MYST #3: Barton Fink

There's a scene in Barton Fink where the titular character walks in to the eerie Hotel Earle. A ray of light, shining somewhere from above, casts a thin glow on the dust swirling in the air. The grandiose main hall rests devoid of life and blanketed in silence; it seems as if it's been that way for a long time. When Barton rings a bell to summon a hotel employee, it seems that no one will come, until the bellhop emerges from a trapdoor hidden behind the desk. Suddenly, there are two human beings in this hall. It feels strange, and it begs questions. Why is this hall so empty? What makes it so deeply unsettling? Both questions seem to imply that there is a lot more to Barton Fink than it seems to offer at face value. And indeed, Barton's and the audience's confusion is only rewarded with layer upon layer of bizarre occurrences that make Barton Fink a fearsome and darkly comical journey into the anguish and frustration of a struggling writer's mind.
Directed by the Coen Brothers, Barton Fink follows the aforementioned Barton (John Turturro; neither his first nor his last Coen film), a neurotic and idealistic playwright who has recently been compelled into writing for the movies. After arriving in Hollywood and settling down in the Hotel Earle, Fink meets with Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner), who confesses his unremitted adoration for the man and his talents. He assigns Fink the task of writing a boxing film, and despite Lipnick's apparent confidence in his talents, Fink himself seems to be succumbing to writer's block. He spends the next few days sitting in front of his typewriter, and stares at the same paragraph for what seems like hours. A mosquito buzzing around the room begins to bother him. Fink's neighbor, Charlie Meadows (John Goodman; not his only Coen film either), also proves bothersome, as he's making quite a bit of noise through the hotel's thin walls. However, through circumstance, Fink soon becomes acquainted with Charlie, who is Fink's symbol of the "struggling everyman", selling insurance and, as Charlie puts it, a "peace of mind", Finding that he's found one friend in unforgiving Hollywood, Fink shares his passion with Charlie, explaining that he doesn't write to separate himself from the "common man", but to support him (which ends up sounding thoroughly pretentious). However, despite his passion shining through more than ever, Fink finds he still cannot write. He consults one of his favorite writers (John Mahoney)- who turns out to be a hopeless drunk- and his wife, for advice, and yet he still can't bring himself to write. Only after Fink becomes inexplicably involved in a murder does he seem capable of writing anything, regardless of his rapidly deteriorating mental state.
Barton Fink is a film that flourishes off of subtle uneasiness and anxiety; it's tone consistently matches the increasingly disturbed mind of it's main character and the freakish occurrences around him. As Barton says himself, "I've always found that writing comes from a great inner pain." And it certainly seems that way. He pains at the writing in front of him while the mosquito flies around the room, dominating his thoughts, and the room's wallpaper slowly peels off from the astounding heat. His room becomes his prison, with the movie script as his charge, and as Fink slowly slips further inside himself, so too does the movie slip from a tale of Barton's writer's block to a tale of Barton's psychotic horror thriller excursion (really, I can't describe it any other way) into hell on Earth, a.k.a, his mind and his vision of Hollywood. So, I guess I'd say that Barton Fink is a film that focuses on subtleties... until it doesn't, and decides to dive further into the "life of the mind", as one character states it, than was initially assumed. However, I don't necessarily view this as a fault. This film is, and always has been, about Barton's mind, which has the infallible ability to create. It is Barton's gift, so to speak. It is exactly the influence that outside forces have on this gift that Barton Fink decides to provide commentary on, and if it's necessary to push the film into an even more bizarre realm than where it began to present such commentary, then so be it.
From the unsettling hallway of the Hotel Earle (which is shot in what seems to be a direct reference to Kubrick and The Shining, a film that's also about a writer losing his mind), with archways that seem to stretch on into infinity, to the colorful and atypical characters that surround Barton, and, of course, the incessantly peeling wallpaper, it becomes steadily apparent that the Coens have put a great amount of effort into sucking the audience into a world that is, at first, just left of normal. It features all the common elements of their greats: the slow, silent shots of nothingness featured in No Country for Old Men, the dark and parodical humor of Fargo, and even the stunning and disturbing bouts of violence in Blood Simple. Through the combination of these cinematic elements, Barton Fink becomes a film to give oneself to; to become enraptured within the oddball world the Coens have created. It's probably their most surreal creation, and I believe that it thoroughly paid off.

Acting is altogether exceptional. Turturro does a fantastic job as a snobbish and idealistic writer slowly being destroyed by Hollywood. Goodman, on the other hand, is more akin to something sublime. Portraying an innocent simplemindedness obscuring a terrifyingly psychotic personality, Goodman seems to make the scenes he's displayed in. Much like his character of Walter Sobchak in another Coen film, The Big Lebowski, Goodman's Charlie Meadows is loud-mouthed, proud, and in more ways than one, completely mental. Other great performances include Michael Lerner as Lipnick, who earned an Oscar nod for his performance (robbing Goodman of his, in my opinion), and, interestingly enough, Tony Shalhoub (known for Monk) as a scummy and disrespectful producer. Performances from Judy Davis and a very small role for Jon Polito are also added to the mix, and both do well with the script the Coens have given them. In fact, it seems, everyone does well with the script, which gives such zany life to all of the characters that all actors involved seem to be fully invested in their roles. They don't act them; they embody them. And just like Barton, with a little help from the Coens, we may slip inside some of their minds.

Barton Fink is a story of solitude, brought about by the things we love to do, no matter how much pain they may cause us. It's a cautionary tale about the perils of young and naive idealism, and the effects Hollywood may have on this mindset. It's a self-aware indictment of the writers who dream to change Hollywood with their works, and of those who stranglehold the writers into performing tasks that may be impossible. Barton may himself be a subtle poke at the Coens' own Hollywood underpinnings; and then, like him, they are guilty of having their own foolish ambitions. But then, so too is Hollywood guilty of driving Barton into a corner, crushing his ambitions and taking everything he has. He is mentally torn apart. And as his world falls apart, the wallpaper peeling away like the decaying of his mind, the viewer is slowly projected into a hellish dreamscape. Whether anything is real or not, it doesn't matter; by the end,  Barton Fink has made sure the audience is as scrambled and disturbed as Barton. Check in to the Hotel Earle again, and it will lead you into the world of the mind once more. Thoroughly introspective, thought-provoking, surrealistic, and including a deep wit, Barton Fink represents a profound success of cinema.

Four Creepy-as-Hell Hotel Hallways out of Four:

,

Original Trailer:

MYST #2: American History X

American History X is an anomaly. It's a movie that demands to be controversial, to make its audiences squirm and recoil at its brutality. It wants a clear, defining message to carry it's viewers through to the end, and it has one. It wants to make a connection; to get film-goers to explore its characters and understand their nuances, if they happen to have any. So is such ambition met in driving for these goals? No. But it does come incredibly close, on occasion.
The story of American History X tells of Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton), a young man who, after his father is murdered by a black drug dealer, eventually transforms into a neo-nazi skinhead driven by hatred. As found out through various flashbacks, Derek spends his few years after high school building up his name, and his legacy, as a white supremacist. As Derek grows increasingly violent, so too does Derek's brother, Danny (Edward Furlong), who is often said to idolize him. When Derek is sent to prison for the manslaughter of three black men who had been attempting to steal the family car, Danny is left to fend for himself with the values his brother has instilled in him, leading to a variety of school-related issues. Three years later, when Derek is released, he has miraculously reformed and quickly finds out the extent to which his brother is following in his footsteps. Desperate to eliminate the legacy he has left on his family, Derek does what he can to reform his brother before the consequences of his actions become permanent.
I admire American History X simply for its bravery and good intentions; few films attack issues like Nazism and hate crimes unless they're based on true events. A movie like Schindler's List tackles human abomination like few other films can, but is also firmly cemented in reality. American History X is also cemented in reality, but it isn't real. Of course, the points at which the movie is most effective is when the audience realizes that, in a way, it is real. Derek is not merely the figment of a writer's imagination, but is a symbol of a problem that still unequivocally exists. And Derek's reformation, brought about by a reversal of his values through traumatic prison experiences, is what brings his character beyond just a symbol. His inevitable journey is what makes him into a human being, vulnerable to the problems that plague him and formerly destined to blame these problems on the wrong issues. In transforming a mere monster into a human being, the film is able to portray the startlingly real effect of Derek's legacy upon his brother and his family.
The issue is that a character like Derek, with a well-written arc and an amazing talent like Norton behind him (Norton got an Oscar nod for his role, deservedly), needs someone to reflect his amount of complexity. Furlong, of Terminator 2 fame, is in no way a bad actor. The issue is the script he's been given, which offers him no freedoms or depth of character. It's impossible to tell what Danny Vinyard actually believes in, whether he's hopelessly devoted to the white supremacy cause or simply stuck in the middle. He never gives opinions or exposes his psyche in any way; when he eventually provides a moral dilemma to the audience, in which he explains that he could have testified against his brother to put him away for life, the thought is thrown away in a millisecond. Similarly, after hearing Derek tell of his three years in prison and his moral transformation, Danny knows how to end a school essay he's writing about his brother, in which he defines his revelation about the world. But the odd part is that the audience doesn't know if this is actually a revelation for Danny, because essentially nothing is known about him. He hangs out with skinheads, but the viewer doesn't know if he is actually a skinhead. He writes a version of Mein Kampf for an English essay, but the viewer doesn't know if he actually meant it out of ill will. The only reason the viewer is aware, in any way, that Danny Vinyard is, in fact, following in the footsteps of his brother, is because it's directly told, several times, by other characters. He may be hanging out with the wrong people, but there seems to be no evidence, based on character alone, that points to his moral corruption. He merely exists off of the words of others.
In this way, some of American History X's exploration of the hollowness of hate becomes hollow itself, delivered by a character that we have no reason to believe came to some sort of epiphany about the human condition, especially when it comes a day after Derek's return. In a movie that seems so unafraid to chronicle events that might make audiences uncomfortable, it's a profound disappointment that the film can't achieve the raw power it was intending due to poor writing. What a viewer has to put up with, then, is a film that is altogether good, but full of great moments. Derek Vinyard's violent past, presented entirely in black in white, is unflinchingly brutal in its direction, giving some of the most chilling shots and close-ups I've seen in quite a while. After shooting the three black men who were attempting to break into his car, Derek is shown facing his brother on the lawn, waiting to be arrested. He spreads his arms like a triumphant eagle, gun still in hand, the victory on his face present and haughty, the Nazi tattoo on his chest seemingly growing larger within the frame . As he kneels down and puts his hands to his head, the camera finally zooms in on the telling smile. Derek opens his eyes wide for his brother and raises his eyebrows, as if he should look upon the glory of the acts just committed. Accompanied by a high-pitched choir that could very well be singing about the depths of hell, the scene seems to contrast a poetic subtext with the pure monstrosity that exists in front of it. But that monstrosity is, of course, a human being. We hate to acknowledge it. And I hate to call such a scene beautiful, but in a morbid, truly disgusting way, it really is.
American History X is full of these fantastic moments, unafraid to explore the nature of human brutality. There exists a very human desire in all of us to seek out the panacea to our problems. Often, we mistake the panacea as the blaming of others, taking the weight of the problem off of our shoulders in order to throw it on someone else. There is always a scapegoat, and always a reason to despise the origin of our problems, whether this origin actually exists or not. Sometimes it's easier to blame than to solve the problem. Derek was an incredibly intelligent high-schooler who couldn't find the answers behind his father's death. He needed someone to blame. And soon enough, his hatred became so immense that he needed entire races to blame. One person was not enough. And just like baggage, as the movie compares it to, the hatred only mounts until the ceaselessly large tower collapses an entire life.
Now, I know it sounded like I was trying my best to criticize the movie initially, but the fact of the matter is that the film's successes far outweigh it's shortcomings. I do think it's final message is a gross simplification of a complex issue, and many of it's characters feel secondary to the point of pointlessness, but the film's strengths come through in pieces. The film doesn't have an all-encompassing feeling of power (thanks to it's flaws), but instead is composed of singular pieces of fantastic film-making that don't necessarily comprise a whole. I suppose what I'm trying to say is: the individual pieces of the film that stand out create a much more complex picture of hatred and prejudice in America than the film's final statement does. The film doesn't need to condemn itself to one message like it so worthlessly decides to; viewers are intelligent, and they should be respected as such. Let each person pull out what they will from the film. As far as I know, painters don't plaster a sentence describing what their artwork is about across the canvas. So why should films be guilty of such a sin?

American History X is a film that either succeeds at being powerful, or succeeds at trying to be powerful. Only occasionally does it fail entirely. Whichever way one may see it, it's undeniably compelling and has some truly mind shattering moments; I guarantee that jaws will drop at one scene or another, no matter the person. Despite it's glaring flaws when viewing the larger picture, it's individual studies of American brutality and the legacy it leaves behind are stunning and beautifully directed. While I believe it should have been at least a half an hour longer to develop some of the messages it was clearly going for (and to explain, in a much less cursory fashion, why the ending even happens), I can't say I was never somewhat enthralled through those two hours. With that, I give American History X:

3 stars out of 4 (probably not appropriate to make a joke about this one... so I'm just not going to)

Original Trailer:

Formal Film Study: David Lynch- Dream Weaver (or, "I Believe You Can Get Me Through the Night")

WARNING (again): There are no plot spoilers in this study, because I don't think it's entirely possible to give spoilers for these movies. It just isn't. But I have given some of my interpretations of the films, so if you like figuring out abstract or confusing films on your own, I suggest you watch the films first. 

There's always a moment, upon waking up from a dream, when a dreamer raises their head from deep sleep, sees the familiar room around them and feels the solid bed beneath, and yet can't quite perceive when their reality began and their dream ended. There's no abrupt transition from dream to reality, but instead a steady grasping of the world around us, and a realization that what we had just dreamed was impossibly bizarre. Even the day following a dream can continue to feel strange as we struggle to comprehend the mysteries of our subconscious minds, and try to make sense of the experiences within that felt so real.

Often, the struggle is futile. After watching three David Lynch films and attempting to comprehend them plot wise, I've found that it's simply impossible. There are no definitive answers, no tidy resolutions, and in many cases, no coherence. I feel like I've woken up from three nightmares, each movie serving as a beautiful and simultaneously hideous excursion into raw subconscious, where there's a blurred line between normal and abnormal, between truth and fiction, between reality and imagination. Lynch's "Mulholland Drive", as well as "Lost Highway" and "Blue Velvet", embrace this veiled line, where nightmares clash with reality in swirling mysteries beyond comprehension, where the power comes from what is felt by the viewer, and not necessarily what is understood.

Pictured: The most terrifying cowboy in cinema history
(seriously, look up a clip if you don't believe me) from
Mulholland Drive

As a good starting example, I won't pretend I know what the hell's going on in Mulholland Drive, at least in a literal sense. The basic premise follows a young woman (Laura Harring) involved in a car crash who, rendered amnesiac, wanders into a random apartment and ends up meeting another young woman, Betty (Naomi Watts), who has just moved to Hollywood searching for fame and stardom. The amnesiac takes on the name of Rita (thanks to a Rita Hayworth poster), and eventually, her and Betty begin searching for clues to find out Rita's true identity. That is, until the movie decides to throw in several other story lines, and all logic or straightforwardness is lost. Cue: a director is threatened by mysterious executives, and the most terrifying cowboy in cinema history, to make a casting decision. A man tortured by his dreams tells of his worst nightmare, only to come face-to-face with it. A hit man blunders his way through an assassination. Plot lines appear and disappear without further explanation. And all the while, Betty and Rita search for answers as their situation slowly gets stranger by the minute.

Pictured: The alien old couple from
Mulholland Drive

Much like a dream, Mulholland Drive enthralls us with what we don't understand. The plot line veers in every direction imaginable, almost to the point of not having a "plot". Does the film have a beginning, middle, and end? It might, but it doesn't need them. Rather, it simply requires the audacity to polarize the audience with its strangeness. And it does, initially. Characters talk in stiff, awkward dialogues and seem to act like they're not even human beings. One character explains how a man lived in an apartment with a prize-fighting kangaroo. "You wouldn't believe what the kangaroo did to this courtyard!" she says. And if that wasn't strange enough, Betty's cohabitants on her flight to Hollywood are briefly shown grinning maniacally while taking a limo ride around town, like two aliens exploring a new planet. The viewer feels, in these initial scenes, as if they've been thrown into a world where they don't belong. But as the movie continues, the viewer begins to hesitate at questioning the bizarre quality of the film, as they have become too drawn in to it's mysteries. The polarizing effect becomes alluring. Possibly, it's because the film hits close to home, exploiting the part of our brains that we can't, and never will, understand. Only in the unconscious world do we become terrified of things in broad daylight: bums, old people, cowboys. Only in the unconscious world do we accept the spontaneous and haphazard "editing" of our thoughts and desires: it's primal, unformed, and illogical. But it fascinates us, makes us question exactly what's real, and horrifies us with the answers we attempt to provide ourselves. Why does a film have to tell us it takes place within a dream if it simply feels like a dream? It is my interpretation that the first half of Mulholland Drive is, in fact, completely a dream, a manifestation of the desires and fears of one very confused character. However, the whole movie is so surreal and twisting that it seems nothing can be definitively determined.

Pictured: Eh, no description required. From Lost Highway

Of course, Mulholland Drive is not the only film that forces a viewer to struggle in determining the nature of Lynch's impenetrable dream-like expeditions, disturbing in their closeness to reality and off-putting in their own indeterminable way. I would argue that Lynch's Lost Highway is possibly even more surreal than Mulholland Drive, telling the story of a saxophonist named Fred (Bill Pullman) who inexplicably murders his wife (Patricia Arquette), is put on death row, and then even more inexplicably transforms into another man entirely named Pete (Balthazar Getty). Pete lives an entirely different life, but falls in love with a woman who seems to be the same person that Fred murdered, except with a different name. Again, it's a movie where pretending to understand what's going on plot-wise is futile. Characters still speak to each other in bizarre dialogue and react to strange situations in unrealistic ways, disconnected from the typical Hollywood reactions of stunned surprise. What really differentiates Lost Highway from Mulholland Drive is its higher penchant for playfulness. Now, don't get me wrong, this movie is thoroughly disturbing, both in it's plain weirdness and in its plot, if picked apart. But Lost Highway, more so than Mulholland Drive, experiments with the darkest fears and desires of our minds, giving us shots of completely abyssal hallways that dwarf and threaten the main characters, all while a slow tracking camera carefully pans around corners to the expectant eye of the viewer. There's some definite Hitchcockian suspense within Lost Highway, a trait that is thoroughly shared within Mulholland Drive (which also has slow panning shots), and thanks to both having a heavy reliance on subtle, droning ambient noise, the suspense becomes particularly noteworthy and surreal. Also, both films seem to share in their explorations of covetous human minds, Mulholland Drive seemingly chronicling the life that a young Hollywood actress wishes she had, and Lost Highway doing the same, except with a murderer and a stronger devotion to making the movie as weird as possible. And with the addition of the "Mystery Man" pictured above, Lynch continues to prove that he can't make a movie without a character straight out of nightmares.

Pictured: Look Ma, I found me a caul-ee-flawher! (yeah, alright,
that was a bad touch) From Blue Velvet

Speaking of weird (really, this whole post is weird. Thanks Lynch!), Lynch's Blue Velvet delivers even more of the head-churning stuff that Lynch fans have learned to crave. The film tells the story of Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan), who comes upon a severed ear while looking through a field one day, albeit, there's a little more to it than that. Eager to investigate (due to a possible morbid curiosity), Jeffrey talks with the local detective, and with the help of the detective's daughter, the two begin investigating on their own, including breaking in to a suspect's home. In this way, the film is similar to Mulholland Drive, portraying a neo-noir-esque investigation story that is at times fascinating, at times funny, and at times pretty brutal. Lighting is really interesting here, either presenting the bright colors of a cliched suburban town or exposing the dark blues and blacks of a world where danger is ever present but lust and desire is the name of the game. As weird as it sounds, Blue Velvet is the only movie out of the three that has a literal plot that actually makes sense. Characters still, much like the other two films, seem to react to situations more emotionally rather than logically, but they never change identities, or have no eyebrows, or have enough powder on their face to take the lead role in Powder (yeah, I just referenced that movie. Oh, the places you'll go). They are, and seem to be, as they are presented. Of course, this doesn't mean that they can't still act in strange ways, and in fact, they still do act as if they are lost in a dream of sorts. The main character shares in the desires of the main characters of Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet, but in a particularly interesting facet. As he witnesses the contrast between his plain suburban life and the colorful and seedy underworld, Jeffrey feels the compulsion to embrace the other world, and in doing so creates a hell on earth for himself and the woman he thinks he's protecting. Like the main characters of Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, Jeffrey has a dream to live another life, but it doesn't seem to work out for him;  in the end, he's back in the boring suburban sphere he started in, but he suddenly seems content with it, unlike the characters in the other two films. It perhaps features the happiest story of the bunch, which is really saying something.

Pictured: Frank from Blue Velvet

But as is custom, Blue Velvet also features the psychopathic Frank, played by Dennis Hopper, a man who swears in every sentence and deals heavily in sadism. Again, it's hard to have a Lynch film without someone like him, but I do think it's for some sort of purpose.
 Not to sound too much like a broken record, but Lynch has himself stated, many times, that he believes feeling is more important than understanding. It's emotion that drives a motion picture. And so we get Mulholland Drive, a nightmarish and noirish expedition into the unconscious Hollywood, filled with queasy, uncertainly slow shots, flashing lights, and a feeling of fear that pervades beyond night; Lost Highway, an indescribable exploration of carnal desires and dissociative identities filled with dark corners, unsettling close-ups, shocking violence, and plenty of eroticism; and Blue Velvet, an intrepid delving into what lies beyond our sterile white fences, filled with muted lighting, tantalizing colors (mostly blue...), and one of the most disturbingly voyeuristic scenes I've ever seen. Really, though, the more I think about it, the more I realize that all three films share in these aforementioned details. All three are undoubtedly an exploration of their characters' desires and plays on memories, but they also all embrace the surrealism of their subject matter through their filming techniques. They all utilize unnerving lighting in some way, whether it be broad daylight or a darkness so impenetrable it seems ready to attack. All of them provide the subtle, but mounting, fear and suspense of a particular ambient soundtrack. And all of them, whether interpreted as taking place in dreams or not, discuss dreams constantly through meta commentary, probably some of my favorite parts from all three films. From Mulholland Drive, character Adam Kesher, the threatened director, responds to a comment remarking "It's been a strange day," by responding "And getting stranger," just as the movie begins to really throw the audience for loops. And from Blue Velvet, Jeffrey's surprisingly self-aware comment of "It's a strange world," is exactly what the audience is thinking, at least in terms of the movie. Considering these movies often don't have characters that react properly to strange situations, as in a dream, the moments when characters break out of this mold and make a comment about how strange things have become is an elegant declaration of reason amidst those lost in a nightmare. Perhaps it was Lynch's way of preventing us, too, from falling into a film from which we may never wake up.