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[Coen pt.II] Miller's Crossing – An exercise in style
Joe Dizzy
taking the day offRegistered User regular
taking the day offRegistered User regular
Let's talk about Miller's Crossing.
I've seen it recently for the first time and it's quite an interesting film. Both on its own and in regard to the rest of the Coen films. The first thing that I noticed was just how confident the entire film is shot. It is so deeply steeped in its genre, that it could almost convince you of being a recently discovered movie from the 1940s. If it weren't for all the recognisable faces.
What's most interesting is that it never comes across as merely aping the cinematic tropes of its genre, but being of a piece of a cinematic era that was almost 40 years passed by the time the film was made. I find that interesting. And it got me wondering just how exactly the Coens pulled it off.
What makes Miller's Crossing such a triumph is that it looks beyond the surface of film noir and delves into the cultural context it grew out of. There's an actual understanding of the genre and its roots, that you can't really find in most other films that famously looked at film noir (e.g. Brick, Memento or even the god-awful Sin City). There are typical hard-boiled themes resonating in Miller's Crossing in such a way as to inform the setting, the atmosphere and the story without hitting you over the head with its references. (There are moments and characters that seem as if they've been lifted straight out of Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest.) That's one of the most fundamental things the movie gets right. Instead of looking at examples of film noir and aping them, Miller's Crossing looks at hard-boiled fiction and manages to capture some of its predominant themes. By transplanting those themes into film, it manages to do the same thing that made film noir so unique: it opened up the space for interpretation in the story and thus gave audiences thematic ambiguity while still retaining coherency and pay-off on a plot level. (Something that many people seem to feel the Coens failed to do with No Country for Old Men.) It effectively becomes a film noir by retracing the genesis of film noir, as opposed to its execution.
So what are those themes I am going on about? I think the two most obvious ones are society and its main character. Miller's Crossing handles these two things by reaching back to the two greandmasters of hard-boiled fiction: Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. The Coens transplant Hammett's depiction of society as held up by corrupt and violent people who have all but hollowed out the institutions people rely on to keep the social peace. Miller's Crossing does this in two ways. One obvious and one subtle. The obvious one is of course the Mayor and the chief of police being shown as lackeys of first Leo and then Casper. The people whose supposed integrity and character allows them to hold office are shown to be nothing but cowardly yes-men who sell out to the highest bidder. They are played as buffoons, and the scenes where they show up are played for laughs, but still... it very clearly shows that the city is run by Leo (and later Casper). And this just gets underlined by the way they are not allowed to dominate the frame the way their bosses do. They are seated lower than their boss, in chairs that are far too small for them and in which they cannot help but sink into, while Leo/Casper sit comfortably behind their domineering desks. It's a very straight-forward (and inexpensive) way to show, but not tell the audience everything they need to know about the power structure in this town.
The somewhat more subtle way Miller's Crossing drives the point home about a society out of order and no longer building on any kind of values, are the two mirror scenes when the police squad show up to raid a place. (First Casper's hideout and later the Shenandoah Club.) The scenes are literally mirrored with the chief of police standing to the left of Tom, and later to the right. They are both times interrupted by gun-fire and casually talk to one another. The dialogue makes it clear that both of them are fully aware of the hypocrisy of what is happening, but neither makes the effort of commenting on it in any way. It is simply an understood facet of life in this town. The police will raid, arrest and shoot down people for reasons that have nothing to do with justice or protecting the public, and everything to do with who's personal agenda is being served today. If this isn't a grim, cynical and downright hopeless view of society, I'm not sure what is.
The other cornerstone for getting the genre right, is the main character Tom Reagan. Again there is a subtle but profound understanding at work here, in that Tom is a character defined by his state of mind and his beliefs. Two things that are generally not that easy to portray in a film. The cheapest and most blatant way is usually to have characters talk about each other. It's a clunky and awful way of doing it, but the Coens prove to be smarter than that. (Even though there are some scenes of people telling each other what they're like, most obvious in Verna talking to Tom. But these scenes are more about revealing Verna's character and desire, than they are about characterising Tom. Watch those scenes again and think about when and why she mentions Tom's flaws or character. It is for the most part a plea to Tom to do “the right thing”. Something that is repurposed at the end of the film.)
The most insightful thing about Tom is the way he's placed in his own home. Notice how the frames are full of empty spaces when he is in his (barely worth the name) living room. He is alone, isolated and even in the privacy of his own home, he's lost. Notice also how this is countered with the close framing when he's with Verna. There is intimacy and even warmth there (notice the color palette in the scenes they share for the first 2/3 of the movie). Even though Byrne barely betrays any emotion it is apparent that Verna is important to him. But even then.. Tom stands alone. Repeatedly he's shown ruminating, thinking and trying to figure out all the angles. He's an introvert. There are only a handful of moments – other than when he gets punched – where something akin to surprise or shock registers on his face. One of them is when his life is in danger. The other, much more telling and characterising moments, are at the start of the film and towards the end. His surprise when Leo decides not to come down on Bernie Bernbaum and the moment when he sees Caspar slapping his son in the face.
They are small moments, but both serve an important function. In the latter we are reminded that Tom for all his ambiguous behaviour and double-dealing still has some shared values with the audience. He is as opposed to fathers hitting their sons, as the audience. There is still something that marks him as one of “us”, and not one of “them”. He is still part of civilisation and hasn't yet slipped into the anarchic jungle of might-makes-right. But more importantly both for his characters's journey as well as the pinpoint accuracy with which Miller's Crossing inhabits its genre, is the beginning of the movie. Tom beseeches Leo to reconsider. He makes his plea for Leo to act rationally and get rid of Bernie Bernbaum. Because Tom and Leo used to do things because they had a reason. The accusation being that Leo is starting to act out of impulse, emotion or instinct. A behaviour that is ultimately at odds with civilised behaviour and detrimental to any peaceful or even stable co-existence. And immediately Tom is placed – like many hard-boiled heroes before him – as the lone, sane voice surrounded by a sea of ego-driven and id-dominated animals. Tom is defined by his rationality and by his values (such as loyalty), all things he will have abandoned by the end of the film. Completing his (and the genre's) metamorphosis from man to animal.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, of course. I haven't even touched on some of the bit characters, how they are well-placed within the genre or even how the ending manages to be both triumphant and a heartbreaking condemnation of Tom Reagan. There's the way that the visual influences of expressionism are felt, without being mimicked. There are the ways the film deals with archetypes and even manages to be truer to its hard-boiled roots (in regards to how homosexuality is handled) than many of the films of the era, where homosexuality was marginalised to the point of being almost invisible. (And once I figure out how to take snapshots on my laptop, I'll see if I can add some screenshots to the thread.)
Are there any other aspects or themes that you'd think would be of interest in a thorough discussion about Miller's Crossing?
I've seen it recently for the first time and it's quite an interesting film. Both on its own and in regard to the rest of the Coen films. The first thing that I noticed was just how confident the entire film is shot. It is so deeply steeped in its genre, that it could almost convince you of being a recently discovered movie from the 1940s. If it weren't for all the recognisable faces.
What's most interesting is that it never comes across as merely aping the cinematic tropes of its genre, but being of a piece of a cinematic era that was almost 40 years passed by the time the film was made. I find that interesting. And it got me wondering just how exactly the Coens pulled it off.
What makes Miller's Crossing such a triumph is that it looks beyond the surface of film noir and delves into the cultural context it grew out of. There's an actual understanding of the genre and its roots, that you can't really find in most other films that famously looked at film noir (e.g. Brick, Memento or even the god-awful Sin City). There are typical hard-boiled themes resonating in Miller's Crossing in such a way as to inform the setting, the atmosphere and the story without hitting you over the head with its references. (There are moments and characters that seem as if they've been lifted straight out of Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest.) That's one of the most fundamental things the movie gets right. Instead of looking at examples of film noir and aping them, Miller's Crossing looks at hard-boiled fiction and manages to capture some of its predominant themes. By transplanting those themes into film, it manages to do the same thing that made film noir so unique: it opened up the space for interpretation in the story and thus gave audiences thematic ambiguity while still retaining coherency and pay-off on a plot level. (Something that many people seem to feel the Coens failed to do with No Country for Old Men.) It effectively becomes a film noir by retracing the genesis of film noir, as opposed to its execution.
So what are those themes I am going on about? I think the two most obvious ones are society and its main character. Miller's Crossing handles these two things by reaching back to the two greandmasters of hard-boiled fiction: Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. The Coens transplant Hammett's depiction of society as held up by corrupt and violent people who have all but hollowed out the institutions people rely on to keep the social peace. Miller's Crossing does this in two ways. One obvious and one subtle. The obvious one is of course the Mayor and the chief of police being shown as lackeys of first Leo and then Casper. The people whose supposed integrity and character allows them to hold office are shown to be nothing but cowardly yes-men who sell out to the highest bidder. They are played as buffoons, and the scenes where they show up are played for laughs, but still... it very clearly shows that the city is run by Leo (and later Casper). And this just gets underlined by the way they are not allowed to dominate the frame the way their bosses do. They are seated lower than their boss, in chairs that are far too small for them and in which they cannot help but sink into, while Leo/Casper sit comfortably behind their domineering desks. It's a very straight-forward (and inexpensive) way to show, but not tell the audience everything they need to know about the power structure in this town.
The somewhat more subtle way Miller's Crossing drives the point home about a society out of order and no longer building on any kind of values, are the two mirror scenes when the police squad show up to raid a place. (First Casper's hideout and later the Shenandoah Club.) The scenes are literally mirrored with the chief of police standing to the left of Tom, and later to the right. They are both times interrupted by gun-fire and casually talk to one another. The dialogue makes it clear that both of them are fully aware of the hypocrisy of what is happening, but neither makes the effort of commenting on it in any way. It is simply an understood facet of life in this town. The police will raid, arrest and shoot down people for reasons that have nothing to do with justice or protecting the public, and everything to do with who's personal agenda is being served today. If this isn't a grim, cynical and downright hopeless view of society, I'm not sure what is.
The other cornerstone for getting the genre right, is the main character Tom Reagan. Again there is a subtle but profound understanding at work here, in that Tom is a character defined by his state of mind and his beliefs. Two things that are generally not that easy to portray in a film. The cheapest and most blatant way is usually to have characters talk about each other. It's a clunky and awful way of doing it, but the Coens prove to be smarter than that. (Even though there are some scenes of people telling each other what they're like, most obvious in Verna talking to Tom. But these scenes are more about revealing Verna's character and desire, than they are about characterising Tom. Watch those scenes again and think about when and why she mentions Tom's flaws or character. It is for the most part a plea to Tom to do “the right thing”. Something that is repurposed at the end of the film.)
The most insightful thing about Tom is the way he's placed in his own home. Notice how the frames are full of empty spaces when he is in his (barely worth the name) living room. He is alone, isolated and even in the privacy of his own home, he's lost. Notice also how this is countered with the close framing when he's with Verna. There is intimacy and even warmth there (notice the color palette in the scenes they share for the first 2/3 of the movie). Even though Byrne barely betrays any emotion it is apparent that Verna is important to him. But even then.. Tom stands alone. Repeatedly he's shown ruminating, thinking and trying to figure out all the angles. He's an introvert. There are only a handful of moments – other than when he gets punched – where something akin to surprise or shock registers on his face. One of them is when his life is in danger. The other, much more telling and characterising moments, are at the start of the film and towards the end. His surprise when Leo decides not to come down on Bernie Bernbaum and the moment when he sees Caspar slapping his son in the face.
They are small moments, but both serve an important function. In the latter we are reminded that Tom for all his ambiguous behaviour and double-dealing still has some shared values with the audience. He is as opposed to fathers hitting their sons, as the audience. There is still something that marks him as one of “us”, and not one of “them”. He is still part of civilisation and hasn't yet slipped into the anarchic jungle of might-makes-right. But more importantly both for his characters's journey as well as the pinpoint accuracy with which Miller's Crossing inhabits its genre, is the beginning of the movie. Tom beseeches Leo to reconsider. He makes his plea for Leo to act rationally and get rid of Bernie Bernbaum. Because Tom and Leo used to do things because they had a reason. The accusation being that Leo is starting to act out of impulse, emotion or instinct. A behaviour that is ultimately at odds with civilised behaviour and detrimental to any peaceful or even stable co-existence. And immediately Tom is placed – like many hard-boiled heroes before him – as the lone, sane voice surrounded by a sea of ego-driven and id-dominated animals. Tom is defined by his rationality and by his values (such as loyalty), all things he will have abandoned by the end of the film. Completing his (and the genre's) metamorphosis from man to animal.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, of course. I haven't even touched on some of the bit characters, how they are well-placed within the genre or even how the ending manages to be both triumphant and a heartbreaking condemnation of Tom Reagan. There's the way that the visual influences of expressionism are felt, without being mimicked. There are the ways the film deals with archetypes and even manages to be truer to its hard-boiled roots (in regards to how homosexuality is handled) than many of the films of the era, where homosexuality was marginalised to the point of being almost invisible. (And once I figure out how to take snapshots on my laptop, I'll see if I can add some screenshots to the thread.)
Are there any other aspects or themes that you'd think would be of interest in a thorough discussion about Miller's Crossing?
Joe Dizzy on
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I do believe they are two different films.
He is making "a point".
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