Did we know, way back when, that we were witnessing the birth of a dynasty? In a world where so many filmmakers come and go, have their moment of glory and then are moved on, to TV or being a gun for hire, or obscurity, the Coen Brothers have stood out over the course of thirty years as a team that gets films made and occasionally strike gold. Miller’s Crossing, their third feature, is an assured piece of filmmaking. The Coen Brothers thrive on big casting, a heightened sense of reality and some tastefully excessive violence. It’s noticeable how Gabriel Byrne keeps bouncing back from repeated beatings, as though he was made of rubber. Then again, this feels like part of the Coen bros schtick - rubbery faces which contort, distort and then come back into some kind of regular shape, a rubbery plot that wobbles around but gets there in the end. It’s a kind of playmobile filmmaking; straining the boundaries of emotional plausibility whilst the actors charm pants off the viewers. So good to see Albert Finney in there doing his thing, one of that great generation of British/ Irish film actors that stalked the movie world and exuded charisma. (On which note and completely tangentially, RIP Terrence Stamp.)
No comments:
Post a Comment