Miller's Crossing

Friday, 01 August, Year 6 d.Tr. | Author: Mircea Popescu

Miller's Crossingi is a story of a perfect world, which also happens to be the world I was born into - but apart from that coincidence (for which I am quite grateful, obviously) there's really no connection between the two.

Byrne plays an Irish consigliere, which makes no sense as the Irish didn't do it that way, and moreover he's ungodly young for that position. His boss is a complete idiot who gives himself the lie within five minutes and keeps a girlfriend on bad terms. The girlfriend in question (Marcia Gay Harden) is about as plain old unattractive as you can get, and carries a strange hairy bird's nest on her head at all times - all of which works great for the role. The bad terms are that her brother's to be protected. Her brother's a rotten faggot, the exact historical trope that gave manham artists a bad name. Now whether this is because they were faggots or because of the oppressive circumstances of faggotry at the time isn't anyone's concern - the main point is that people didn't piss on fags because people were "ignorant" or mean or whateverthehell. People pissed on fags because Bernie Bernbaum.

Jon Polito is absolutely fantastic as the eye-tee underlying of Byrne's boss that meanwhile got too big. In fact, the opening scene, a confrontation between the mick and the greaseball, with their respective shadows, covering matters of, hell, I'm not ashamed to say it, ethics, the jungle and anarchy is so good I had to replay it. You've not seen acting of this caliber since Nicole Kidman was pretending to like Tom Cruise (or, I guess, that chick with the legsii Michael Douglas). Anyway, he's upset that the girlfriend's brother is chiseling his fixes, and did I mention the girl's also doing Byrne ? Then there's car chases, dead bodies, machine gun fire, the chief of police and the mayor (which, incidentally, are working in absolutely the only manner they may ever be allowed to work - so if you're into a public career watch this film twice and get it well into your head!) and eventually everybody's dead, pretty much. Which works out to the advantage of the donkeys, who unlike the wops have multiple spare lives.

The dialogue's well thought out and flows, the whole story makes sense - the Coens! yet for some inexplicable reason this isn't universally recognised as the best work of their entire career - which it unreservedly is. I suspect the problem is purely ideological, much like junior high kids don't want to read the books on the reading list, government employees don't like to watch the mandatory instructional videos for their chosen career.

Their loss. See this with a girl, wait for the scene about an hour in where Verna proposes Tom do or don't do on the grounds that he loves her, say "heh, he doesn't care enough". If she protests dump her, she's too stupid for this life.

———
  1. 1990, by Joel and Ethan Coen, with Gabriel Byrne, Jon Polito, John Turturro. []
  2. This one :

    catherine-zeta-jones-nude-allure-01

    From Allure. []

Category: Trilematograf
Comments feed : RSS 2.0. Leave your own comment below, or send a trackback.

6 Responses

  1. [...] time, you are one of those few with direct access to the corridors of power. You're Tom Reagan in Miller's Crossing, perhaps minus the fat lip : even if you don't directly make the big decisions, nevertheless you [...]

  2. [...] "salvation", such as it is. This is, generally speaking, a safe bet, and in the immortal words of Casper "I'm a sporting man. I like a sure [...]

  3. [...] first ten minutes of this thing stop your clock, so to speak, in that you forget what time it is. Polito'd be just as good, except he's stuck doing drill sargeant for an array of stray dogs (some of which [...]

  4. [...] dude talking about ?! [↩]Why the fuck would you do that ?! [↩]In the immortal words of Tom, "would that be physical, or just a mental state" ? [↩]Sexy women, come to the slave side. [...]

  5. [...] major minors like say Keitel (but specifically in Mean Streets, and there only) or Byrne -- in Miller's Crossing. The truly strong alternatives, Paul Newman, E. G. Robinson, James Cagney and... well, that's it. [...]

  6. [...] Glass Keyi is the delightful pre-war production Miller's Crossing is definitely the re-make ofii. A very convincingly demented psycho (that'll be remade by James [...]

Add your cents! »
    If this is your first comment, it will wait to be approved. This usually takes a few hours. Subsequent comments are not delayed.