SOURCE: "What's the Goopus?" in American Film, Vol. 16, August, 1991, pp. 30-32, 46.

In the following essay, Robertson describes a day in the shooting of Barton Fink.

Listlessly scratching his facial stubble, Ethan Coen gazes thoughtfully out through impenetrably dark sunglasses at the path Barton Fink must traverse. Ethan glances at me, then away. A second later, he looks at me again. He gestures vaguely outward. "Gloria Swanson used to live here," he says dully. He drops his hand limply at his side and stares ahead again.

Ethan has good reason to be excited. It's "Lipnik by the Pool" Day on the set of his and his brother Joel's latest movie, Barton Fink. Today's the day Barton pays a home visit to Jack Lipnik, the blustery titan of Capitol Pictures, and Lipnik apoplectically fires studio toady Lou Breeze for not kissing Barton's foot, then—what the hell—congenially gets down...