A Three-Espresso Hallucination

You're going to be hearing a lot about Barton Fink in the next few weeks. Gnomic, claustrophobic, hallucinatory, just plain weird, it is the kind of movie critics can soak up thousands of words analyzing and cinephiles can soak up at least three espressos arguing their way through.

It is, as well, the first film to accomplish the hat trick at the Cannes festival (best picture, best director and best actor), and we all understand, don't we, that when it comes to our own movies, the French always know what's best for -- and by -- us American primitives.

Finally, it...