Certification. 18
Running Time. 1 hour 55 mins
Director. Joel Coen
Cast. Steve Buscemi, Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney, Marcia Gay Harden, Jon Polito, John Turturro.
Rating. 88%
Following rapturous reviews and critical acclaim for Raising Arizona, Joel and Ethan Coen unveiled Miller's Crossing, perhaps the most underrated and overlooked film in the brothers' back catalogue. Miller's Crossing is certainly one of my favourite Coen brothers' films and should be held in the same esteem as Fargo, The Big Lebowski and No Country For Old Men.
Unfortunately released amidst a glut of gangster films - Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas, Phil Joanou's State of Grace, Abel Ferrara's King Of New York, William Reilly's Men Of Respect, and Francis Ford Coppola's eagerly anticipated The Godfather Part III. Little wonder, then, that the understated and inconspicuous Miller's Crossing was off the radar of many, and perhaps as a result, the film initially received lukewarm reviews.
The plot of Miller's Crossing is convoluted, and, at times, difficult to follow. The traditional film noir complexity is only exasperated by the pace of the frequently informal dialogue (often spoken in a thick Irish brogue). The film takes inspiration from Dashiell Hammet's novel The Glass Key - a source of inspiration for Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo and Sergio Leone's A Fistful Of Dollars - and Jean-Pierre Melville's classic French crime drama, Le Doulos. But the cinematic homages go deeper - the opening scene, in which Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito) confronts Leo O'Bannon (Albert Finney) is an obvious salute to the opening of The Godfather, and the closing scene, the funeral is an even more blatant tribute to The Third Man.
Gabriel Byrne delivers a career-defining performance as the brooding Tom Reagan, Leo O'Bannon's trusted right-hand man. Admirable and attractive, despite his Machiavellian tendencies, Byrne portrays Reagan every bit as hard-nosed, cynical and self-destructive as the film noir icons, Sam Spade (The Maltese Falcon) and Rick Blaine (Casablanca). Byrne's Reagan is perfectly complemented by Marcia Gay Harden's Verna, who bristles with the same sort of ferocious, tough-talking self-assurance associated with the sultry femme fatale of the 1940s - Gloria Grahame, Barbara Stanwyck or Lauren Bacall.
The sumptuous cinematography of Miller's Crossing created by Director of Photography, Barry Sonnenfeld was a result of filming using long lenses, instead of the more traditional wide-angle lenses favoured by most filmmakers of the time. The production design by Dennis Gassner is equally on point, particularly the recreation of the long, oak, smoke-filled rooms favoured by those in power.
And Carter Burwell's accompanying score remains some of the best work he has produced. Burwell took a traditional Irish ballad, 'Limerick's Lamentation' [recommended to the composer by Gabriel Byrne] with an obvious cultural connection to the main characters and installed it as the centrepiece of the film. The plaintive oboe of the opening titles and end titles has to be one of the great film scores of the past 30 years. When combined with the now-iconic image - the black hat on the ground blowing in the wind tantalisingly out of reach of the viewer - combine to produce poetry, pure poetry.
At times, Miller's Crossing is ultra-violent, especially the one truly iconic action sequence - the attempt on Leo O'Bannon's life. A scene elevated by the surprising narrative inversion and relentless flare of the Tommy gun unleashed by Leo.
Sometimes the best films, the ones we remember years later or the ones we can't get out of our heads (like a black hat blowing in the wind) are only appreciated after time has passed. We re-watch, re-discover and re-evaluate. I would suggest, no other Coen brothers' film asks as much from the audience as Miller's Crossing, yet rewards the audience so generously for their efforts.
Comments
Post a Comment