THE INFANTILIZATION of the American cinema proceeds apace, with Miller’s Crossing a prime exhibit. Made by the two successful young filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen as their first truly big budget film, this is a fine example of what rock-bottom film-school experience combined with high-level pretension can do when propped up with extensive, expensive hype.
Miller’s Crossing is trumpery down to its very title, ostensibly the name of a spot in the woods outside an unnamed city in the Twenties where gang-style executions take place. Since the spot, as shown in the movie, has nothing to differentiate it from another part of the forest, there is no reason for its picturesque name or for its serving for anything more than family picnics. But the birches are tall and provide this tall tale’s cinematographer, Barry Sonnenfeld, with many a moody low-angle shot from the point of view of some luckless hood catching his last sight of daylight through a latticework of leaves as he is marched off to his summary quietus.
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