WARNING! SPOILERS BELOW!
Even the people who like this film either don't pretend to know (or care!) what it's about, or disagree about it's interpretation, so it's not really surprising that there are also a large number of people who really loathe it. I fall somewhere in between - I like a lot of things about the movie: the acting of John Goodman and Michael Lerner (although not so much John Turturro), the surreal feel of all the scenes (not just the ones in the hotel), and the way you are given lots of clues as to what might be going on which ALMOST seem to coalesce into a "proper" explanation. This helps keep the attention during the first 1.5 hours during which not much actually happens, and I don't really mind "mood" movies rather than "plot" movies.
There seem to be two strands to the movie: the surface plot about the East Coast writer getting writer's block in Hollywood, and the "Life Of The Mind" of Barton Fink himself, which takes the main focus. The classic phrase that comes to mind is "wrestling with one's inner demons" (namely Chet and especially Charlie).
The Hotel Earle is clearly meant to be some sort of Hell, but my take on it is that it is a hybrid of Fink's own personal hell and his mind itself. I don't think we can take any of the scenes in the hotel in any way literally (especially the murder of Audrey and the subsequent police investigation and apocalyptic final scenes). The whole movie can be interpreted simply as a surreal representation of Fink's mental processes.
I would've been happy for the movie to end at the point where Fink breaks down crying in his room - thus completing the cycle whereby he heard sobbing just after he first entered the Hotel: the Hellish curse having been "passed on". However, I really enjoyed the actual ending where Fink replies "I don't know" to the two questions "What's in the box?" and "Is it yours?". The box is a really nice device, reminiscent of the Schroedinger's Cat paradox, the point being that you can't find out what's inside by opening it (drat!).
What I see as the major problem, however, is that this could have been done in a MUCH less cryptic way. The film could still have been surreal, wacky and funny without being so opaque. I don't think the "point" of the movie is weighty enough to warrant this kind of "think deeply about it yourselves later" approach.
Even the people who like this film either don't pretend to know (or care!) what it's about, or disagree about it's interpretation, so it's not really surprising that there are also a large number of people who really loathe it. I fall somewhere in between - I like a lot of things about the movie: the acting of John Goodman and Michael Lerner (although not so much John Turturro), the surreal feel of all the scenes (not just the ones in the hotel), and the way you are given lots of clues as to what might be going on which ALMOST seem to coalesce into a "proper" explanation. This helps keep the attention during the first 1.5 hours during which not much actually happens, and I don't really mind "mood" movies rather than "plot" movies.
There seem to be two strands to the movie: the surface plot about the East Coast writer getting writer's block in Hollywood, and the "Life Of The Mind" of Barton Fink himself, which takes the main focus. The classic phrase that comes to mind is "wrestling with one's inner demons" (namely Chet and especially Charlie).
The Hotel Earle is clearly meant to be some sort of Hell, but my take on it is that it is a hybrid of Fink's own personal hell and his mind itself. I don't think we can take any of the scenes in the hotel in any way literally (especially the murder of Audrey and the subsequent police investigation and apocalyptic final scenes). The whole movie can be interpreted simply as a surreal representation of Fink's mental processes.
I would've been happy for the movie to end at the point where Fink breaks down crying in his room - thus completing the cycle whereby he heard sobbing just after he first entered the Hotel: the Hellish curse having been "passed on". However, I really enjoyed the actual ending where Fink replies "I don't know" to the two questions "What's in the box?" and "Is it yours?". The box is a really nice device, reminiscent of the Schroedinger's Cat paradox, the point being that you can't find out what's inside by opening it (drat!).
What I see as the major problem, however, is that this could have been done in a MUCH less cryptic way. The film could still have been surreal, wacky and funny without being so opaque. I don't think the "point" of the movie is weighty enough to warrant this kind of "think deeply about it yourselves later" approach.