For all writers in the traditional sense, this movie is just the daily routine of their group of spiritual wanderers. Here I say that traditional writers are only "them" in the era of self-media. Although the golden age of writers is long gone. But there was a time when some people still held writing sacred. Let us call this kind of writing Barton-Funk writing. To be sure, at the time, the sanctification of writing was considered a joke in the eyes of most people.
Barton-Funk-style writers require themselves to play the role of saviors, and what they need to redeem is the people at the bottom (in the version I saw, the subtitle group translated it affectionately as "the common people"). In the movie, Button Funk made this long-cherished wish clear from the very beginning. To be someone who is truly successful in writing. Build a theater that provides real-life realistic dramas for ordinary people. But he still can't stand the lobbying and temptation of so-called old friends. If he wants to seek higher and better development, he must switch from theater to film, from Broadway in New York to Hollywood in Los Angeles. As a music critic said, farmers enter After singing the ballad in the city, you must be a city person. A dog that doesn't eat shit is not a good dog. So our Mr. Button Funk came to this adventurer's paradise with simple luggage. Inside or outside the dream, there are dilapidated scenes everywhere. The tall banana tree potted plants in the hotel are saturated with primitiveness and barbarism. The front desk of the hotel comes out of the hole, that is, the shoe shiner, the zombie-like elevator operator, and the empty space. The hallway with no people, the sunlight shining through the window, the swaying spring bed, open the window and open the typewriter in the suitcase, remove the broken pencil on the hotel post-it note, and see the words "a day or a lifetime" on it. Such a line, eyes fell on the peeling siding on the ceiling of the picture of the muses, fell asleep to the hum of mosquitoes, and then everything began to be phantasmagoric.
Ripnick represents the face of the person in power, Gessler is an accomplice, Luo plays the role of a sycophant, Peter the lifter is a fool, Mayu is a spiritual idol, the police and sailors are the representatives of the state machine. , Taylor is a fake muse, only Charlie and the beach girl are the real spiritual dependence, the source of creation, and the real muse. That's why Ripnick chatted endlessly at the first meeting, and then made demands both softly and hard, and at the second meeting, fired Luo for one sentence and kissed Patton's shoes. And in the colonel's uniform at the last meeting, revealing his vulgar nature. Gesler didn't care when he saw Patton for the first time, but he helped Patton deal with Ripnick, in fact, to protect himself. The end result was being fired. In exchange for Luo's flattery, he has always followed the side of those in power. Peter is the little part that keeps the system going, like a machine, like a zombie. I have only heard about the Bible without expression. Mayu went from being the greatest writer when they first met to being a bastard in the mouth of Barton Funk, a son of a bitch. All because of the fake muse Taylor. Barton thought that he could use Taylor to get rid of his own writing bottleneck and inspire his own inspiration, and finally found that sex brought him an even more endless emptiness, and the so-called party carnival also brought this feeling. (There are two long shots aimed at the entrance to the end in the film, which appear at the sink of the washbasin when Patton and Taylor have sex and the trombone at the party). These will only make themselves fall into a more endless abyss. Only Charlie came to the rescue every time Barton needed it, and the wine and conversation during the first meeting made Barton talk eloquently. When he was disturbed by the man and woman next door, Charlie appeared again at the right time, and found that when Taylor was in his bed, Charlie came to deal with it, and when he encountered a creative bottleneck, Charlie sent photos and boxes, which made Barton Vance feel like a diarrhoea, and wrote "Fat Man". "This self-confessed work is my best work, but when the police asked him to be handcuffed, it was Charlie who fell from the sky, annihilating the enemy and breaking the handcuffs to save people. The beach girl said that the weather was very good, and there were only worries, so the frustrated Patton asked her like a spring breeze, why don't you go to the movies when you are so beautiful? The girl chuckled and said a simple "don'
Finally, if you search for modern and contemporary suicide writers, you'll find a long list of familiar names. So no matter what the final result of Button Fink is, the thoughtfulness of the Coen brothers is still imprinted in most people's minds. Wenhai has risks, so you need to be cautious when entering the business. The purgatory-like spiritual ascetic torment experienced by the Barton-Funk writers is nothing more than an attempt to prove their worth through words. to save the world and the world. But do they know what kind of writers the world needs? Those in power need to serve them only, or it's a bad debt, a pile of shit. The accomplices only hope to use this as a deal for those in power, the sycophants ask for it in disguise, the foolish people are indifferent, the famous seniors use alcohol to relieve their sorrows, the lovers just want to enjoy a high-level spiritual feast, the Charlie's come and go, their whereabouts are mysterious, The goddess can only exist in one painting.
Hemingway once said that sometimes your life's writing is only a few lines in the future. So, Barton Funk writers, don't be silly.
View more about Barton Fink reviews
