More than any other subject matter, writers writing about writing can veer off into navel-gazing irrelevance. The world doesn’t need more stories about 20-something Brooklynites trying to make it with only a pen and a dream, unless those stories are bold enough to throw some evil robots in at the halfway mark.
Barton Fink doesn’t quite do that, but when the Coen brothers’ black comedy came out 35 years ago today, it certainly veered in a direction that’s all but impossible for first-time viewers to predict. And while a writer writing about writers writing about writing threatens to become downright somnambulant, it’s a movie worth looking back on now that so many self-proclaimed creators are trying to skip past the writing process entirely.
