In Hollywood, many directors like to pursue the ultimate pleasure, whether it is Quentin Tarantino who advocates violent aesthetics, Wes Anderson in color aesthetics, James Cameron in technical (cg) aesthetics, Woody Allen in language aesthetics, Ang Lee in emotional aesthetics, and Steven Spielberg in childlike aesthetics, each director seeks stylized charm under the framework of a unified "Hollywood model". Among them, the coen brothers (Joel Cohen, Ethan Cohen) have a very different style from other directors, and their works are both extreme renderings of violent scenes and logical representations of black humor, and the clear absurd humor and nihilistic existentialism build a surrealist wall for them.
The Coen brothers always take the small people in life as the object of observation, limit the protagonist's actions with various dilemmas, and highlight the contradictions and conflicts in the characters' hearts and the game between reality and ideals, "Barton Fink" is a typical representative of the Coen brothers' early works of this kind. In 1991, the film won the Palme d'Or, Best Director, Best Actor, Academy Award for Best Fine Arts, Best Costume Design and Best Supporting Actor at the Cannes Film Festival, and the two most famous international film festivals awarded the highest honors in different fields to this film, which seems to confirm the overall victory of this stylized film, and this is only the beginning of the Coen brothers, in the next 30 years, the Coen brothers mixed the elements in the film to form an indispensable bloodline of excellent films.
In this work, the Coen brothers use Kafka-style magic irony to allude to the cruelty and reality of reality, and the low-level characters represented by Patton stage an absurd humorous comedy, and the plot of seemingly life's tragic song is not sad, but it enlightens the audience to think about the existence of life.
Coen brothers movies are accustomed to breaking the norm, which is reflected in the confusion of the plot direction and the lack of key factors in the inner conflict of the characters. The Coen brothers, as representatives of the Jews, the older brother Joel graduated from the New York University Film School, and the younger brother Ethan graduated from Brinston University with a degree in philosophy, and is already the proud son of the times. Due to the Flowing Jewish blood and the early experience of rejection, they show a strong sense of inferiority and a desire to compensate in their films, and Barton Fink is the embodiment of the two figures.
Barton, a Jewish playwright, was invited by chance to write a script for a well-known film company that was b-grade (a film with little investment and big returns) set in the wrestling genre. The reality is that Patton, who is regarded as a genius writer, is trapped in a cramped space and has fallen into the embarrassing situation of having no words to write. The Coen brothers both expressed the true state of inspiration that dried up when writing Miller's Crossroads, and ruthlessly satirized the enthusiasm of international film companies for B-grade films at that time. At that time, b-grade films could be copied and produced indefinitely in the eyes of the company's bosses, and the screenwriter was just one of the mechanized rewrites, which was insignificant.
Patton's musing is a poignant satire of reality. Obviously it is not an important job, but Patton is willing to use his life to conceive inspiration, hoping to complete the double breakthrough of self and script, and the boss's beginning of the guest of honor and the insulting dog bloody head behind it are in stark contrast, but considering the template of the B-grade film, the "rotten script, stupid lines and mediocre performance" that has always been criticized is the embodiment of the essence of each B-grade film.
The Coen brothers borrow kafka-style absurd farce to unravel the gap between reality and imagination, and the tense dramatic twists and slightly dull Patton's image seem to be the refraction of Kafka's Metamorphosis. Patton became the beetle, deriving a completely fictional image of Charlie to examine himself, Charlie is more like an inner monologue and portrayal, and the fat image and twisted personality are precisely the self-mockery of the connotation of Hollywood creation. Barton has always centered on the audience, contrary to the for-profit purpose under the industrial system, and expressed his helplessness to reality and disillusionment with ideals in the long humor of the heart.
The characters in the film have Kafka-esque flattening characteristics, and in Foster's "Faces of the Novel", two major advantages of flat characters are mentioned: easy to identify and easy to remember. Patton has the inferiority of weak Jews, manifested as a non-committal, non-verbal personality and double lack of spirit and material, in line with the real psychological demands of American Jews, they are eager to be respected and honored, and have a typical self-deprecating spirit and humor elements, Charlie and the company owner are typical Kafka-like characters, an important trait is: obesity.
In contrast to the traditional image of Woody Allen's emaciated Jewishness, fat people often have uncertainty about their meaning. The loyal and humble Charlie completely became the embodiment of "angelic" kindness when he soothed Patton's inner inferiority and anxiety, but when Patton issued a desperate and surprised howl, the entire plot direction was firmly in the hands of Charlie, and Charlie turned into a "messenger of hell", the flames and crazy personality made the audience unable to distinguish between reality and dreams, and the uncertain referential effect complemented each other and was intriguing.
The company's fat boss embodies the ironic spirit of Kafka's work, in the face of commercial interests, he is willing to give up all dignity, treat Patton as "the most lovely person in the world", and even use the way of kneeling down to kiss patton's shoe sole to win favor, but when the civilian script deviates from the business code, the boss's hysterical criticism pulls Patton back from the clouds to reality, and the boss's two-sided and three-sided code of conduct for his own interests is a mockery of the existing film production system, and if investigated deeply, it also implies self-deprecation of Jewish identity.
In the process of industrialization, human beings superficially lose their dependence on nature and their dependence on society, but they are increasingly isolated, lonely, and insecure, with the development of the economy, the pursuit of freedom and wealth has become inevitable, and people have formed a potential competitive relationship between people, and the relationship has gradually become estranged, and while maximizing the potential of tapping, they have experienced pressure from all aspects of society.
The Coen brothers use a variety of video styles, Hitchcock-style suspense and grotesque and bizarre narrative techniques to convey the alienation of human nature in a complex society, Patton's journey to Hollywood to chase dreams is essentially no different from the early Gold Rush in the United States, he does not want to converge on social oppression, but in the face of reality, the original beautiful ideals have shown a completely different look, and Barton's values have been completely subverted.
Barton, Charlie and the writer Bill correspond to different stages of life, Patton's youthful madness, Charlie's midlife crisis and Bill's profligate life have a common vein continuation, and also coincide with the relationship between Freud's original self, self, and superego.
Barton is immersed in the vortex of desire, he is eager to satisfy the self with the self, but driven by desire, he still has a relationship with Bill's secretary Audrey, Audrey's sudden death symbolizes the cruelty of reality, the original self and the self have a fierce struggle, Charlie is the idealist's satan. Once Charlie began to intervene, Patton's self was firmly controlled by Charlie's ego, and Charlie's dictation to Patton was equivalent to the fusion of self and self in Freud's theory, and only when the two coexisted in harmony could people's body and mind develop healthily.
The fact that Charlie in the film kills the policeman and leaves Barton is the process of conflict between the self and the original self, and also shows the pain and struggle that must be experienced from youth to middle age. Bill is the representative of the "year of confusion", as a drunkard writer who is detached from reality, his way of acting out of the normal category, becoming the embodiment of the "superego", foreshadowing Patton's future path. The Coen brothers portray Bill as an object of worship admiration by thousands of people, but the camera turns around and points out that behind his great achievements is the credit of Audrey, the "shadow writer", subverting the blind sense of recognition of value worship in the traditional sense. This is a good explanation for Bill's state of borrowing wine to dispel his sorrows, and the celebrities with false appearances abound in modern society, which is probably the result of alienation under the dual oppression of freedom and desire.
Even in old age, Bill's muddled state has not been able to break free from the shackles of the superego, and has turned "living in peace" into "vain life", the Coen brothers use a pessimistic presentation to express their despair about the later years of life, once they lose the pursuit of writing in their hearts, just like the eagle that spreads its wings and flies is locked in a cage, can no longer find the place to soar, and loses the meaning of life.
The thorough analysis of human nature and the brain-burning expression constitute two indispensable elements in the Coen brothers' films, the philosopher Schopenhauer once said that "life is painful, so each life uses his unique way to prove the reality of the world", Patton's redemption of the self is the true portrayal of existentialism, in Cohen's films, the ultimate concern for human beings, the collapse of humanity, the selfishness and helplessness of humanity are just like an existential lament of life, and it is precisely because of the existence of anxiety and fear that redemption and liberation appear profound.
Patton's plight and redemption is a manifestation of the existentialism of this film, why is he blamed? Is the real meaning of a screenwriter creative or obedient? What kind of salvation does he use to achieve inner and outer balance? Rise to the philosophical level is existence real or illusory? The Coen brothers open-endedly discuss the relationship between existence and nothingness with a polysexual ending, and a thousand viewers will have a thousand Hamlets.
The interpretation of Barton's existentialism is reflected in many of the Coen brothers' works, the meaning of the discussion is "the ultimate purpose and meaning of existence", drawing raw materials and nutrients from life to sublimate art is the Coen brothers' habitual creative means, "The Three Kings of Prison Escape" takes the traditional masterpiece "Othello" as the framework of the context, the three people who escaped from prison become cousins in their sleep to sell for money; in "Money Empire", college graduate Norwell is reduced to a tool for the company's top management to compete for huge assets; in "Burn After Reading", Linda and Brand break into the embassy to betray intelligence, but are ruthlessly refused; in "Serious Man", Professor Punick's happy family is thrown into chaos due to sudden troubles, and even the god of faith does not get him out of his predicament. Cohen likes to use illusions and symbolism to express the helplessness of reality and the height of ideals in specific situational scenes. Each character seeks a channel and a way to break through in the dilemma of disharmony, completing the liberation and redemption of the self.
Anti-typification and anti-heroism avoid the coherence of existentialism, from Barton's ending, the waves crashing into the reef, the beautiful woman in the hotel painting talking to Patton vividly, she looks at the endless sea, life from the unreal to the real world, and returns to endless nothingness. Each person's life is a unique life experience, redemption and liberation vary from person to person, and the process of effort interprets the meaning of life. As Sartre concludes with an existential conclusion at the end: "All men have similar non-true natures, act according to bad beliefs, play tricks on the scene, and try to cover up their true personality with superficial things."
The script of "Barton Fink" took three weeks, and the shooting took eight weeks, if it were not for the mastery of the film's expression methods, the nuanced observation of human nature, and the deep thinking of existentialism, I am afraid that they would not have said that "some movies are very complete in the mind, we seem to be burping, and "Barton Fink" came out."