#3: Show Me the Life of the Mind

Barton claims to wrestle with “a type of pain most people don’t know anything about”, but of course Charlie is quite familiar with that pain. (Watch Charlie during the scene where Barton says this line.) He tells Barton to “make me your wrestler”, but Barton refuses to confront the totality of who Charlie really is, and as a result he is incorporating a life of the mind that is incomplete and therefore (I assume) incoherent. (We don’t know much about Barton’s script Burlyman, except that it has several lines in common with the play he wrote in New York, Bare Ruined Choir. We also know that Lipnick considers it “a fruity movie about suffering”.)

I want my students to engage honestly with the life of the mind, both their own and others’. I want them to celebrate the lovely, supportive, generous, kind elements that lurk within us all; but I also want them to examine and challenge the selfish, violent, bigoted, hateful elements that also lurk within us all. I want young writers to listen carefully to the people around them — not only to write authentic dialogue, but also to capture the honest essence of real people.

#4: Writers Have a Responsibility to the Audience

We cannot discuss Barton Fink without considering this quote from the Italian writer Italo Calvino:

There are two ways not to suffer from the inferno we are all living in every day. The first suits most people: accept the inferno and become part of it to the point where you don’t even see it any more. The second is riskier and requires constant attention and willingness to learn: seek out and know how to recognize whoever and whatever, in the midst of the inferno, is not inferno, and help them last, give them space.

The Hotel Earle is obviously an inferno, in which many people are suffering every day. Barton has the unique power to tell the stories of these people — especially Charlie — and thereby “help them last, give them space”. He refuses to listen to Charlie, of course, and pays a horrible price for it. What parts of Charlie’s story should Barton include, and how marketable would that story be? We can’t know, and part of the problem of writing in capitalism is the need to sell a product, while also (or instead of) telling important truths. But Barton fails to take his responsibility to Charlie (and the rest of his audience) seriously, and that’s a deadly mistake for any artist.

I want my students to consider their responsibilities as writers (and/or artists of other kinds). I do not want them to automatically agree with me about what those responsibilities are, but neither will I accept the common mindless refrain about how artists have no responsibility to anyone. Serious writers know that stories are more than “just stories”; they “create people”, as the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe said.

#5: Empathy Requires Understanding

Once Barton realizes he needs to show empathy toward certain other people (Mayhew and eventually — perhaps — Audrey), he is told that “empathy requires understanding”, with the implication that he does not understand Mayhew well enough to truly empathize with him. Whatever we think about Audrey’s relationship with Bill and Barton’s take on it (and I’m honestly not sure what I think), we must recognize the tendency among humans to assume that we know what’s going on in the minds and souls of other people. But as the saying goes: “Always be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”

One of the most common mistakes we humans make is to become certain in our assumptions, especially about other people. Many teachers believe they know what’s best for students. Many students believe they know everything worth knowing. Barton is certain that he knows what Charlie’s life is like, and look where that gets him.

I want my students to recognize the folly of false understanding, and stretch their muscles of empathy. I want them to put themselves in the shoes of others — as Barton briefly does with Charlie, with results that can only be described as bewildering. I want them to care genuinely about the distress of others, rather than simply claiming to care when their neighbors come knocking. I want them to write from a place of deep empathy, rather than simplistic judgment or mere sympathy.

#6: You Know the Drill

The “drill” that everyone speaks of in Barton Fink is a crucial shorthand for a drudgery that we are all familiar with, some more than others. Teenagers are quite familiar with the drill of school, listening to teachers drone on endlessly about subjects that may or may not prove important later in life. (The most difficult thing about constructing one’s intellectual toolbox is that we don’t know what’s going to be useful later in life.) They know the drill of walking through crowded hallways and eating processed food. They know the drill of juggling homework, jobs, friendships, parents, and life.

But as David Foster Wallace said in his immortal 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College: “[Y]ou graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what ‘day in day out’ really means”. One of the most important parts of adult American life, he points out, is about “boredom, routine, and petty frustration”. Of course Barton — like many people — refuses to succumb to the drill of ordinary writing, or what Audrey calls the “formula” of 20th century filmmaking. (“Orphan? Dame?”) This is healthy; the worst thing an artist can do is mimic the mediocre work of a thousand forgettable others. But refusing to “lead lives of quiet desperation” (as Henry David Thoreau said) requires more than just rejecting “the drill” completely. We must find ways to skillfully resist the mundane without contempt for those (including, at times, ourselves) who are trapped within it.

I want my students to understand that many people have no choice outside of “the drill”, and empathy requires familiarity with it. I want them to reject the standard brain-dead modes of thinking and living, but I also want them to recognize the beauty in every moment, whether it’s a new path, or one we’ve walked a thousand times already.

#7: Industry Rule #4,080

WP Mayhew sings spirituals like “Old Black Joe” because he considers himself a slave to the Capitol Pictures industrial movie studio. As Lou Breeze says to Barton: “The contents of your head are the property of Capitol Pictures”, and at the end of the story, studio chief Jack Lipnick makes clear: “Everything you write is the property of Capitol Pictures, and Capitol Pictures is not going to produce anything you write.” Could there be a more atrocious position for a creative person to be in? (This is exactly the same reason why the musician Prince wrote the word “Slave” on his cheek in 1993. 22 years later he told Rolling Stone: “Record contracts are just like — I’m gonna say the word — slavery.”)

In their 1991 song “Check The Rhime”, A Tribe Called Quest frontman Q-Tip said: “Industry rule number four thousand and eighty / Record company people are shady”. This is a lesson Barton learns the hard way. At the start of the film, Lipnick promises loudly that “the writer is king here at Capitol Pictures”, and assures Barton that if he doubts this promise, “take a look at your paycheck at the end of every week. That’s what we think of the writer.” But, as the saying goes, if money is what you love, then that’s what you’ll get. Dignity, control of your art, creative voice, and self-respect; all of these are on the table when you are beholden to a creative contract. In fact, “that’s what we think of the writer” is an insult, considering everything artists are expected to give up in exchange for those big paychecks.

Then there’s the whole matter of how Capitol Pictures tells stories. Ben Geisler tells Barton his project is “just a B picture”, and Audrey explains that “it’s really just a formula”. Given Lipnick’s insistence at the end that Fink’s script “won’t wash”, they appear to be correct. What does that say about our culture, that so much of our entertainment is robotically churned out to satisfy the simplistic bloodlust of the mob that wants (according to Lipnick) “action, excitement — wrestling! — and plenty of it”, and nothing else? (Of course Charlie says a wrestling picture with Wallace Beery “could be a pip”, which suggests that maybe the common man does just want simple fun-time entertainment so he can [as Mayhew says] “escape myself”. Therefore when Charlie says he likes Jack Oakie pictures, it may actually be helpful to understanding and/or locating him, despite statements to the contrary by Detectives Mastrionotti and Deutsch.)

I want my students to approach the world of professional writing with a fair understanding of how the industries of creative production work. I want them to be savvy about how capitalism works, and what will be expected of them if they wish to make a living with the written word. I want them to respect themselves as artists and as people, without suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune. I don’t want them to be exploited by people making promises of great wealth or fame. I want them to heed the warnings of creative people who have gone before them, and live healthy lives of artistic freedom.

#8: Who Are You, and How Do You Know?

The twin principles of self-knowledge (who are you?) and epistemology (how do you know?) are deeply enmeshed in Barton Fink, as they are in the lives of all people who take writing seriously. When I can write fiction effectively, I feel as though I can make sense of the world around me — which is, after all, what philosophy is all about. Are you a good person? How do you know? What does it mean to be a good person, anyway? What does it mean to be a good writer? Remember, too, that appearance is often different from reality; we must avoid blurring the two. How can you be sure that what you believe to be true is actually true?