Miller's Crossing: The Coens' Gangster Chess Game

Fri, 24 May 2024 10:00:00 +0000

There is a hat in this film, and it is the most important object the Coens ever photographed. It belongs to Tom Reagan, played by Gabriel Byrne with a hangover that seems to have started in childhood, and it comes off him at the worst possible moments — blown down a forest path in a dream, snatched in a card game, knocked into the mud during a beating. Tom is the cleverest man in Miller’s Crossing, the one who sees three moves ahead of everyone else, and the film keeps stripping him of the one thing that sits on top of his cleverness. Watch the hat and you have the whole picture: a man trying to keep his dignity on straight while the wind of other people’s stupidity keeps knocking it off.

Dashiell Hammett - vo.rs

Miller's Crossing: The Coens' Gangster Chess Game