initial overwhelming exuberance is also a façade. Although he begins by telling Barton: "The writer is king here at Capitol Pictures," in the penultimate scene he insists: "If your opinion mattered, then I guess I'd resign and let you run the studio. It doesn't, and you won't, and the lunatics are not going to run this particular asylum." Deception in Barton Fink is emblematic of Hollywood's focus on low culture, its relentless desire to efficiently produce formulaic entertainment for the sole purpose of economic gain. Capitol Pictures assigns Barton to write a wrestling picture with superstar Wallace Beery in the leading role. Although Lipnick declares otherwise, Geisler assures Barton that "it's just a B picture." Audrey tries to help the struggling writer by telling him: "Look, it's really just a formula. You don't have to type your soul into it." This formula is made clear by Lipnick, who asks Barton in their first meeting whether the main character should have a love interest or take care of an orphaned child. Barton shows his iconoclasm by answering: "Both, maybe?" In the end, his inability to conform to the studio's norms destroys Barton. A similar depiction of Hollywood appears in Nathanael West's novel The Day of the Locust (1939), which many critics see as an important precursor to Barton Fink. Set in a run-down apartment complex, the book describes a painter reduced to decorating film sets. It portrays Hollywood as crass and exploitative, devouring talented individuals in its neverending quest for profit. In both West's novel and Barton Fink, protagonists suffer under the oppressive industrial machine of the film studio. Writing The film contains further self-referential material, as a film about a writer having difficulty writing (written by the Coen brothers while they were having difficulty writing Miller's Crossing). Barton is trapped between his own desire to create meaningful art and Capitol Pictures' need to use its standard conventions to earn profits. Audrey's advice about following the formula would have saved Barton, but he does not heed it. However, when he puts the mysterious package (which might have contained her head) on his writing desk, she might have been helping him posthumously, in other ways. The film itself toys with standard screenplay formulae. As with Mayhew's scripts, Barton Fink contains a "good wrestler" (Barton, it seems) and a "bad wrestler" (Charlie) who "confront" each other at the end. But in typical Coen