Another Fateful Journey to Miller's Crossing

The movie I was most in the mood to watch for Saint Patrick's Day this year was 1990's Miller's Crossing, the Coen Brothers' Prohibition era noir about Irish American gangsters. My old DVD is back in California and it wasn't on any of the streaming services I'm subscribed to but I noticed Criterion had just recently released a new blu-ray edition of the film. So I ordered that and finally watched it a week after Saint Pat's. Man, there's a movie that never gets old.

And the new blu-ray is beautiful. And noticeably different in a few ways. In the scene where a kid comes across the corpse of Rug Daniels, I remember the actor playing the dead man accidentally blinking in a shot. That seems to be gone now. Which is nice because it kind of ruined the moment. But the biggest difference I noticed is in the colour, which seems to be richer and brighter. For comparison, screenshots I pulled from various YouTube clips are on the top and the Criterion blu-ray is on the bottom.

It was always a beautifully shot film by cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld but now I think it's even better.

On my DVD copy, I remember often being unsure if Gabriel Byrne's hat was black, charcoal, or brown. Now it's always clearly brown.

The movie's just a magnificent piece of work. When a plot so complicated goes down so smooth, it's a thing to admire forever.

Twitter Sonnet #1684

Without a question, mice assume control.
A hundred keys absorbed a liquid lock.
The rivers shake and hugging banks console.
Completely smooth was rapid water's rock.
A dancing blast was orange and very hot.
Rebounding river currents twist the mind.
But simple boats could ease the noisy lot.
Beneath the rain, the trees were seldom kind.
A stinging eye confronts a shrinking clock.
Rejected dwarves have mined a golden lode.
Above their heads, a mountain cracks a rock.
Below the summit, snakes descend the road.
Escaping hats return to crown a dream.
Escaping ropes contract around a beam.

Something Wicked This Way Comes Again

One half of the Coen brothers, Joel Coen, brought to the screen another adaptation of The Scottish Play, 2021's The Tragedy of Macbeth. It's a minimalist, stagebound film, its look and pacing strongly reminiscent of Orson Welles' 1948 adaptation of Macbeth. Denzil Washington and Frances McDormand are both quite competent, if not especially interesting, in the lead roles. Mostly I came away feeling like Coen was not able to rise to the level of the source material.

It'd only been six years since the Macbeth with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. Coen's version is better than that shallow, overcooked turkey. But Coen's version perhaps suffers for going too far in the opposite direction. Washington and McDormand often deliver their lines in a strikingly dispassionate manner. As though they know the world turns on murder and betrayal and it looks like this is the kind assignment that was put on their desk this morning.

I think this is why critics often talked about this version really exploring Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as worldlier, older people. It made me think, maybe this play is better if at least one of them is young. Maybe a young, avaricious, beautiful Lady Macbeth drives her homebody husband to getting her wealth, or maybe a confused young Macbeth is spurred by a bitter, older and more cynical Lady Macbeth. Both of them being older both feel kind of pointless. Like, what are you two doing? It's the Dark Ages, you'll be king and queen for, what, two years? And this version removes references to Lady Macbeth's pregnancy.

Denzil Washington is really good at sounding credible. I always feel like this is a real guy going through these problems. But a little artifice would've been nice in something like the "To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow" soliloquy. He rattles it off so casually. Like so many times in the film, you think, "Well, this guy's already checked out anyway." And, yeah, you can say that reflects "a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing." But I feel like that line should come with a shock of revelation, or bitter pronouncement, rather then sounding like he was forced to actually explain to someone how boring he thinks everything is.

Both he and Lady Macbeth are upstaged by Ross, played by Alex Hassell, whom Coen turns into a schemer. It's heavily implied that he murdered Lady Macbeth and hid Banquo's son for his own schemes. Why? To say that this world is full of ruthless schemers? We knew that, Joel. The point here is to focus on the psychology of two of them. Oh, well.

It's not bad. The action sequences are interesting. There's some good sword fighting at the end. Still, you're better off watching the Orson Welles version or the Roman Polanski version.

Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth is available on AppleTV+.