For me, both of these movies were intriguing (and ultimately irritating) because of the multitude of possible interpretations, no single one of which was very compelling or satisfying (I am still open to a hard sell). I mean, I appreciate that movies can be lifelike in that there is no ultimate, coherent explanation, but it seems to me that a piece of art should have a very strong vision behind it — the artist should know what she's about (that, to me, is the difference between Masterpiece Theater and Reality TV)— and if the vision is that this thing is "unknowable" or "incomprehensible," then I think that is perfectly fine but the artist shouldn't really dangle a bunch of competing visions in the mix.
"Fink" struck me as a deliberately insoluble mystery that gave you the illusion of almost making sense, if you could just find the key, but as with "Picnic at Hanging Rock," I suspect there is no key.
"Exotica," by contrast, was a mystery to me in the end, but not one that seemed essentially insoluble or troubling, maybe because I found the message of compassion and empathy at the end so profound that I didn't feel like I was being teased to find a lost key to all the clues.
What do you think?
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7 comments:
One big difference I see between Picnic and Barton Fink is that Picnic seemed to, as you put it, dangle competing visions. I didn't see that in Barton Fink.
You think there was one cohesive explanation by which to make sense of the whole film? What do you think it was?
I was reading the other day that the Coen brothers have been silent on the film's meaning, which I find sort of aggravating. I don't think there's anything lowly about telling people what a piece of art you created meant to you. I think you SHOULD be able to articulate it precisely, which doesn't mean that it can't mean something else to a viewer too. But I tend to think that saying something has many meanings is another way of saying it has no meaning.
Yeah, there's no harm in revealing what they had in mind when they wrote it, assuming they had something in mind.
I don't know if this is what Ben is talking about or not, but I thought of "Picnic" as giving more clues along the way, as if you could piece together the mystery if you could just line up all the little bits of evidence. And in "Barton Fink," it seemed like it was all absurd and surreal and there were no clues to the mystery.
Well, not to repart the folds that make up "Picnic," but I was satisfied that regardless of the cause, the missing women were emancipated out of the suffocating lives they led. Deservedly so? Don't know. But I felt there was resolution.
Barton Fink is on his way down. He's tied up by contract, cripped from writing, has a good idea of what horror he's got in that case and yet can't let go of his "muse." I thought there was a telling line early in the film when Fink's agent reassured him, "The little people will still be here when you get back."
I doubt that would be true when he's freed from Hollywood hell.
Kc and Erin, could you say a bit more about this sense of unresolved “mystery” you feel about “Barton Fink”? I don’t feel that way at all. Now there are certainly almost endless allegories to be drawn from the film—is this where you find the mystery?
I think the Coens like to fuck with the media. The opening screen on “Fargo” says that it is based on a true story. It isn’t. When a newspaper put out an article to that effect, the Coens sent a deadpan letter proclaiming that they were shocked that they had been misled like that and that the responsible party had been promptly fired. I’m sure there is a lot they could say about about “Fink”, but it isn’t really their style to do so. And if they did, you should wonder if you ought to believe it.
I simply meant that I have not come up with a single explanation of this film that satisfies me, much less multiple ones, which, I grant, would be possible. I see the different readings of it people have, but I haven't seen one or come up with one that really convinces me, that really ties up all that happens in the movie. For example, a theory that Barton has gone mad makes some sense to me, but it doesn't explain everything. A theory that it's a Heaven/Hell allegory explains a lot, but not everything. Is the fire real? Was Audrey murdered in the bed without Barton knowing? Is Charlie supernatural? Is he real? Did Barton just imagine him and everyone else from being a little stir crazy in the hotel? Is Meadows one facet of Barton's own mind? Why does Audrey want Barton sexually? It just seems like there's a whole lot going on that I can't reconcile with other stuff that goes on.
I had the same experience with David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" (another film about Hollywood!)I was like, I think I love this movie but I have no idea what it's about. Then I read a fantastic interpretation of it on Salon — that it's really just a vision, a dream of how a life was supposed to be vs. the dark, dark thing it was in reality — and the whole damn movie made perfect sense for me from beginning to end. There were clues and there was a key.
But with BF, I feel like there are clues and no key; rather, just the tease of a key.
But tell me what you think.
Erin articulated accurately what I meant.
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