After some success on Broadway, New York playwright Barton Fink (John Turturro) moves to Hollywood to make it big as a screenwriter for Capitol Pictures in the 1940s.
Unfortunately – after being assigned by studio head Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner) to write a routine wrestling picture for Wallace Beery – Fink gets the world’s worst case of writer’s block on his first studio project and spends his days and nights frantically typing away on his shiny black Underwood portable like some kind of screenwriting maniac, with each draft inevitably destined for the bin.
He also becomes embroiled with a strange neighbour in the dingy Hotel Earle, talkative ‘everyman’ insurance salesman Charlie Meadows (John Goodman) – who turns out to be a savage serial killer who decapitates his victims.
Barton Fink is a disturbing movie to watch – like being locked inside someone else’s head for the duration of the picture in a state of confusion, despair and terrible isolation.
Despite flopping at the box office, the film won the prestigious Palme d’Or – as well as Best Director and Best Actor – at Cannes (and received three Oscar nominations) and made the Coen brothers critical darlings, becoming their breakthrough film and opening up opportunities to write and direct bigger films like Fargoand The Big Lebowski.
Barton Fink
John Turturro Charlie Meadows/Karl “Mad Man” Mundt
John Goodman Audrey Taylor
Judy Davis Jack Lipnick
Michael Lerner W.P. Mayhew
John Mahoney Ben Geisler
Tony Shalhoub Geisler’s Secretary
Gayle Vance Lou Breeze
Jon Polito Chet
Steve Buscemi Garland Stanford
David Warrilow Detective Mastrionotti
Richard Portnow Detective Deutsch
Christopher Murney Derek
I.M. Hobson Poppy Carnahan
Meagen Fay Richard St. Claire
Lance Davis Pete
Harry Bugin Maitre D’
Anthony Gordon Voice
William Preston Robertson
Barton Fink
W.P. Mayhew
Detective Mastrionotti
