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Coen Country: The Films of Joel and Ethan Coen
Miller's Crossing (1990)
Tom Reagan: Dream I had once. I was walkin' in the woods, I don't know why. Wind came up and blew me hat off. Verna: And you chased it, right? You ran and ran, finally caught up to it and you picked it up. But it wasn't a hat anymore and it changed into something else, something wonderful. Tom Reagan: Nah, it stayed a hat and no, I didn't chase it. Nothing more foolish than a man chasin' his hat.
With Miller’s Crossing, the intricate Prohibition-era Yojimbo re-imagining with Irish gangsters, a tough dame and Tommygun showdowns, the brothers brought forth an exemplary display of structure, plot and dialogue that not only separated them from other screenwriters of their generation, but matched (and arguably surpassed) their influences from a storied Hollywood history. While the excellent Fargo and No Country For Old Men have enjoyed mainstream success and become their most famous accomplishments, Miller’s Crossing is still their masterwork (though their follow-up is damn close. More on that later). The film is typically described as a gangster film, which it is, but I’d say it shares greater similarities with Film Noir than it does Cagney and Hawks (though homage can be found) or, certainly, the work of Scorsese and Coppola. Miller’s Crossing came out the same year as Scorsese’s Goodfellas, and was unfortunately overshadowed by that film’s visceral energy and brutal realism. It’s debatable which film is superior since it’s so difficult to compare them, but the distinct qualities of each film help classify them. Miller’s Crossing shares a stylistic sensibility with noir, both in its writing and its direction, in the way the characters interact and express the lonely, alienated nature of who they are. Like a screenplay by Ben Hecht, the Coens let their characters talk everything out. It’s not really about the criminal activity of an organization so much as it's about the relationships between the people within the organization.
Playing with Yojimbo’s structure of a man manipulating two opposing forces until his agenda is fully revealed, the Coens take full advantage of the noir-inspired opportunities the story provides. It’s a complex plot, with characters going back and forth in loyalty and motivation, but, as the Coens stated, it’s not necessarily important that you follow every specific detail in every scene. In true noir tradition, the twists, turns and confusion are part of the film’s appeal. Even with everything that happens between the characters, the film never loses you. The emotional core between Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne at his cool best) and his boss, Leo (Albert Finney), and more importantly, the relationship between Tom and Leo’s girl, Verna (Marcia Gay Harden), is perfectly coherent and affecting, with unexpected moments that quietly sneak up on you. Also in classic noir tradition, the lead characters, Tom and Verna, have a storm of emotion brewing underneath the surface, but they never, never, let it break open and spill out into splashy over-the-top nonsense. The two characters remain collected no matter what the circumstance, whether it’s Tom getting beaten up, down and around, or Verna doing her best to express her affection and interest in her man. Hell, in a crucial scene when Tom seems to be facing certain death, he even pukes with restraint. The same can’t be said for Turturro’s Bernie Bernbaum. And Jon Polito’s Johnny Casper is a raging mess of emotion as he tries to overthrow Leo and muscle his way to the top. With the help of the Dane (J.E. Freeman, “up is down, black is white”), nothing is safe around the small town setting. The Coens have always demonstrated tremendous ability and understanding of pure cinematic technique with their work. There’s the hula-hoop number in Hudsucker Proxy, the Busby Berkely-esque musical interlude in Big Lebowski, the brilliant Corridor-of-Hell finale in Barton Fink, but in this movie there’s one particular sequence that stands out as a career highlight. You all know the one I mean. It involves Albert Finney, a Tommygun and “Danny Boy”. It’s as classic as classic sequences get. And this is Miller's Crossing, a film with such exceptional craftsmanship, superb performances and confident writing that I find it difficult to think of it as anything less than a masterpiece. That’s not something I say about a lot of movies, but it’s tough to argue against it in this case. This is their defining work.
Barton Fink (1991) As most people know, the darkly revealing Barton Fink sprung from a period of writer's block while Joel and Ethan were working on their screenplay for Miller’s Crossing. In writing about a tormented but reasonably successful Broadway playwright who takes a compromising Hollywood offer on a Wrestling picture, the Coen brothers not only hit the essence of internal creative conflict, but devised a fascinating allegory on various themes regarding artistic truth. There’s always a comedic element to the Coens work whether it’s for pure comedy like Raising Arizona or pure terror like No Country For Old Men. They always manage to infuse black comedy into their films to surprising results. It’s true enough for Barton Fink, though I’d argue this is also their most serious effort. I don’t find Barton Fink to be a satire on ego and vanity, whether from a supposedly authentic “common man” voice like Fink, or a Hollywood animal in the form of studio boss Jack Lipnick (played to delicious over-the-top effect by Michael Lerner). The Coens certainly use this element for a few laughs here and there, but the film is clearly about so much more than a funny writer and the big, bad studio system. If anything, I find the overall tone to be sympathetic, even compassionate, towards Fink’s troubles. Much has been written about the biblical touches sprinkled throughout the story. The hotel itself exists as a sort of hellish, Kafka-esque prison for the lead character to dwell in, a symbol for all his suffering and inspiration as an artist.
The core thematic idea behind Barton Fink is expressed in a crucial conversation about midway through the film. Fink mentions that great writing comes from a place of deep, bottled-up pain, that insight, understanding and genuine art stems from personal anguish. It’s this idea that the Coens wrestle with (pun intended) for the entire film. The story is moved forward by the central relationship between Fink (Turturro in his career defining performance) and his hotel neighbor Charlie Meadows, aka Karl “Madman” Munt, played by the great John Goodman. Meadows introduces himself as a salesman, and his sweet manners and light, charming presence is immediately appreciated by an always tense, insecure guy like Fink. Meadows is, in the end, the exact personality Fink is so interested in exploring and expressing through his work. He wants to portray the common man, the working class, the average American striving for that elusive dream of success and happiness. The Satan connection is easy when you consider Goodman's transformation to kill-crazy “Heil Hitler” Munt, but I think I agree with the analysis written here at The Aspect Ratio by Lon: Munt is a character, as he wrote, “that represents the dual nature of Barton’s imagination”. I don’t think it’s by chance that Meadows is so friendly and innocent for the majority of the film. It seems like this character WANTS to be good and pure, but because he’s a symbol of Barton’s nightmarish situation, he transforms to fire and chaos when Barton seems to be trapped in his creative hole indefinitely. But here we tap into the film’s greatest quality: the story is open to interpretation. Valid arguments have been written for several different views of the characters and themes presented in this story. In writing about the creative process, the Coens have inspired dialogue about the creation of art itself. This is why Barton Fink is still arguably their finest achievement alongside Miller’s Crossing, the film that started the issue in the first place. Continue to The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo and The Big Lebowski
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