Movies - Miller's Crossing

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Miller's Crossing

	Movies - Miller's Crossing

Miller's Crossing (1990) is a gangster film directed by Joel and Ethan Coen.

The action in Miller's Crossing takes place in 1929 in an unnamed American city (most of the exteriors were shot in New Orleans, taking advantage of that city's vintage architecture and streetcar line). Its convoluted plot depicts the journey of Tom Reagan, the right-hand man of the boss of an Irish crime gang. Tom is an ambivalent, enigmatic protagonist, who may or may not be plotting against his boss. Either way, he ends up caught in, and partly causing, a bloody gang war.

Miller's Crossing is a highly allusive film that contains references to many other gangster films and film noir; for example, the opening shot is a reference to the opening of The Godfather. Many of its situations, characters and dialog are derived from the work of Dashiell Hammett, especially his novel The Glass Key
and the 1942 movie that was adapted from it.

In 2005, TIME Magazine chose "Miller's Crossing" as one of the best 100 movies made since the inception of TIME. TIME movie critic Richard Corliss said that the movie is a "noir with a touch so light, the film seems to float on the breeze like the Frisbee of a fedora sailing through the forest."

Cast

Gabriel Byrne
as Tom Reagan
John Turturro
as Bernie Bernbaum
Marcia Gay Harden
as Verna Bernbaum
Albert Finney
as Leo O'Bannion
Jon Polito
as Johnny Caspar
J.E. Freeman as Eddie Dane
Steve Buscemi
as Mink

Trivia

Trey Wilson, the actor who played Nathan Arizona, Sr., in the Coens' earlier film Raising Arizona
, was originally cast to play mob boss Leo but died before filming. The role then went to Finney.
Sam Raimi
, film director and friend of the Coens, appears in a cameo as the principal police gunman at the siege of the Sons of Erin pub.
Frances McDormand
, Joel Coen's wife, appears in a cameo as the Mayor's secretary.
Albert Finney appears in a very brief cameo as an elderly woman in the ladies' room when Tom bursts in there to confront Verna.
Tom's apartment is located in the 'Barton Arms' - an allusion to the Coens' subsequent film, Barton Fink
. During the writing process, the Coen's hit a wall in trying to figure out how exactly to end Miller's Crossing. They took time off from the script to write Barton Fink, a story about a writer with writer's block, then returned to their original project.
During filming the New Orleans Police would arrive semi regularly to assess fines for permits the film crew had already procured. Joel Coen commented to Premiere Magazine during shooting," they are acting precisely like the cops that we're depicting in the movie, and they don't even care!"
There is only one shot where any hint of sunlight can be seen. It occurs when The Dane, Tic Tac and Frankie take Tom to Miller's Crossing to find Bernie's body. Sunlight is visible shining on the landscape in the background for a few seconds. Otherwise, every other scene was shot either on overcast days or indoors.

External resources

Category:1990 films Category:Neo-noir Category:Mafia movies Category:Films directed by the Coen brothers

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Miller's Crossing ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Miller's Crossing; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay