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{"id":1105,"date":"2009-05-10T05:15:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-10T05:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2009\/05\/1105\/"},"modified":"2009-05-10T05:15:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-10T05:15:00","slug":"1105","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2009\/05\/1105.html","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u201cTHANKS FOR YOUR HEART, BART.\u201d<\/strong> I loved Barton Fink <\/em>from the very first shot, where the yellow(ed) wallpaper becomes the site of horror. Here are some thoughts on why this movie completely works for me in every moment (whereas The Big Lebowski<\/i>, for example, is smarter and perhaps more essential, yet sloppier\u2013they\u2019re both totally awesome).<\/p>\n

First of all, Sean Collins is right as usual in saying that this is a horror movie<\/a>. In fact, it\u2019s very close to an exercise in writing \u201cIf the movie of The Shining<\/i> were funny.\u201d It\u2019s also a horror-comedy beating up on the idea that art is ethics, which is intensely awesome and right. Sean\u2019s review is fantastic and touches on several aspects I don\u2019t talk about here. I don\u2019t think I disagree with anything he says.<\/p>\n

The hotel wallpaper is such a great starting image, basically because it\u2019s not<\/i> what Sean calls the \u201cmonumental\u201d horror image<\/a>, something there which shouldn\u2019t be there\u2013think of the twin girls in The Shining<\/i>, or the wicker man in eponymous. (Argh, it\u2019s been years since I read Sean\u2019s fantastic essay, so if he incorporates this concept I apologize.) Instead, the horror of the wallpaper is the horror of something which really should be there in a cultural or ordinary-experience sense, something expected\u2026 and yet, in some other, emotional or metaphysical sense, still shouldn\u2019t<\/i>\u2013something which still isn\u2019t right. The normal course of the world is<\/i> disruption.<\/p>\n

And there are tons of other horror motifs throughout the movie\u2013the use of music and sound effects, for example, is totally horror, and so is the hideous sticky dew of the peeling wallpaper. And in some sense you can say that the whole point of the movie is that even if you think you might be in a satire\u2013and how awful is that<\/i>, as a realization?\u2013it\u2019s still even worse, because you\u2019re really in a horror flick. That I think is a fairly profound statement; and true.<\/p>\n

More stuff about this movie\u2026. I realize that I\u2019m basically not rational about it, because it happened to employ one very specific symbol which shook my heart. Barton is a NYC playwright who gets hijacked by Hollywood. He checks into an adorably stereotypical hotel, with outlandish jungle palms and a knowing desk clerk and a duelling-scarred elevator man. (I really liked how this movie employed stereotypes without ever considering itself superior to them. Cliches are fun<\/i>\u2026 and not random; they hook into some real anxieties here, even while being desperately overdone.) He goes up to his room. He sits down at his typewriter. He looks up.<\/p>\n

And then he sees this photograph.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a picture of a pretty young lady sitting on a beach, looking out at the sea.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t even tell you what this thing means to me. It is so close<\/i> to my own personal map of longing, of what George Orwell in 1984<\/i> calls \u201cthe Golden Country\u201d\u2026 of the shores of Sans-Souci. It\u2019s what King Haggard means in The Last Unicorn<\/i> when he says, about unicorns, \u201cThe first time I saw them, I thought I was going to die.\u201d<\/p>\n

The moment I saw that photo I pretty much knew I was in thrall to this movie. And in fact, that photo turns out to be really important, used in really smart and complex thematic ways. (Check it out in the final scenes with Charlie Meadows, for example\u2013his head is right up against the picture frame. And of course the finale uses this photo in a way I loved, even though I don\u2019t really understand it.)<\/p>\n

There are probably other things I could say. I loved the exploration of a specifically left-wing Jewish horror, in which art-as-ethics suffered three distinct defeats: <\/p>\n

1) The ethical artist really doesn\u2019t listen; his art is self-absorption. (This is really explicit in the text\u2013\u201cI could tell you stories,\u201d Charlie says at least three times, but Barton never asks about them; \u201cYou don\u2019t listen!\u201d Charlie yells, at last. If the movie weren\u2019t funny this would come off as really heavy-handed, but I think the charming presentation and silly physicality\u2013pus dripping from cotton-swabbed ears\u2013makes it totally work. Plus the fact that the alternative presented, art-as-escapism, is equally awful!)<\/p>\n

2) There are times when we experience moral vertigo, when \u201cthe right thing to do\u201d is unclear, estranged, and horrifically far away. (This, and the point below, are I think big parts of why the \u201cBill Mayhew\u201d\/Faulkner cliche-fest is important.)<\/p>\n

3) And after that, even when we regain some sense of morals, we still must confront radical evil\u2013a kind of evil which makes all the talk of ethics ring hollow, where the question isn\u2019t, \u201cWhat do I do now in order to be human?\u201d but, \u201cWhy should I keep trying to be human, or to be anything at all?\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, it\u2019s funny. So nu, not as funny as The Big Lebowski<\/i> (\u201cSay what you like about National Socialism\u2013at least it\u2019s an ethos!\u201d)\u2026 but still a good time at the popcorn house. And your laughter grants the movie its authority.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"