Barton's Room In The Hotel Earle

ently rings the bell to get help checking in. The bell rings for a whole 37 seconds of screen time. This is perhaps the first diegetic sound that suggests that something is off with the Hotel Earle. Barton, already somewhat uneasy about being in Los Angeles, is unhinged even more by the long ringing of the bell. His unease is not helped when Chet, the bellboy, appears from a trapdoor in the ground to silence the bell. Chet is friendly enough, but when Barton informs him that he would like to check in Chet seems a bit put off, as if this is a strange request. Almost as if no one has check in for a very long time. However, if the key cupboards behind Chet are any indication the hotel has many guests. The Coen Brothers waste no time in informing the audiences that there is something weird about this hotel. This is solidified as the doors to the elevator slide closed revealing many 6s engraved next to each other so that no matter how the door is looked at one sees 666. Barton’s room in The Hotel Earle is room number 621. The room itself is, like the lobby, dark and dreary with almost no natural light and windows that are all but sealed shut. Barton attempts to open the window and almost breaks it in the process. The environment that the room creates is exactly the type of room that someone could get hit with a severe …show more content…
He refuses to give up a dance with a beautiful woman and gets into an argument with a sailor. Barton proclaims loudly to the whole room, “I'm a writer, you monsters! I CREATE! [He points at his head.]...This is my uniform!...THIS is how I serve the common man!” (Coen). Throughout the film we watch a Barton, drunk on the success of his play, slowly forgets about the “common man” as he climbs the Hollywood ladder. The person that captures this in perfect words is Charlie when he calls Barton “just a tourist with a typewriter”