A Cannes Curiosity : ‘Barton Fink’ a Crowd-Pleaser--but Did They Understand It?

The Coen Brothers’ latest film, “Barton Fink,” got a rousing reception at its world premiere Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival. The only question was, did anybody get it?

The Coens, co-writers and co-directors Joel and Ethan, were offering no explanations to the international press, but they were clearly amused at the questions.

“Hmmm, the meaning?” said Ethan Coen, scratching his chin at Saturday’s press conference. “That’s something we are sort of reluctant to get into. Not that we don’t know.”

“Barton Fink” superficially is the story of a philosophical 1940s Broadway playwright who reluctantly trades in his budding theater career for a contract job at a Hollywood studio and walks through the jaws of hell. He moves into a cheap hotel that sweats and gurgles, he has a neighbor who is either an insurance salesman or a serial killer, he finds a woman dead in his bed, and--worse!--he has writer’s block.

“It’s about a character who becomes progressively more oppressed and dislocated,” said Ethan Coen.

“I see him as a person growing up in a way,” said actor John Turturro, who plays Fink. “Maybe he’ll never write anything--he’s at a crossroads--but at least he’s a very different person at the end.”

The Coens rejected notions that there were Kafkaesque elements in the film, saying they hadn’t read Kafka. No, Barton Fink isn’t based on Clifford Odets, the Broadway playwright who took a fling at Hollywood. Nor was another character in the film, a famous author who finds a studio the perfect environment for a slumming alcoholic, based on either William Faulkner or F. Scott Fitzgerald.

And, heck no, the brothers aren’t mad at Hollywood. They hardly know the place.

“Hollywood is there as background for our story about his character,” said Joel, being cut off in mid-sentence by his brother, who continued, “It doesn’t have much to do with real Hollywood, it just serves as the object for our cheap jokes.”

There are some great cheap jokes sprinkled throughout “Barton Fink,” and there is probably no need for a literary investigation into its dark side. The Coen brothers seem to have been pretty much goofing off with this picture, and their fans will be more reminded of their first two films--”Blood Simple” and “Raising Arizona”--than last year’s lush “Miller’s Crossing.”

Joel Coen said they actually sat down to write a comedy for Turturro, who played a Mob weasel in “Miller’s Crossing,” and John Goodman, who began his film career playing an escaped con in “Raising Arizona.” The performances and the gags may be all the movie needs.

Sean Penn followed his ex-wife Madonna into town Friday to promote a movie he wrote and directed, and he was of almost as much interest to the paparazzi. Madonna and Penn ended up together at one party where, trade columnists here assured us, they enjoyed a dance together.

Penn would not discuss Madonna at the press conference convened after the screening of “Indian Runner,” his story of two brothers--one likably decent, the other hatefully sinister--in 1968 Nebraska. Penn does not appear in the movie.

“That was all a rumor anyway,” said Penn, referring to Madonna at the beginning of the press conference. “I never met the woman.”

The press conference turned into a combination love fest and diatribe, with Charles Bronson and Dennis Hopper--both have small roles in the picture--assuring the press that Penn is about to become one of America’s great directors, and Penn occasionally lashing out at the press and American society.

Asking where the rage expressed in the character of the bad brother in “Indian Runner” comes from, Penn said, “I don’t think it scratches the surface of the rage that is felt, if not acted upon, by most of the people in the country where I live.

“I was brought up in a country that relished fear-based religion, corrupt government and an entire white population (living) on stolen property that they murdered for and that is passed on from generation to generation.”

Penn went on to cite comparative statistics about the number of serial killers in the U.S. versus all other countries (the FBI lists something like 372 in the U.S., he thought, while no other country has more than five on record).

“That tells you something,” he said, but didn’t say what.

“Indian Runner” has gotten a widely mixed reaction from American critics here, but it’s one of the hits of the Directors Fortnight, an unsanctioned but very credible satellite program. The Directors Fortnight attempts to showcase new directing talent and often ends up presenting the best movies seen in the festival. (Many critics here believe that 23-year-old John Singleton’s “Boyz N the Hood” is a more powerful movie about black issues than Spike Lee’s interracial love story “Jungle Fever,” which is in the main competition.)

Penn’s acting career has been up and down, mostly down lately, and he’s reportedly told associates he wants to concentrate on working behind the camera. His description Saturday of the difference between directing and acting seems to confirm that: “It’s the difference between the person building the house and hammering nails into the wood and the actor being the wood having the nails hammered into it.”

Hopper and Penn were both asked if they thought there was room for rebels in Hollywood anymore. Hopper said, “Once you’ve directed a movie, I’m afraid you become an elder statesman, so Mr. Penn is an elder statesman at the moment.”

Penn’s answer was more to the point.

“As long as there’s room to repel there’s room to rebel,” said Hollywood’s reigning bad boy. “I find that I tend to repel some people, so I suppose . . . there’s room.”

Winners of this year’s Cannes festival will be announced tonight, preceding the world premiere of Ridley Scott’s “Thelma & Louise.” While the overall quality of this year’s field of 17 competition movies seems up over recent years, no clear favorite for the Gold Palm has emerged.

The films getting the most attention from critics are French director Jacques Rivette’s four-hour “La Belle Noiseuse,” Greek director Theo Angelopoulos’ “The Suspended Step of the Stork,” Dutch director Lars Von Trier’s “Europa,” Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “The Double Life of Vernonique” and Lee’s “Jungle Fever.”