel Earle. His room's only decoration is a small painting of a woman on the beach, arm raised to block the sun. Fink is assigned to a wrestling film by his new boss Jack Lipnick, but he finds difficulty in writing for
5184-411: The film. "We never, ever go into our films with anything like that in mind," Joel said in a 1998 interview. "There's never anything approaching that kind of specific intellectual breakdown. It's always a bunch of instinctive things that feel right, for whatever reason." The Coens have noted their comfort with unresolved ambiguity. Ethan said in 1991: " Barton Fink does end up telling you what's going on to
5280-524: The final scene an "enigmatic comment on representation and the relationship between art and reality." He suggests that the identical images point to the absurdity of art which reflects life directly. The film transposes the woman directly from art to reality, prompting confusion in the viewer; Booker asserts that such a literal depiction therefore leads inevitably to uncertainty. The Coens are known for making films that defy simple classification. Although they refer to their first film, Blood Simple (1984), as
5376-490: The final scene. The shifting point of view coincides with the film's subject matter: film-making. The film begins with the end of a play, and the story explores the process of creation. This metanarrative approach is emphasized by the camera's focus in the first scene on Barton (who is mouthing the words spoken by actors offscreen), not on the play he is watching. As Rowell says: "[T]hough we listen to one scene, we watch another. ... The separation of sound and picture shows
5472-538: The first lines of his script, Fink consults producer Ben Geisler for advice. Irritated, the frenetic Geisler takes him to lunch and orders him to consult another writer for assistance. Fink meets the novelist W. P. Mayhew by chance in the bathroom. They briefly discuss movie-writing and arrange a second meeting later in the day. Fink later learns from Mayhew's secretary, Audrey Taylor, that Mayhew suffers from alcoholism and that Taylor ghostwrote some of his scripts. With one day left before his meeting with Lipnick to discuss
5568-468: The folk song " Old Black Joe ". (1853) Composed by Stephen Foster , it tells the tale of an elderly slave preparing to join his friends in "a better land." Mayhew's rendition of the song coincides with his condition as an oppressed employee of Capitol Pictures, and it foreshadows Barton's own situation at the film's end. When he finishes writing his script, Barton celebrates by dancing at a United Service Organizations (USO) show. The song used in this scene
5664-540: The fugitive traces of this kind of humor before him, not even in Heraclitus and the Cynics or in the works of Elizabethan dramatic poets. [...] historically justify his being presented as the first black humorist. Contrary to what Voltaire might have said, Swift was in no sense a "perfected Rabelais." He shared to the smallest possible degree Rabelais's taste for innocent, heavy-handed jokes and his constant drunken good humor. [...]
5760-450: The importance of the past, add to our understanding of it. He quotes literary theorist Linda Hutcheon : the kind of postmodernism exhibited in these films "does not deny the existence of the past; it does question whether we can ever know that past other than through its textualizing remains." Certain elements in Barton Fink highlight the veneer of postmodernism: the writer is unable to resolve his modernist focus on high culture with
5856-457: The insane, the physically handicapped, because all the others had left for the war. The further the script was developed, the more this theme got left behind, but it had led us, in the beginning, to settle on that period." The picture in Barton's room of a woman at the beach is a central focus for both the character and camera. He examines it frequently while at his desk and after finding Audrey's corpse in his bed he goes to stand near it. The image
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#17328588183095952-439: The joke: whether the joke is being told by the threatened person themselves or by someone else. Black comedy has the social effect of strengthening the morale of the oppressed and undermines the morale of the oppressors. According to Wylie Sypher , "to be able to laugh at evil and error means we have surmounted them." Black comedy is a natural human instinct and examples of it can be found in stories from antiquity. Its use
6048-511: The novels of Franz Kafka , appear in the film, but the Coens insist the connection was not intended. "I have not read him since college", admitted Joel in 1991, "when I devoured works like The Metamorphosis . Others have mentioned The Castle and ' In the Penal Colony ,' but I've never read them." Black comedy Black comedy , also known as black humor , bleak comedy , dark comedy , dark humor , gallows humor or morbid humor ,
6144-463: The offender's psychology . It largely consists of examining the actions used by the individuals to execute the crime, prevent its detection and facilitate escape. A suspect's modus operandi can assist in their identification, apprehension, or repression, and can also be used to determine links between crimes. In business, modus operandi is used to describe a firm's preferred means of executing business and interacting with other firms. The plural
6240-450: The originator of black humor and gallows humor (particularly in his pieces Directions to Servants (1731), A Modest Proposal (1729), Meditation Upon a Broomstick (1710), and in a few aphorisms ). In his book, Breton also included excerpts from 45 other writers, including both examples in which the wit arises from a victim with which the audience empathizes, as is more typical in the tradition of gallows humor, and examples in which
6336-691: The particular type of laughter that it arouses ( risata verde or groen lachen ), and said that grotesque satire , as opposed to ironic satire, is the one that most often arouses this kind of laughter. In the Weimar era Kabaretts , this genre was particularly common, and according to Luttazzi, Karl Valentin and Karl Kraus were the major masters of it. Black comedy is common in professions and environments where workers routinely have to deal with dark subject matter. This includes police officers , firefighters , ambulance crews, military personnel, journalists, lawyers, and funeral directors , where it
6432-525: The picnic scene, as Mayhew wanders drunkenly away from Barton and Audrey, he calls out: "Silent upon a peak in Darien!" This is the last line from John Keats 's sonnet " On First Looking into Chapman's Homer ". (1816) The literary reference not only demonstrates the character's knowledge of classic texts, but the poem's reference to the Pacific Ocean matches Mayhew's announcement that he will "jus' walk on down to
6528-474: The pose from the picture on the hotel room wall. In 1989, filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen began writing the script for a film eventually released as Miller's Crossing . The many threads of the story became complicated, and after four months they found themselves lost in the process. Although biographers and critics later referred to it as writer's block , the Coen brothers rejected this description. "It's not really
6624-399: The provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure." Some other sociologists elaborated this concept further. At the same time, Paul Lewis warns that this "relieving" aspect of gallows jokes depends on the context of
6720-476: The publication of a 1965 mass-market paperback titled Black Humor , edited by Bruce Jay Friedman . The paperback was one of the first American anthologies devoted to the concept of black humor as a literary genre. With the paperback, Friedman labeled as "black humorists" a variety of authors, such as J. P. Donleavy , Edward Albee , Joseph Heller , Thomas Pynchon , John Barth , Vladimir Nabokov, Bruce Jay Friedman himself, and Louis-Ferdinand Céline . Among
6816-504: The recent writers suggested as black humorists by journalists and literary critics are Roald Dahl , Kurt Vonnegut , Warren Zevon , Christopher Durang , Philip Roth , and Veikko Huovinen . Evelyn Waugh has been called "the first contemporary writer to produce the sustained black comic novel." The motive for applying the label black humorist to the writers cited above is that they have written novels, poems, stories, plays, and songs in which profound or horrific events were portrayed in
6912-420: The relationship of intellectuals with "the common man". The diverse elements of the film have led it to defy efforts at genre classification, with the work being variously referred to as a film noir , a horror film , a Künstlerroman , a postmodernist film and a buddy film . It contains various literary allusions and religious overtones, as well as references to many real-life people and events – most notably
7008-414: The revelation of Audrey's death; Barton slaps a mosquito feeding on her corpse and suddenly realizes she has been murdered. The high pitch of the mosquito's hum is echoed in the high strings used for the film's score. During filming, the Coens were contacted by an animal rights group who expressed concern about how mosquitoes would be treated. The score was composed by Carter Burwell , who has worked with
7104-443: The room would have very little decoration, that the walls would be bare and that the windows would offer no view of any particular interest. In fact, we wanted the only opening on the exterior world to be this picture. It seemed important to us to create a feeling of isolation." Later in the film, Barton places into the frame a small picture of Charlie, dressed in a fine suit and holding a briefcase. The juxtaposition of his neighbor in
7200-413: The same problem and guesses heat is the cause. The Coens used green and yellow colors liberally in designing the hotel "to suggest an aura of putrefaction." The atmosphere of the hotel was meant to connect with the character of Charlie. As Joel explained: "Our intention, moreover, was that the hotel function as an exteriorization of the character played by John Goodman. The sweat drips off his forehead like
7296-522: The screenplay for Barton Fink in three weeks while experiencing writer's block during the writing of Miller's Crossing . They began filming soon after Miller's Crossing was finished. The film is influenced by works of several earlier directors, particularly Roman Polanski 's Repulsion (1965) and The Tenant (1976). Barton Fink had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1991. In
7392-497: The stain across the ceiling of his hotel room matches the protagonist's behavior in Flannery O'Connor 's short story " The Enduring Chill . Critics have suggested that the film indirectly references the work of writers Dante Alighieri (through the use of Divine Comedy imagery) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (through the presence of Faustian bargains). Confounding bureaucratic structures and irrational characters, like those in
7488-438: The start, the film moves continuously between Barton's subjective view of the world and one which is objective. After the opening credits roll, the camera tilts down to Barton, watching the end of his play. Soon we see the audience from his point of view, cheering wildly for him. As he walks forward, he enters the shot and the viewer is returned to an objective point of view. This blurring of the subjective and objective returns in
7584-563: The still-burning hotel, carrying the box and his script. Shortly thereafter he attempts to telephone his family, but there is no answer. In a final meeting with Lipnick, who has been conscripted by the United States Army Reserve to serve as a colonel in the Second World War , Fink's script (which is suggested to be a nearly word-for-word copy of one of his Broadway plays) is lambasted as "a fruity movie about suffering", and he
7680-402: The studio's desire to create formulaic high-profit films; the resulting collision produces a fractured story arc emblematic of postmodernism. The Coens' cinematic style is another example; when Barton and Audrey begin making love, the camera pans away to the bathroom, then moves toward the sink and down its drain. Rowell calls this a "postmodern update" of the notorious sexually suggestive image of
7776-423: The subject of broad speculation. The Washington Post reviewer Desson Howe said that despite its emotional impact, the final scene "feels more like a punchline for punchline's sake, a trumped-up coda." In her book-length analysis of the Coen brothers' films, Rowell suggests that Barton's fixation on the picture is ironic, considering its low culture status and his own pretensions toward high culture (speeches to
7872-425: The symbolic meanings of Barton Fink . Rowell proposes that it is "a figurative head swelling of ideas that all lead back to the artist." The proximity of the sex scene to Audrey's murder prompts Lyons to insist: "Sex in Barton Fink is death." Others have suggested that the second half of the film is an extended dream sequence . The Coens, however, have denied any intent to create a systematic unity from symbols in
7968-537: The tension of Barton's move west, mixed as it is with the sound of an ocean wave crashing – an image which is shown onscreen soon thereafter. Another symbolic sound is the hum of a mosquito . Although Fink's producer insists that these parasites don't live in Los Angeles (since "mosquitos breed in swamps; this is a desert,") its distinctive sound is heard clearly as Barton watches a bug circle overhead in his hotel room. Later, he arrives at meetings with mosquito bites on his face. The insect also figures prominently into
8064-454: The term black comedy is a relatively broad term covering humour relating to many serious subjects, gallows humor tends to be used more specifically in relation to death, or situations that are reminiscent of dying. Black humour can occasionally be related to the grotesque genre. Literary critics have associated black comedy and black humour with authors as early as the ancient Greeks with Aristophanes . The term black humour (from
8160-401: The unfamiliar subject. He is distracted by sounds coming from the room next door, and he phones the front desk to alert them of the disturbing sounds. His neighbor, Charlie Meadows, the source of the noise, visits Fink to apologize. During their conversation, Fink proclaims his affection for "the common man", and Meadows describes his life as an insurance salesman. Still unable to proceed beyond
8256-448: The uniform of an insurance salesman and the escapist image of the woman on the beach leads to a confusion of reality and fantasy for Barton. Critic Michael Dunne notes: "[V]iewers can only wonder how 'real' Charlie is. ... In the film's final shot ... viewers must wonder how 'real' [the woman] is. The question leads to others: How real is Fink? Lipnick? Audrey? Mayhew? How real are films anyway?" The picture's significance has been
8352-403: The wallpaper peels off the walls. At the end, when Goodman says that he is a prisoner of his own mental state, that this is like some kind of hell, it was necessary for the hotel to have already suggested something infernal." The peeling wallpaper and the paste which seeps through it also mirror Charlie's chronic ear infection and the resultant pus. When Barton first arrives at the Hotel Earle, he
8448-421: The wallpaper was perforated for easy penetration. As Goodman ran through the hallway, a man on an overhead catwalk opened each jet, giving the impression of a fire racing ahead of Charlie. Each take required a rebuild of the apparatus, and a second hallway (sans fire) stood ready nearby for filming pick-up shots between takes. The final scene was shot near Zuma Beach , as was the image of a wave crashing against
8544-436: The writers Clifford Odets and William Faulkner , of whom the characters of Barton Fink and W. P. Mayhew, respectively, are often seen as fictional representations. Several features of the film's narrative, particularly an image of a woman at the beach which recurs throughout, have sparked much commentary, with the Coens acknowledging some intentional symbolic elements while denying an attempt to communicate any single message in
8640-399: Was Barton's next-door neighbor in the cavernous hotel. Even before writing, the Coens knew how the story would end, and wrote Charlie's final speech at the start of the writing process. The script served its diversionary purpose, and the Coens put it aside: " Barton Fink sort of washed out our brain and we were able to go back and finish Miller's Crossing ." Once production of the first film
8736-418: Was finished, the Coens began to recruit staff to film Barton Fink . Turturro looked forward to playing the lead role, and spent a month with the Coens in Los Angeles to coordinate views on the project: "I felt I could bring something more human to Barton. Joel and Ethan allowed me a certain contribution. I tried to go a little further than they expected." As they designed detailed storyboards for Barton Fink ,
8832-506: Was only one moment we surprised him," Joel Coen recalled later. An extended scene called for a tracking shot out of the bedroom and into a sink drain "plug hole" in the adjacent bathroom as a symbol of sexual intercourse. "The shot was a lot of fun and we had a great time working out how to do it," Joel said. "After that, every time we asked Roger to do something difficult, he would raise an eyebrow and say, 'Don't be having me track down any plug-holes now.'" Three weeks of filming were spent in
8928-535: Was set in a large, seemingly abandoned hotel. This setting, which they named the Hotel Earle , was a driving force behind the story and mood of the new project. While filming their 1984 film Blood Simple in Austin, Texas, the Coens had seen a hotel which made a significant impression: "We thought, 'Wow, Motel Hell.' You know, being condemned to live in the weirdest hotel in the world." The writing process for Barton Fink
9024-503: Was smooth, they said, suggesting that the relief of being away from Miller's Crossing may have been a catalyst. They also felt satisfied with the overall shape of the story, which helped them move quickly through the composition. "Certain films come entirely in one's head; we just sort of burped out Barton Fink ." While writing, the Coens created a second leading role with another actor in mind: John Goodman, who had appeared in their 1987 comedy Raising Arizona . His new character, Charlie,
9120-468: Was supposed to feel like impending doom or catastrophe. And we definitely wanted it to end with an apocalyptic feeling." The style of Barton Fink is evocative and representative of films of the 1930s and 1940s. As critic Michael Dunne points out: "Fink's heavy overcoat, his hat, his dark, drab suits come realistically out of the Thirties, but they come even more out of the films of the Thirties." The style of
9216-592: Was widespread in middle Europe , from where it was imported to the United States. It is rendered with the German expression Galgenhumor (cynical last words before getting hanged ). The concept of gallows humor is comparable to the French expression rire jaune (lit. yellow laughing ), which also has a Germanic equivalent in the Belgian Dutch expression groen lachen (lit. green laughing ). Italian comedian Daniele Luttazzi discussed gallows humour focusing on
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