We were reciently watching the Coen Bros curious little movie “Barton Fink” the other day. My wife an I just couldn’t firgure out the ending where the cops try to arrest John Goodman’s character. When he walks out from hiding into the hallway to face the cops, the hallway bursts into flames, and continues burning for the ten minutes till the film ends. All the while (after John dispatches the cops) the conversation between the two plays out like the place is NOT on fire at all, John eventually goes back into his room, and Barton walks down the burning hallway, bags in hand as if to leave, in a normal walking pace, again, like the place isn’t on fire at all.
So what’s the deal here? Is the place really on fire, did Goodman’s character start it, and the characters are ignoring the flames? And if so, why isnt the place filling with smoke and why aren’t they choking and coughing?
OR, is the fire some kind of metaphor, and is Goodman’s character supposed to be the devil or something?
And one more thing: How many think the contents of the box is the head of the kind lady who bedded Barton (an woke up dead the next morning)?
Great quirky little movie, I highly recommend it, but WTF with the ending?
Hmmmm, it always was pretty hot in that hotel, wasn’t it? Perhaps the hotel is just finally showing its true colors.
“C’mon Barton, you think you know about pain? You think I made your life hell? Take a look around this dump. You’re just a tourist with a typewriter, Barton. I LIVE here. Don’t you understand that?”
If you’re looking for a more literal explanation: Charlie/Mundt set the fire himself. Like he said at the beginning, “Fire, theft, and casualty are not things that only happen to other people.”
And yes, that’s Audrey’s head in the package … and it’s also Barton’s talent, which Barton has betrayed.
I always thought the item in the box was one of his parents heads… after Goodman went to visit them. After that Barton wasn’t able to get a hold of them. Always seemed a little sinister.
I always assumed it was either “all a dream” or Fink was insane by this time.
Had moments of Coenic brilliance but imho the most missable of their canon due to the “bizarre for the sake of being bizarre” content. The main contribution was the introduction of John Turturro. Great performances all around- not just Turturro and Goodman but Michael Lerner and several other supporting characters. The “Kiss his foot!” scene is one of the best corporate tyrant humiliation scenes in any movie, dreadfully uncomfortable.
I think it would have been better if they’d just followed a writer through total sellout (maybe check in on him in a few years when he’s writing total crap for a paint-by-the-numbers western) or follow him through a meltdown that ends with him returning to New York and writing avante garde material again.
I believe that the final scene with the girl on the beach indicates that Fink’s been daydreaming all the craziness while staring at the picture on the hotel wall. It’s all a self-fulfilling prophecy where, instead of working on his script, he sinks into a psychotic fugue state fantasizing about how his life will go to hell if he doesn’t buckle down and get his script written.