No way I’m doing a Top 10 Psycho scene list without the Madman Mundt scene from Barton Fink. I found a piece of the scene on You Tube which you’ll be able to compare with the script. Let’s get right to it…
This is essentially the climax of the movie. Barton Fink (John Turturro) has come to realize too late that his next door neighbor isn’t just some guy named Charlie. The detectives promise to go easy on him and only fry him once. The tone is an homage to classic noir, period-piece L.A. dipped in sweaty palm trees and bloody mattresses. Where are the heads, Fink?
Remember, as with our study of American Psycho, especially with the gory scenes, Good Reader, don’t lose your sense of humor. “You two have some sick sex thing?” ‘He’s a man! We wrestled!”
“You’re a sick fuck, Fink.”
And then Mundt appears:
Down the hall we hear the ding of the arriving elevator.
Mastrionotti cocks his head with a quizzical look.
He rises and walks slowly out into the hall. Deutsch watches him go.
HIS POV
Mastrionotti in the hallway in full shot, framed by the door, still looking
puzzled.
MASTRIONOTTI
. . . Fred . . .
Deutsch stands and pushes his suit coat back past the gun on his hip,
revealing a pair of handcuffs on his belt. He unhitches the cuffs and slips
one around Barton’s right wrist and the other around a loop in the wrought
iron footboard of the bed.
DEUTSCH
Sit tight, Fink.
THE HALLWAY
As Deutsch joins Mastrionotti.
DEUTSCH
Why’s it so goddamn hot out here?
MASTRIONOTTI
. . . Fred . . .
Deutsch looks where Mastrionotti is looking.
Now comes that incredible hallway shot. Notice how much directing detail is baked into the script. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, you CAN put camera angles in– IF you’re the Coen Brothers, are directing the movie yourself, or are already funded. If you have the funding, hell, you can do whatever the fuck you like– write it in pink Crayola crayon or Comic Sans Font– you got the money! Back to the genius of the Coen Brothers, camera angles and all…here, more Secondary Slugs, pushing the reader’s eye down the page…really seeing the movie…
THE WALL
Tacky yellow fluid streams down. The walls are pouring sweat.
The hallway is quiet.
MASTRIONOTTI AND DEUTSCH
They look at each other. They look down the hall.
THEIR POV
The elevator stands open at the far end of the empty hall.
For a long beat, nothing.
Finally Pete, the elevator man, emerges.
At this distance, he is a small figure, stumbling this way and that, his
hands presseed against the sides of his head.
He turns to face Mastrionotti and Deutsch and takes a few steps forward,
still clutching his head.
MASTRIONOTTI AND DEUTSCH
Watching.
PETE
He takes on last step, then collapses.
As he pitches forward his hands fall away from his head. His head separates
from his neck, hits the floor, and rolls away from his body with a dull
irregular trundle sound.
MASTRIONOTTI AND DEUTSCH
Wide-eyed, they look at each other, then back down the hall.
All is quiet.
THE HALLWAY
Smoke is beginning to drift into the far end of the hall.
We hear a muted rumble.
MASTRIONOTTI AND DEUTSCH
Mastrionotti tugs at his tie. He slowly unholsters his gun. Deutsch
slowly, hypnotically, follows suit.
DEUTSCH
. . . Show yourself, Mundt!
More quiet.
THE HALLWAY
More smoke.
Careful what you wish for. When the detectives finally see Mundt coming down the corridor they point those unholstered guns at Mundt and give orders. They think he’s complying.
Uh-uh…
LOW STEEP ANGLE ON ELEVATOR DOOR
The crack where the floor of the elevator meets that of the hall.
It flickers with red light from below. Bottom-lit smoke sifts up.
CLOSE ON MASTRIONOTTI
Standing in the foreground, gun at ready. Sweat pours down his face.
Behind him, Deutsch stands nervously in the light-spill from Barton’s
doorway.
The rumble and crackle of fire grows louder.
THE HALLWAY
More smoke.
PATCH OF WALL
Sweating.
A swath of wallpaper sags away from the top of the wall, exposing glistening
lath underneath.
With a light airy pop, the lathwork catches on fire.
MASTRIONOTTI AND DEUTSCH
Sweating.
DEUTSCH
. . . Mundt!
THEIR POV
The hallway. Its end-facing-wall slowly spreads flame from where the
wallpaper droops.
LOW STEEP ANGLE ON ELEVATOR DOOR
More red bottom-lit smoke seeps up from the crack between elevator and
hallway floors.
With a groan of tension relieved cables and a swaying of the elevator door,
a pair of feet crosses the threshold into the doorway.
JUMPING BACK
Wide on the hallway. Charlie Meadows has emerged from the elevator and is
hellishly backlit by the flame.
His suit coat hangs open. His hat is pushed back on his head. From his
right hand his briefcase dangles.
He stands motionless, facing us. There is something monumental in his
posture, shoulders thrown back.
MASTRIONOTTI
Tensed. Behind him, Deutsch gulps.
MASTRIONOTTI
There’s a boy, Mundt. Put the policy
case down and your mitts in the air.
CHARLIE
He leans slowly down to put the briefcase on the floor.
CLOSE ON MASTRIONOTTI
Relax. He murmurs:
MASTRIONOTTI
He’s complying.
BACK TO CHARLIE
He straightens up from the briefcase, a sawed-off shotgun in his hands.
BOOM! The shotgun spits fire.
Mastrionotti’s face is peppered by buckshot and he is blown back down the
hallway into Deutsch.
Bellowing fills the hallway over the roar of the fire:
CHARLIE
LOOK UPON ME! LOOK UPON ME! I’LL SHOW
YOU THE LIFE OF THE MIND!!
THE HALLWAY
The fire starts racing down the hallway.
CLOSE STEEP ANGLE ON PATCH OF WALL
Fire races along the wall-sweat goopus.
TRACK IN ON DEUTSCH
His eyes widen at Charlie and the approaching fire; his gun dangles
fprgotten from his right hand.
HIS POV
Charlie is charging down the hallway, holding his shotgun loosely in front
of his chest, in double-time position. The fire races along with him.
He is bellowing:
CHARLIE
LOOK UPON ME! I’LL SHOW YOU THE LIFE
OF THE MIND! I’LL SHOW YOU THE LIFE
OF THE MIND!
DEUTSCH
Terrified, he turns and runs.
REVERSE PULLING DEUTSCH
As he rund down the flaming hallway, pursued by flames, smoke, and Karl
Mundt – who, also on the run, levels his shotgun.
BOOM!
PUSHING DEUTSCH
His legs and feet spout blood, paddle futilely at the air, then come down in
a twisting wobble, like a car on blown tires, and pitch him helplessly to
the floor.
PULLING CHARLIE
He slows to a trot and cracks open the shotgun.
PUSHING DEUTSCH
Weeping and dragging himself forward on his elbows.
PULLING CHARLIE
He slows to a walk.
BARTON’S ROOM
Barton strains at his handcuffs.
HIS POV
Through the open doorway we see Charlie pass, pushing two shells into his
shotgun.
PULLING DEUTSCH
Charlie looms behind him and – THWACK – snaps the shotgun closed.
Deutsch rolls over to rest on his elbows, facing Charlie.
Charlie primes the shotgun – CLACK.
He presses both barrels against the bridge of Deutsh’s nose.
CHARLIE
Heil Hitler.
DEUTSCH
Screams
CHARLIE
Tightens a finger over both triggers. He squeezes.
BLAM.
