I’d Love To Turn You On At The Movies #207 - Miller’s Crossing (1990, dir. Joel Coen)

            The Coen Brothers get a lot of love around here. Their films have been written about three times before. In fact, I myself wrote about my love of their films when I reviewed A Serious Man just this past May. So it’s only fitting that I write about another of their films for my last Spork entry of 2018. Today, I’m going to talk about another of their oft-overlooked films, the 1990 gangster-noir film Miller’s Crossing.

            Like many of the Coens’ films, Miller’s Crossing is steeped in snappy dialogue, sometimes making it hard to follow the relatively simple plot. But the gist is this - Tom Reagan (played by Gabriel Byrne) is second in command to a powerful Irish mob boss, Leo O’Bannon (Albert Finney) in Prohibition-era America. At the onset of the film, Tom acts as a kind of mediator between Leo and rival Italian kingpin Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito) when the two men meet to discuss business. Caspar wants to have Bernie (John Turturro), a small-time bookie, killed for divulging secrets about Caspar’s organization. Bernie, however, pays for protection, and Leo refuses to give him up. This causes Caspar to become extremely angry, spewing a diatribe about ethics and threatening all-out war. After Caspar leaves, Tom tries to convince Leo that giving up Bernie to avoid a turf war is the smarter move. It is then revealed that Leo has another reason for not giving up Bernie - he is romantically involved with Bernie’s sister Verna (Marcia Gay-Harden). Leo’s refusal to budge does end up starting a war, beginning with a failed attempt on Leo’s life. This prompts Tom to try again to reason with Leo about handing over Bernie to Caspar. This time, he reveals to Leo that Verna is not worth protecting Bernie for as she has been stepping out on him… with Tom. Leo reacts violently, kicking the shit out of Tom and throwing him out of his establishment. Tom then begins working for Caspar, acting as a catalyst for the ongoing war between the sides.

            Having already dipped their toes in the film noir genre with their debut Blood Simple, by the release of Miller’s Crossing the Coens had the genre perfected. With this film, however, they stumbled upon something different. Cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld (pre-directing days) shot the film, making full use of darkness and shadow to create a somber and paranoid atmosphere where no one can be trusted. For all intents and purposes, Miller’s Crossing should have been the film that made the Coens a household name. They put a lot of grit and soul into getting the film made, even struggling with writer’s block during the screenwriting process for a three week stretch. On top of that, their original choice for the role of Leo O’Bannon, Trey Wilson (Nathan Arizona from their previous film Raising Arizona) died of a brain hemorrhage just two days before shooting began, opening the door for last minute fill-in Finney. Unfortunately, the film was a total bomb in the box office, only grossing about $5 million. This pattern would continue to plague them until the release of Fargo in 1996.

On the bright side, Miller’s Crossing has since become something of a cult classic and has garnered a lot in home video and DVD/Blu-ray sales. It’s the Coens’ third film, early enough in their careers that I hadn’t yet become the fanatic for their films that I am now. Having been completely blown away by Raising Arizona, as far as I knew these filmmakers excelled at making screwball comedies. I immediately loved Miller’s Crossing though, and it’s been one of my favorite films of theirs and in general ever since. It perfectly combines their trademark subtle wit with a hint of The Godfather and a dash of Double Indemnity. Their casting is always spot-on, but I was particularly taken with J.E. Freeman’s portrayal of Caspar’s majordomo Eddie Dane (or simply “The Dane”). There is something so menacing about that character, yet somehow kind of calming or soothing about his demeanor. It’s a performance that still hasn’t been topped in any of their films. And Byrne’s acting, in my observations, can sometimes feel a little flat, but in this film, he absolutely shines as the scheming, manipulative and perpetually drunk Tom. It is bar-none his best role.

The brothers have made some of the most unforgettable and amazing films of the last two decades. I recently watched them all in order back to back, ending with their most recent Netflix vehicle The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Each of their films truly has a unique voice of its own, but there is something about Miller’s Crossing that stands out even among an entire career’s worth of pure gems. I watched that one twice.

-         Jonathan Eagle

I’d Love To Turn You On At The Movies #192 - A Serious Man (2009, dir. Joel & Ethan Coen)

          Joel and Ethan Coen have been my favorite filmmakers for almost my entire life, whether I knew it or not. I’m pretty sure that I had watched 1987’s Raising Arizona around fifty times when I was a kid, before I had any interest in who created it. Later, I became obsessed with their nineties films. Fargo, which came out when I was in high school, was a real stepping stone for me as it was probably the reason for my interest in the deeper aspects of filmmaking and for my eventual foray into film as an academic pursuit. And, as cliché as it may be for a male of my age, 1998’s The Big Lebowski is one of my all-time favorite films, if not my all-time favorite. My point is, the Coens have been with me for the better part of my life, seemingly putting out a new film for every phase I’ve gone through. I’ve studied them closely over the years and almost consider them friends that I grew up with. And for this reason alone, I feel qualified to talk about their work.

            Writing about A Serious Man technically breaks the rules of this blog as it’s just under 10 years old. But of all the brothers’ works, I wanted to write about this film the most because it’s not only possibly the most overlooked film in the Coens’ oeuvre, it’s also a film whose subject matter I simultaneously relate to yet know very little about. More on that later. A Serious Man revolves around a Jewish family living in a small Minnesota suburb in 1967, all details that pertain directly to the Coens’ upbringing. So while not strictly autobiographical, these are characters and surroundings that are familiar to the brothers. The always phenomenal Michael Stuhlbarg plays the film’s protagonist Larry Gopnik, a college physics professor whose life begins unraveling when his wife announces she is leaving him for his best friend. This forces him to take a closer look at his life and notice the flaws that he hadn’t previously seen. His son is acting out in Hebrew School, his daughter steals money from him all the time, his unemployed brother-in-law is leeching off of him and he is being simultaneously bribed and blackmailed by one of his students for a more satisfactory grade. When everything goes wrong for Larry, he seeks the guidance of three rabbis to help him get through his crisis and gain a better understanding of his place in the world. The rabbis unfortunately are no help to him, as one lacks the life experience to relate to Larry’s problems, one just offers irrelevant parables that confuse more than they teach and the last one refuses to even see Larry. He begins questioning his faith and wondering whether God is testing him.

            I think part of what makes this film such an underappreciated part of the Coens’ filmography is that, coming out on the heels of Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men just two years prior, A Serious Man is more of a labor of love than their usual undertaking. While the film’s dark humor is pure Coens, it seems like it could be a story that the brothers have had kicking around for years, perhaps dating back to their own days as young Jewish Midwesterners. The cast is made up of largely unknown actors, relatively speaking, and even the way it’s shot seems different than that of their usual cinematography, almost more like a thriller than a comedy. While these facts may deter some from seeing the movie, opting for one of the Coens’ more critically acclaimed titles instead, I think these are reasons to see the film, reasons that A Serious Man might be one of their best. It’s the film that most mirrors what their own lives may have been like, which is fascinating in and of itself. But it also seems like a film they’ve always wanted to create and show the world, and perhaps winning the Best Picture Oscar finally afforded them the creative freedom to do it.

            As I said, I really wanted to write about this film because even though I am not Jewish and do not identify with really any religious customs, I understand reaching crisis mode. As I approach forty next month and have recently gone through a break-up of my own, I’ve done a lot of reflecting recently myself. I do know what it feels like to question whether the universe is testing you or punishing you and the Coens’ have eloquently written this feeling into the character of Larry Gopnik. Larry is just an average guy, trying to be “a serious man” while the world continuously shits on him. Yet he takes it all in stride because of his faith. A Serious Man is also a story about when those limits are tested and where the breaking point is in each person. One doesn’t have to be religious to identify with that.

-         Jonathan Eagle

I'd Love to Turn You On At the Movies #118 - The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001, dir. Joel Coen)

With their first two films, Blood Simple and Raising Arizona, Joel and Ethan Coen established what would become a guiding principle of their careers: their next film will be very different from their last. Now that the Coens have been making movies for over thirty years, this pattern has become more discernible, but for the first half of their careers, this dynamic tended to stymie audiences. People who enjoyed the nuanced ambience and crime narrative of the last film felt put off by the light-hearted silliness, slapstick, and absurdity of the next one. Of course, given enough time and the handful of breakout box-office successes in the Coens’ body of work, this dynamic has easily shifted by disappointing fans of their offbeat comedies with seemingly impenetrable works of moody soul-searching. O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a quasi-musical road-trip farce based on The Odyssey by Homer and set in the Depression-era South remains among the Coens’ most bizarre concepts, so it stands to reason that their next film would return to more familiar turf. Beyond the ever-changing look and tone of the Coens’ films, they have established a consistent focus on what happens when people break laws in attempts to better their individual stations in life. Arriving within a year of the highly successful, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Man Who Wasn’t There revisits the theme of upwardly mobile crime in a deceptively stylish manner that exhibits the Coens’ strengths in storytelling and celebrates the love they have for telling stories, as well.

A calm, slow grace accompanies The Man Who Wasn’t There from start to finish. The quick, episodic pace of the 1930’s South of O Brother, Where Art Thou? has been exchanged for a sedate, focused stride through an unremarkable Southern California town in the 1950’s. Sepia tone gives way to a rich and textured Black and White. After their first two films, the Coens quickly began adding “period pieces” to the their repertoire, but this is their first use of Black and White. This conscious choice of a more date-appropriate film style enables the Coens to further luxuriate in the details of the era including a quick visual guide to the popular haircuts of the day, the elaborate and ornate sets of a local department store central to the plot, and an afternoon spent at a distant relative’s countryside wedding. The Coens proceed to lampoon this regard for the specifics with repeated scenes among the characters that directly convey that no one is really paying attention to anything. Tony Shalhoub’s character, the hotshot, A-list lawyer Freddy Riedenschneider, bases an entire legal defense on Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle but not once manages to get the name of the scientist right. Playing the central role of “The Barber” Ed Crane, Billy Bob Thornton delivers a wonderful, two-fold performance through his subdued yet gripping screen presence combined with his narration throughout the film that highlights the Coens’ knack for beautifully composed, but absurdly mundane writing. Constructing a film around a taciturn main character who shares limited dialog with other characters on screen but supplies deliciously detailed commentary throughout the film stands as one of the Coens’ best jokes.

The Man Who Wasn’t There sits squarely at a midpoint in the Coens’ body of work between the depth and intensity of Fargo and No Country for Old Men and the manic levity of Raising Arizona and Burn After Reading. Yet another playful homage to Film Noir like The Big Lebowski, this film not only rewards repeated viewings, but also demonstrates the Coen Brothers’ greatest skill as filmmakers: the ability to inject the fairly commonplace plots of genre films with levels of keen observation, perversity, and playfulness that allow their films to become transcendent. The Coens always collect great ensemble casts and, with regulars like Frances McDormand and Jon Polito alongside character actors like Richard Jenkins as well as actors better known for their TV work like James Gandolfini (The Sopranos) and Tony Shalhoub (Wings, Monk), this film is no different. Also, it is worth noting that this is one of Scarlett Johansson’s first significant roles, arriving the same year as Ghost World, but a full two years before her breakout performance in Lost in Translation. Simply put: The Man Who Wasn’t There holds up because the writing is fantastic, it looks great, and the actors appear to be having fun while turning in memorable performances. Perhaps, the unexpected success of O Brother, Where Art Thou? overshadowed this film upon its release, but time has been far kinder to this film than its direct predecessor. Next time you find yourself craving a Coen Brothers’ film cue this one up and you won’t be disappointed.

            - John Parsell

I'd Love to Turn You On At the Movies #91 - Barton Fink (1991, dir. Joel & Ethan Coen)

Every film in the Coen oeuvre is undoubtedly best experienced with no previous knowledge of what is about to unfold. There is, however, one film of theirs that simply demands to be seen in such a way; Barton Fink. Even knowing a basic plot outline spoils so much of the pitch black fun in store. With that in my mind, I am going to attempt to convince you all to watch this film by offering nothing but semi-personal vagaries, allusions, cast members and metaphors.

Barton Fink remains a go to favorite for film buff debates whether it be waiting in line at a film festival or shouting louder than any of you realize at a bar as things escalate. Why you ask? Because damn near every single person (or at least those that like to dive a little deeper with their film viewing) that watches this film leaves with a wildly different interpretation of exactly what it all means. Is it a clear cut Freudian metaphor as we watch Barton work to keep his incessant subconscious, sex-obsessed mind at bay whilst exhaustively stretching his conscious self paper thin attempting to understand what exactly a boxing film might look like? Is it a vicious satire attacking the likes of William Faulkner and his notorious flings with many ladies who were not his wife while he penned ineffectual screenplay after screenplay in Hollywood? Is it a goofy, oft-too-literal descent into a hellish nightmare being led by the sweatiest John Goodman we’ve ever encountered? Is it (as the Coens would like you to believe) a simple story of one man trying to write a screenplay in a visceral hotel that is probably the best written character in the film that means absolutely nothing apart from what you’ve seen? Is it empty vapid pastiche to Hitchcock’s Notorious? Is it an allegory of the continuing persecution of Jews under the ever-punishing thumb of Nazi Germany? I give a resounding ABSOLUTELY! to every one of these theories and every other one I will assuredly encounter.

 

Barton Fink ranks as the funniest, meanest, (maybe excluding the outright sadistic hilarity that the Coens enjoy when torturing their protagonists in Burn After Reading and A Serious Man) most dense, most impenetrable, easiest to access, most intelligent and blah blah blah that this infuriatingly talented duo has plopped in our brain space. Will many a film buff, casual viewer and even my Mom argue with me on this point? Of course they will and they are completely right. And so am I. The Coen Bros. have a distinct ability to encourage (or outright demand) that every person watching bring every bit of their baggage, life experience and self-indulgence inside the theatre. A Coen Bros. film is interactive (excepting of course those perfect, cold films that exist so we are in awe of their talent; No Country For Old Men and Inside Llewyn Davis. But wait, what does the ending to either one mean?) and really wants the audience to lend their messy selves to the stories unfolding. Perhaps this explains my fiercely personal reactions to the films that leave me feeling closer to these fabricated, often overly esoteric creations than I do to many humans I’d call friends. While at the same time, many of those close friends feel nothing but cold and amoral distance when watching the same films.

What does this endless babbling all mean? Why should one film cause such a stir amongst all that see it? You tell me. Watch it and fight with me. Join the conversation. Watch with the knowledge that this won the Palme D’Or, Best Director and Best Actor in 1991 at the Cannes Film Festival. Then watch it without that knowledge. Realize that with every single viewing, you are experiencing a very different film. Does it go so far as to be an ever-shifting Rorschach test? Of course it doesn’t. But, also of course it does.

            - Will Morris, House Manager, Sie Film Center