"Barton Fink" won the Palme d’Or and Best Director at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. The chairman of the jury at the time was Polanski who directed "Strange Tenants". Polanski is said to be on trial. The filming time was very tormenting, thinking that the films of this film festival were all lackluster, until he saw the Coen brothers' "Barton Funk", he suddenly sat up from his chair and clapped his hands in applause. Of course, the Coen brothers are also very frank, saying that "Barton Funk" is a tribute to Polanski's "Strange Tenants". Therefore, the two films are not only closely related in the textual sense, but also ingeniously related in reality.
"Barton Fink" mainly tells the sad experience of a screenwriter in a hotel room in Hollywood, while "Strange Guest" is a strange journey of a Polish immigrant in an apartment where a jumping incident occurred. The story of the two takes place. They are all concentrated in the room where the protagonist lives. But the specific meanings of each other’s "rooms" are quite different. The entire hotel in "Barton Fink" is actually Charlie's fanatical inner world. It also symbolizes the psychological distortion and madness of Barton's screenwriting career. It was finally "metaphysically" ", and the apartment where Tarkovsky lives in "Strange Tenants" is more functional-a key space carrier for the development of the plot. Polanski's circular narrative method in this film will be " The focus of the room has been stripped a lot. It is not like "Barton Funk", which puts the weight of the whole story on the "room" and expresses the internalized "person" through the externalized "room", "Strange Tenants" The narrative attraction of the girl who jumped from the building and the alienation of Tarkovsky afterwards dispelled the meaning of the room to a certain extent. We seemed to spy on the “strange person” through the “strange room”. "The Tenant" focuses more on the "guest" rather than the "strange house".
The protagonist of "Barton Fink" is a screenwriter. He has ideals but limited talents. He is jealous and repressed. He gradually alienates and gradually goes crazy. The protagonist of "Strange Tenants" Tarkovsky is an introvert, For the kind and meek Polish immigrants, the author thinks that the fate of the characters in the two films is probably the same. They both lived peacefully at first, but gradually fell into a quagmire, and finally collapsed, crazily, and fell into trouble. But when the Coen brothers perform, we seem to be able to feel the slow movement of Patton's mentality. It is more gradual. Patton's inspiration dried up time and time again and led him to lose control; while Polanski was more direct, he changed the state of the character. The setting of the turning point is more "abrupt", sharper and more intense, and Tarkovsky suddenly loses control of his emotions-delusions are choked, announcing a sharp turn in the fate of the characters. In the setting of the relationship between the surrounding characters, the group of characters in "Barton Funk" is more fixed and orderly, which is most directly reflected in the quantity. The relationship between space and people is relatively condensed (when people are separated from the stipulations in the movie. The fate of the space changes accordingly), Barton Fink wanders in the two scenes of the hotel and the company, and the people in contact are also distinguished in the image. At the same time, their relationship with Button is very strong, Jack's oppression of Button, Charlie's comfort and revelation of Button, the writers and couples' care for Button, their emotional context is clear, and they continue to advance in an orderly manner. But "Strange Tenants" is more fragmented and chaotic. The jump in the relationship between the characters is very strong. Only Simon Shaw, who jumped off the building before, is firmly in Tarkovsky's heart from beginning to end. Of course, Simon Shaw never "True" appeared, Tarkovsky was eventually alienated into Simon Shaw, and the circular narrative made the two into one. Therefore, the "single protagonist" intention of "Strange Tenants" is more obvious, but this is again There is a contradiction against the theme. The tragedy is caused by many "weird tenants" (the movie language also emphasizes the group portraits of the "weird tenants" at the beginning and the end), and the unity of the movie is cracked here.
Both movies have a strong sense of immersion, which has a lot to do with the director's way of telling the story. At first, the story progressed steadily under the logic of real life. We were unaware of the weirdness of time and space in the movie, but then suddenly it was presented with "surreal" logic, the same crazy texture and plot brought by surrealism. The internal logic of the match, this strong contrast and contrast make the viewing process more ups and downs and intriguing. However, the Coen brothers and Polanski’s understanding of "surrealism" are quite different. "Batton Funk" puts the surreal in the external space-the entire hotel is "metaphysical" personified, and the characters are quite lagging behind the abrupt. Under the circumstances, Patton was surprised by the changes in the entire space. He didn't realize that the distortion of his heart led to the collapse of the outside. "Strange Tenants" puts surrealism in people's hearts-Tarkovsky's mutation and division. The oppression of "strange tenants" leads Tarkovsky to the path of destruction, and his soul drifts away. In a trance, the realistic logic of the character completely collapses, and he is using alienation to give back to alienation.
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