Charlie Meadows
Look upon me! I'll show you the life of the mind!
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Barton Fink
I gotta tell you, the life of the mind... There's no roadmap for that territory... And exploring it can be painful.
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Barton Fink
Have you read the Bible, Pete?
Pete
Holy Bible?
Barton Fink
Yeah.
Pete
Yeah, I think so. Anyway, I've heard about it.
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Charlie Meadows
You think I made your life hell? Take a look around this dump. You're just a tourist with a typewriter, Barton. I live here.
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Barton Fink
[at the USO club]
I'm a writer, you monsters! I create! I create for a living! I'm a creator! I am a creator!
[points to his head]
Barton Fink
This is my uniform! This is how I serve the common man!
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Detective Deutsch
All right, forget the heads. Where's Mundt, Fink?
Detective Mastrionotti
He teach you how to do it?
Detective Deutsch
You two have some sick sex thing?
Barton Fink
Sex? He's a man! We wrestled!
Detective Mastrionotti
You're a sick fuck, Fink.
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Ben Geisler
Look, you confused? You need guidance? Talk to another writer.
Barton Fink
Who?
Ben Geisler
Jesus, throw a rock in here, you'll hit one. And do me a favor, Fink: throw it hard.
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Charlie Meadows
What a day. Felt like I couldn't sell ice water in the Sahara.
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[last lines]
Beauty
It's a beautiful day.
Barton Fink
Huh?
Beauty
I said it's a beautiful day.
Barton Fink
Yes. It is.
Beauty
What's in the box?
Barton Fink
I don't know.
Beauty
Isn't it yours?
Barton Fink
I don't know. You're very beautiful. Are you in pictures?
Beauty
Don't be silly.
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Charlie Meadows
And I could tell you some stories...
Barton Fink
Sure you could and yet many writers do everything in their power to insulate themselves from the common man, from where they live, from where they trade, from where they fight and love and converse and... and... So naturally their work suffers and regresses into empty formalism and... well, I'm spouting off again, but to put it in your language, the theatre becomes as phony as a three-dollar bill.
Charlie Meadows
Well, I guess that's a tragedy right there.
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Charlie Meadows
I could tell you stories to curl your hair, but it looks like you've already heard 'em.
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Barton Fink
Who cares about the fifth Earl of Bathsdrop and Lady Higgenbottom and... and... who killed Nigel Grinchgibbons?
Charlie Meadows
I can feel my butt gettin' sore already!
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Jack Lipnick
We're only interested in one thing, Bart. Can you tell a story? Can you make us laugh? Can you make us cry? Can you make us want to break out in joyous song? Is that more than one thing? Okay!
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Detective Mastrionotti
Started in Kansas City. Couple of housewives.
Detective Deutsch
Couple days ago we see the same M.O. out in Los Feliz.
Detective Mastrionotti
Doctor. Ear, nose and throat man.
Detective Deutsch
All of which he's now missin'.
Detective Mastrionotti
Well, some of his throat was there.
Detective Deutsch
Physician, heal thyself.
Detective Mastrionotti
Good luck with no fuckin' head.
Detective Deutsch
Anyway.
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Detective Deutsch
[questioning Fink about Mundt]
What else?
Barton Fink
Trying to think. Nothing, really. He... he said he liked Jack Oakie pictures.
Detective Mastrionotti
You know, ordinarily we say anything you might remember could be helpful. But I'll be frank with you, Fink. That is not helpful.
Detective Deutsch
Notice how he's not writing it down?
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Jack Lipnick
I run this dump, and I don't know the technical mumbo-jumbo. Why do I run it? Cause I got horse sense goddamit, SHOWMANSHIP! And also I hope Lou told you this, I am bigger and meaner and louder than any other kike in this town. Did you tell him that Lou? And I don't mean my dick is bigger than yours, it's not a sexual thing. You're a writer, you know more about that. Coffee?
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Barton Fink
I've always found that writing comes from a great inner pain.
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Ben Geisler
Think about it, Fink! Writers come and go; we always need Indians!
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Garland Stanford
The common man will still be here when you get back. Who knows, there may even be one or two of them in Hollywood.
Barton Fink
That's a rationalization, Garland.
Garland Stanford
Barton, it was a joke.
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Audrey Taylor
Barton, empathy requires understanding.
Barton Fink
What? What don't I understand?
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Charlie Meadows
Heil Hitler.
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Jack Lipnick
Look Bart, barring a preference we're going to put you on a wrestling picture, Wallace Beery. I say this because they tell me you know the poetry of the streets, so that would rule out westerns, pirate pictures, screwball, Bible, Roman... look, I'm not one of those guys who thinks poetic has got to be fruity. We're together on that aren't we? I mean I'm from New York myself, well, Minsk if you want to go all the way back. Which we won't, if you don't mind and I ain't asking. Now people are going to say to you, Wallace Beery, wrestling, it's a B picture. You tell them: BULLSHIT! We do NOT make B pictures here at Capitol. Let's put a stop to that rumor RIGHT now!
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Jack Lipnick
It's supposed to be about big men! In tights! Both physically and mentally!
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W.P. Mayhew
I close my eyes I can almost smell the live oak.
Audrey Taylor
That's chicken fat, Bill.
W.P. Mayhew
Well, my olfactory's turning womanish on me; lying and deceitful.
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Detective Mastrionotti
What do you do, Fink?
Barton Fink
I write.
Detective Deutsch
Oh, yeah? What kind of write?
Barton Fink
Well, as a matter of fact I write for the pictures.
Detective Mastrionotti
Big fuckin' deal.
Detective Deutsch
You want my partner to kiss your ass?
Detective Mastrionotti
Would that be good enough for you?
Barton Fink
No, I-I didn't mean to sound...
Detective Deutsch
What did you mean?
Barton Fink
I-I've got respect for-for working guys, like you...
Detective Mastrionotti
Jesus, ain't that a load off!
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[in an off-screen drunken rampage]
W.P. Mayhew
Honey! Where's my honey?
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Detective Mastrionotti
You live in 621?
Barton Fink
Yeah.
Detective Deutsch
How long you been up there, Fink?
Barton Fink
A week, eight, nine days.
Detective Mastrionotti
Is this multiple choice?
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[after Mundt has killed two officers and supernaturally lit the hallways on fire, he returns back to Barton's room now as Charlie; as he enters, he puts the shotgun up on the door frame]
Charlie Meadows
Barton. Brother, is it hot. How you been, buddy?
[Barton's too terrified to speak]
Charlie Meadows
Well, don't go looking at me like that. It's just me... Charlie.
Barton Fink
I hear these days it's Mundt. Madman Mundt.
Charlie Meadows
Jesus, people can be cruel. If it's not my build, it's my personality.
[beat]
Charlie Meadows
They say I'm a madman, Bart, but I'm not mad at anyone. Honest, I'm not. Most guys I just feel sorry for. It tears me up inside to think about what they're going through, how trapped they are. I understand it. I feel for them. So I try and help them out.
[dabs at his sweating face with a handkerchief]
Charlie Meadows
Jesus.
Barton Fink
Yeah.
Charlie Meadows
Yeah. I know what it feels like when things get all balled up at the head office. They put you though Hell, Barton. So I help people out. I just wish someone would do as much for me.
[dabs again at his sweating face]
Charlie Meadows
Jesus, it's hot. Sometimes it gets so hot, I want to crawl right out of my skin.
Barton Fink
But, Charlie, why me? Why --?
[reverts back to Charlie persona]
Charlie Meadows
Jesus. I'm dripping again.
[dabs at himself again]
Charlie Meadows
Come on, Barton. You think you know pain? You think I made your life Hell? Look around this dump. You're just a tourist with a typewriter. I *live* here. Don't you understand that? And you come into my home... and you complain... that I'm making too much noise.
Barton Fink
I'm sorry.
Charlie Meadows
Don't be. I'll be in the next door if you need me.
[starts to leave]
Charlie Meadows
Oh... I dropped in on your folks in New York. And Uncle Maury. Good people. By the way, that package I gave you? I lied. It isn't mine.
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W.P. Mayhew
Mister Fink, they have not invented a genre of picture that Bill Mayhew has not, at one time or other, been invited to essay. Yes, I have taken my stab at the rasslin' form, as I have stabbed at so many others, and with as little success. I gather that you are a freshman here, eager for an upperclassman's counsel. However, just at the moment, I have drinking to do. Why don't you stop by my bungalow, which is number fifteen, later on this afternoon, and we will discuss rasslin' scenarios and other things lit'rary.
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Charlie Meadows
I pulled off early today. Took your advice, went to a doctor about this ear. He says "You have an ear infection, ten dollars please." So I says "I told you I had an ear infection, you give me ten dollars!" Well, that started an argument.
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Chet
Are you a trans or a res?
Barton Fink
Excuse me?
Chet
Transient or resident?
Barton Fink
Oh, I don't know. I'll be here indefinitely.
Chet
Res. That'll be $25.50 a week payable in advance. Checkout time is twelve sharp, but you can forget about that on account of you're a res. Now if you need anything, anything at all, just pick up your personal in-room telephone and talk to me. My name is Chet. Although we do provide privacy for the residential guests, we are also a full-service hotel including complementary shoeshine. My name is Chet.
[writes his name on a slip of paper in capital letters with an exclamation point and passes it to Barton]
Barton Fink
Thanks...
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Charlie Meadows
I sure do forget myself sometimes.
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Ben Geisler
Wallace Beery. Wrestling picture. What do you need, a roadmap?
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Ben Geisler
Mayhew, some help, the guy's a souse!
Barton Fink
He's a great writer.
Ben Geisler
A great souse!
Barton Fink
You don't understand.
Ben Geisler
Souse!
Barton Fink
He's in pain, because he can't write...
Ben Geisler
Souse! Souse! Can't write? He manages to write his name on the back of his paycheck every week!
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Charlie Meadows
Yeah... Ladies do ask for attention. In my experience, they pretend to give it, but it's generally a smokescreen for demanding it back with interest.
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Charlie Meadows
Barton did you have
[whispers]
Charlie Meadows
sexual intercourse?
[Barton is silent]
Charlie Meadows
Damn, they can tell that...
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[repeated line]
Wrestler
I will destroy him!
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Jack Lipnick
We're all expecting great things.
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Detective Mastrionotti
Fink. That's a Jewish name, isn't it?
Barton Fink
Yeah.
Detective Mastrionotti
Yeah, I didn't think this dump was restricted.
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Barton Fink
W.P. Mayhew? The writer?
W.P. Mayhew
Just Bill, please.
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W.P. Mayhew
I pays my baby love and she pays me back with pity. The basest coin there is...
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Charlie Meadows
Well, I could really tell you some stories.
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Ben Geisler
Okay Fink, let's chow.
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Charlie Meadows
Beery wrestling picture? Could be a pip, could be a pip.
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W.P. Mayhew
Me I just enjoy making things up. Yessah escape. Its when I can't write I can't escape myself, I want to rip my head off and run screaming down the street with my balls in a fruit pickers pail.
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Poppy Carnahan
I don't pretend to be a critic, but lord knows I have a gut, and my gut tells me it's simply marvelous.
Richard St. Claire
And a charming gut it is.
Poppy Carnahan
Oh, you dog.
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Charlie Meadows
Hell, you've got it made writing for the pictures, beating out that competition, and me being patronizing! Is the egg showing or what?
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Ben Geisler
What Ted Oakam doesn't know you could almost squeeze into the Hollywood Bowl.
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W.P. Mayhew
You are dripping, sir.
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Charlie Meadows
The doctor, what's he gonna tell me? Can't trade my head in for a new one.
Barton Fink
Yeah, I guess you're stuck with the one you've got.
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W.P. Mayhew
[singing]
Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay, gone are my friends from the cotton fields away, gone from the earth to a better land I know, I hear the gentle voices calling, old black Joe. I'm coming I'm coming, oh my head is bending low, I hear the gentle... the truth my honey is a tart that does not bear scrutiny. Breach my levee at your own peril!
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Charlie Meadows
Sometimes it gets so hot I want to crawl right out of my skin.
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Ben Geisler
[on phone]
I've got a writer here - Fink - all screwy! Says I'm producing that Wallace Beery wrestling picture. What am I, the goddamn janitor around here?
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Barton Fink
I'm sorry if I let you down.
Jack Lipnick
You didn't let me down, Fink, or even Lou. We don't live or die by what you scribble. You let Ben Geisler down. He liked you, trusted you... and that's why he's gone, he's fired. That man had a heart as big as the all outdoors and you fucked him.
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Barton Fink
I don't like to discuss works in progress. If I let the words tumble out prematurely, it changes it, and I may never get it back.
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W.P. Mayhew
Did I ever tell you the story of Solomon's Mammy?
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Barton Fink
Shouldn't your first duty be to your gift?
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W.P. Mayhew
I'm buildin' myself a levee, brick by brick, gulp by gulp.
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Barton Fink
That son of a bitch! Don't get me wrong, he's a fine writer.
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Detective Deutsch
[holding a photo]
You know this slob?
Detective Mastrionotti
That's right, Fink, he lives next door to you.
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Barton Fink
My God, I had no idea you were in Hollywood.
W.P. Mayhew
All of us undomesticated writers eventually make our way out here to the Great Salt Lake.
[takes the cap off of an alcohol flask]
W.P. Mayhew
That's probably why I always have such a powerful thirst.
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Jack Lipnick
You ain't no writer, Fink, you're a goddamned write-off.
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Jack Lipnick
We all want that Barton Fink feeling, and since you're Barton Fink, I assume you have it in spades.
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Barton Fink
I've done a lot of work in New York, I have some renown there.
Charlie Meadows
It's an exciting time then!
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Ben Geisler
How does Lipnick's ass smell this morning?
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Charlie Meadows
Listen to me belly achin', like my problems add up to a hill of beans.
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W.P. Mayhew
Me, well, I just like makin' things up.
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Ben Geisler
Never make Lipnick like you!
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Barton Fink
I guess this all sounds pretty fatuous to you?
Charlie Meadows
No, it's damned interesting.
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Barton Fink
I wanna know how many of his books you've written!
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Jack Lipnick
Kiss this man's feet!
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Detective Mastrionotti
Also known as Madman Mundt.
Detective Deutsch
He's a little funny in the head.
Detective Mastrionotti
Funny as in he likes to ventilate people with a shotgun and then cut their heads off.
Detective Deutsch
He's funny like that.
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Charlie Meadows
Funny huh, when everything that's important to a guy, everything he wants to keep from a lifetime, and he can fit it all into a little box like that.
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Lou Breeze
The contents of your head are the property of Capital Pictures.
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Audrey Taylor
Sometimes instead of a waif, he has the wrestler protecting an idiot man-child.
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Barton Fink
You're the only person in Los Angeles that I can talk to.
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Jack Lipnick
We don't put Wallace Beery in some fruity movie about suffering. I thought we were together on that.
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Chet
Welcome to Los Angleeees, Mr. Fink.
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Ben Geisler
Tell Lipnick he can kiss my dimpled ass.
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Barton Fink
I'm having a little trouble getting started.
Ben Geisler
Started? Christ Jesus you mean you don't have anything yet?
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W.P. Mayhew
I'll just wander on down to the Pacific, and then I'll improvise.
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Jack Lipnick
But you make it the carrot that wags the dog.
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