The fire seems more like an afterthought in a place that was already hellish from its inception. The hallway of the Earle’s sixth floor has always been an ominous entity, with its nauseating brown-and-green walls and its emptiness suggesting the presence of guests that are never there. As Barton leaves the Earle for good, he turns around to catch a glimpse of his former friend Charlie entering his own room, perfectly at home inside the flaming hotel.Īll elements conspire to make this scene which is little more than 5 minutes long a terrifying piece of cinema.
BARTON FINK POLICE FREE
For a second, it looks as though Karl is going to murder Barton, but all he does is free him from his constraints. He teases Barton about having dropped by to “visit” his parents and his Uncle Maury in New York, and finalizes his speech by declaring that the contents of the mysterious package he left behind aren’t his: they are all Barton’s. Karl scolds Fink for his inability to listen and his tourist-like approach to the world of the working class.
Then, he turns to Barton, handcuffed to his bed by the two detectives who believe him to be at least an accomplice in Audrey's murder. Shotgun in hand, he charges the two policemen while repeatedly screaming “I’ll show you the life of the mind!” He kills them both, one of them after uttering a dubious “Heil, Hitler” - either a reference to the cops’ blatant antisemitism or to Mundt’s own Nazi sympathies.
BARTON FINK POLICE FULL
The entirety of Barton Fink is a build-up of tension that finally culminates in the movie’s most memorable moment: the hallway scene, in which Charlie, now in full Karl Mundt form, storms through the sixth floor of the Earle as the hotel erupts into flames. But that sure won’t stop him from being a friend. Fink doesn’t listen to anything he has to say, no matter how much he claims to be interested in the plights of the common man? Yes, it definitely does. Fink’s door to listen to his endless ramblings about the hardships of being a writer. Friendly, cheerful, and an Average Joe through and through, Charlie quickly takes to Barton after the two have a minor disagreement about excessive noise. In the other corner, we have Charlie Meadows ( John Goodman), a self-proclaimed insurance salesman that lives next door to Barton at the Earle. Motivated by the promise of making a quick buck, Barton moves to Los Angeles and takes up a room at the Earle, a run-down hotel that he hopes will keep him close to the Average Joes that he uses as subjects for his plays. A playwright from 1940s New York, Barton is invited to write for the movies after his first play, a Death of a Salesman-like take on the American dream and the troubles of the working class, becomes a critical and box-office hit on Broadway.
The question is: whose mind is it? In one corner, we have the titular Barton Fink, played by a somewhat adorkable John Turturro. One of the earliest additions to the Coen Brothers’ extensive body of work, Barton Fink is a film that can be described as taking place inside the mind of a single man.
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