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"Barton Fink" film geekery
Nov. 14th, 2022 09:35 amThis past week Alexx and I rewatched "Barton Fink" (Dir. Coen Brothers, 1991), which is one of my *favorite* movies, and when I say "favorite movies," I mean it is one of those movies which causes me to babble on like the movie geek I can be which, fair warning, this post is all about.
There are many reasons to love "Barton Fink": it's a Coen Brothers film with the usual wonderfully quirky performances, including a really funny/terrifying performance by John Goodman.
The reasons I love this film are 1, it's a movie about making movies in Hollywood and 2, it has one of the most innovative and impressive sound designs of any film, ever. It's the film that made me--and many other people-- really sit up and pay attention to how sound design could become a significant part of the narrative of the film, instead of something tacked on as an after thought.
Regarding this last, if you do an online search for films with the best sound design, "Barton Fink" will show up in the top three almost every time ("Apocalypse Now" often shows up as number one).
Having spent the past week researching and reading about "Barton Fink," I thought I would share some of mthe best resources I found.
"Barton Fink" is a movie about making movies in Hollywood circa 1941, and much of the sense of time and place is taken from books written by writers who were actually writing in Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s. These included many writers such as Raymond Chandler, Nathaniel West, and William Faulkner, who is the basis for W. P. Mayhew. Another book used by the Coens was Otto Freidrich's City of Nets, about German expatriates living in Hollywood in the 1940s. An astounding amount of the dialogue and some of the character details are taken from these books.
The most complete exploration of the literary influences of "Barton Fink" I found is
"Barton Fink: ‘For the Common Man’" in _The Cinema of the Coen Brothers_ by Jeffrey Adams (2015, Columbia University Press) (available on Bookshare.org)
Online resources which provide a similar exploration but which is not quite as extensive are
15 Fiery Facts About 'Barton Fink' | Mental Floss
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67383/15-fiery-facts-about-barton-fink
and
How the Sausage Gets Made: Inside the Hollywood Film Industry in Barton Fink and Hail, Caesar! by M. Keith Booker
https://bookerhorror.com/how-the-sausage-gets-made-inside-the-hollywood-film-industry-in-barton-fink-and-hail-caesar/
(this article can also be found in _The Coen Brothers' America_ (2019) by M. Keith Booker)
If you are interested in film sound, the ultimate online resource is
FilmSound.org: dedicated to the Art of Film Sound Design & Film Sound Theory
http://www.filmsound.org/
The following article provides a basic introduction to what sound design is and what a sound editor does, and then gets into exploring the sound design of "Barton Fink."
When Sound Is a Character
By Judith Shulevitz
Aug. 18, 1991
Posted online at
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/18/movies/film-when-sound-is-a-character.html
This is an academic article which is part of a journal issue on sound design in film
Barton Fink: Atmospheric Sounds of the Creative Mind
Sound Practices of the Coen Brothers
by Randall Barnes
https://offscreen.com/view/barnes_bartonfink
As I said, "Barton Fink" shows up on most links of best film sound design, and here is a great example:
The Films That Influenced a Sound Design Master
https://www.filmmakeru.com/blog/the-films-that-influenced-a-sound-design-master
"Barton Fink" is filled with many small but anxiety-producing details, and one of these is the motif of the shoes. We always see empty shoes, but never the people they belong to. This reminded me of folklore associated with shoes and death, but also of concentration camp pictures of piles of shoes ("Barton Fink" has other references to World War 2 and fascism).
Folklore abounds with stories of shoes and the dead. In times past, it was thought worthy to make a gift of a pair of new shoes to a poor person at least once in a lifetime. The belief was that, in the afterlife, the person would have to cross barefoot surfaces of thorns and gorse. If one had given shoes to a poor person during life, an old man at the beginning of one's journey would meet one with the same shoes to travel over the thorns without scratch or scale.
This belief is most memorably and creepily covered in
the Lyke Wake Dirge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgr65_MPVEo&ab_channel=stewuk
Old boots and shoes are commonly found in cemeteries as gravesite remembrances. From Canada to New Orleans modern finds of shoes of various styles have been found draped across and or surrounding grave sides. According to Heck and Heck, the modern practice was inspired by Canadian songwriter Felix Leclerc’s (1914 – 1988) song, “Moi, Mes Souliers” (Me, My Shoes).
foot talk: Dead Men’s Shoes : A brief history of funereal footwear and toe pointing
http://foottalk.blogspot.com/2020/06/dead-mens-shoes-brief-history-of.html
and here are some more pictures and folklore about shoes and the dead, especially in New Orleans
https://diggirl.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/565/
the infamous "Paul is dead" conspiracy theory, when Paul McCartney was pictured not wearing shoes on the album cover of "Abbey Road."
http://feetshoesandsuperstition.blogspot.com/2008/10/feet-shoes-and-superstition-dead-mens.html
There are many reasons to love "Barton Fink": it's a Coen Brothers film with the usual wonderfully quirky performances, including a really funny/terrifying performance by John Goodman.
The reasons I love this film are 1, it's a movie about making movies in Hollywood and 2, it has one of the most innovative and impressive sound designs of any film, ever. It's the film that made me--and many other people-- really sit up and pay attention to how sound design could become a significant part of the narrative of the film, instead of something tacked on as an after thought.
Regarding this last, if you do an online search for films with the best sound design, "Barton Fink" will show up in the top three almost every time ("Apocalypse Now" often shows up as number one).
Having spent the past week researching and reading about "Barton Fink," I thought I would share some of mthe best resources I found.
"Barton Fink" is a movie about making movies in Hollywood circa 1941, and much of the sense of time and place is taken from books written by writers who were actually writing in Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s. These included many writers such as Raymond Chandler, Nathaniel West, and William Faulkner, who is the basis for W. P. Mayhew. Another book used by the Coens was Otto Freidrich's City of Nets, about German expatriates living in Hollywood in the 1940s. An astounding amount of the dialogue and some of the character details are taken from these books.
The most complete exploration of the literary influences of "Barton Fink" I found is
"Barton Fink: ‘For the Common Man’" in _The Cinema of the Coen Brothers_ by Jeffrey Adams (2015, Columbia University Press) (available on Bookshare.org)
Online resources which provide a similar exploration but which is not quite as extensive are
15 Fiery Facts About 'Barton Fink' | Mental Floss
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67383/15-fiery-facts-about-barton-fink
and
How the Sausage Gets Made: Inside the Hollywood Film Industry in Barton Fink and Hail, Caesar! by M. Keith Booker
https://bookerhorror.com/how-the-sausage-gets-made-inside-the-hollywood-film-industry-in-barton-fink-and-hail-caesar/
(this article can also be found in _The Coen Brothers' America_ (2019) by M. Keith Booker)
If you are interested in film sound, the ultimate online resource is
FilmSound.org: dedicated to the Art of Film Sound Design & Film Sound Theory
http://www.filmsound.org/
The following article provides a basic introduction to what sound design is and what a sound editor does, and then gets into exploring the sound design of "Barton Fink."
When Sound Is a Character
By Judith Shulevitz
Aug. 18, 1991
Posted online at
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/18/movies/film-when-sound-is-a-character.html
This is an academic article which is part of a journal issue on sound design in film
Barton Fink: Atmospheric Sounds of the Creative Mind
Sound Practices of the Coen Brothers
by Randall Barnes
https://offscreen.com/view/barnes_bartonfink
As I said, "Barton Fink" shows up on most links of best film sound design, and here is a great example:
The Films That Influenced a Sound Design Master
https://www.filmmakeru.com/blog/the-films-that-influenced-a-sound-design-master
"Barton Fink" is filled with many small but anxiety-producing details, and one of these is the motif of the shoes. We always see empty shoes, but never the people they belong to. This reminded me of folklore associated with shoes and death, but also of concentration camp pictures of piles of shoes ("Barton Fink" has other references to World War 2 and fascism).
Folklore abounds with stories of shoes and the dead. In times past, it was thought worthy to make a gift of a pair of new shoes to a poor person at least once in a lifetime. The belief was that, in the afterlife, the person would have to cross barefoot surfaces of thorns and gorse. If one had given shoes to a poor person during life, an old man at the beginning of one's journey would meet one with the same shoes to travel over the thorns without scratch or scale.
This belief is most memorably and creepily covered in
the Lyke Wake Dirge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgr65_MPVEo&ab_channel=stewuk
Old boots and shoes are commonly found in cemeteries as gravesite remembrances. From Canada to New Orleans modern finds of shoes of various styles have been found draped across and or surrounding grave sides. According to Heck and Heck, the modern practice was inspired by Canadian songwriter Felix Leclerc’s (1914 – 1988) song, “Moi, Mes Souliers” (Me, My Shoes).
foot talk: Dead Men’s Shoes : A brief history of funereal footwear and toe pointing
http://foottalk.blogspot.com/2020/06/dead-mens-shoes-brief-history-of.html
and here are some more pictures and folklore about shoes and the dead, especially in New Orleans
https://diggirl.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/565/
the infamous "Paul is dead" conspiracy theory, when Paul McCartney was pictured not wearing shoes on the album cover of "Abbey Road."
http://feetshoesandsuperstition.blogspot.com/2008/10/feet-shoes-and-superstition-dead-mens.html
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