More on Barton Fink: Aggression and Intellectual Superiority
I saw Barton Fink a long time ago, before I had any sense of things Jewish, so Andy Nowicki’s fascinating TOO article was a real eye-opener. I was intrigued enough to take another look. What sticks in my mind are the characters of Jack Lipnick and Ben Geisler as prototypical Hollywood figures of the period. Lipnick’s aggression, his massive ego, and his brutal treatment of everyone around are a sight to behold. As Nowicki notes, Lipnick is “a brash, loud, frightening and hysterically tyrannical man, who proudly declares himself to be ‘bigger and meaner than any other kike in this town.’”
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There’s an amazing scene where Fink tells Lipnick that he doesn’t feel comfortable talking about his screenplay before it’s finished. Lipnick nods to his underling, Lou Breeze. Breeze has to figure out what his boss wants, so he berates Fink for daring to defy Lipnick by not giving him an account of his screenplay. But he guessed wrong. Lipnick verbally assaults Breeze and demands that he kiss Fink’s feet in apology on pain of losing his job. Breeze finally walks out without kissing Fink’s feet, but we see him later in the film, indicating that everything was patched up even after his humiliation. Working for Lipnick must have been an ulcer waiting to happen.
Michael Lerner as Jack Lipnick
