Carlito's Way

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“When I went to Berlin and I was watching it in Berlin after it opened and did okay in the United States, I remember watching in Berlin and said, ‘I can’t make – I can’t make a better picture than this.’” – Brian De Palma

He said these words with a heavy heart while recounting a story of seeing Carlito’s Way (1993) at the Berlin Film Festival, realizing he had poured his heart and soul into a film that received mixed reviews from critics and did well but not great at the box office. The start of the 1990s had not been good to Brian De Palma with the high-profile and costly failure that was The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990). It shook his filmmaking mojo so much that he second-guessed the narrative structure of Raising Cain (1992), a return to more familiar territory with the psychological thriller, which took a personal toll on the man.

He was in need of a hit to appease the studios and moved on to what he hoped would be a commercial hit by reteaming with Al Pacino in an effort to recreate the magic of Scarface (1983). If fans were expecting the same over-the-top bombast with Carlito’s Way they would be sorely disappointed as it took a more melancholic, introspective approach while still featuring De Palma’s virtuoso camerawork and masterful action set pieces, crafting a tragedy about how a criminal tries to go straight but is ultimately doomed from the get-go.

Carlito’s Way features one of the oldest chestnuts in the world. Narrating his story during the last moments of his life, Carlito Brigante (Pacino), a veteran criminal, has recently been released from prison, intent on leading a normal, law-abiding life. Of course it isn’t going to be that easy – when he returns to his old neighborhood, his reputation precedes him. Local gangster Benny Blanco from the Bronx (John Leguizamo), a cocky, up-and-comer, sets his sights on Carlito after being shamed by him in public. Carlito, however, barely notices him as he’s torn between reuniting with an old flame and a struggling Broadway dancer, Gail (Penelope Ann Miller), and keeping his lawyer and friend, David Kleinfeld (Sean Penn), out of trouble.

As a personal favor to David, Carlito runs a nightclub for the latter to raise enough money to move to the Bahamas and start his own business renting cars in a tropical paradise with Gail. However, Carlito’s loyalty to David will be his undoing – his friend has become so corrupt during the time that Carlito was in prison that he’s not only wanted by law enforcement but the mafia as well.

Carlito’s Way begins at the end (even though we don’t know it yet) with Carlito being shot and rushed to the hospital. While lying on the stretcher going through the train station, he flashes back to how he got there. De Palma lets it all play out over the opening credits, in dreamy slow motion, with somber classical music playing over it all. The entire sequence is shot in black and white save for a billboard that says, “Escape to Paradise,” with inviting tropical imagery symbolizing Carlito’s desire to escape a life of crime for a better one.

It is 1975 and Carlito has been released from prison after a five-year stint, reinvigorated and reborn. At his hearing he sticks it to the judge (a cameo by Paul Mazursky no less!) and the District Attorney (James Rebhorn) in classic Pacino style, delivering a speech like he’s accepting an Academy Award. It’s as close to Scarface as Pacino gets and, in a bit of irony, Carlito is actually sincere about going straight. Unlike Tony Montana, he doesn’t want to rise to the top of the criminal underworld – he wants to get out. He even tells both the local crime boss and David that he’s retired but they don’t believe him. An ex-con career criminal going straight? No way.

Sure enough, he gets roped into an “errand” with his young cousin (John Ortiz) that turns into a bloody shoot-out. As always, De Palma injects the film with his trademark bravura action sequences. One look at the set-up and, like Carlito, we know that something is not right. Pacino shows how his character survived for so long as he expertly sizes up the situation and takes stock of the room: how many guys and where they are in relation to each other and him. Carlito is calm, unruffled, while his eyes convey a readiness for anything.

De Palma thrives at orchestrating these kinds of set pieces, masterfully using editing to build anticipation and suspense as we wait for the inevitable explosion of violence, gradually building the tension as we feel Carlito’s apprehension. Despite his desire to go legit, he gets drawn back into a life of crime; he can’t escape.

Carlito is a role tailor-made for Al Pacino, allowing him to essay another larger-than-life character. Carlito is a smart guy who cannot escape what he is no matter how hard he tries and the actor conveys the melancholy that lurks behind the bravado of his character. For all of his street smarts, Carlito makes the fatal mistake of underestimating local small-time tough guy Benny Blanco (a perfectly cast motor-mouthed Leguizamo) who keeps trying to get an audience with the veteran crook only to be rebuffed every time.

Carlito also pines for Gail and goes up to the top of a neighboring building in the rain to watch her in a dance class. He is still in love with her and envisions being reunited with her as part of his dream of escaping a life of crime. Like James Caan’s safecracker in Thief (1981), Carlito is making up for lost time and wants to start his new life right now, but his old one won’t let him go.

The real scene-stealer, however, is Sean Penn’s sleazy, coked-up lawyer. The actor reportedly did the film to help finance his directorial debut, The Crossing Guard (1995). For a paycheck role, Penn does a great job immersing himself in the part, complete with a frizzy Afro and receding hairline. It’s as though Pacino’s presence inspired Penn to step up his game, making Penn’s memorable turn so much fun to watch. Even though David dresses in expensive clothes and smokes fancy cigarettes, he’s a cokehead that runs with a dangerous crowd who thinks he’s untouchable. His hubris is his undoing.

The rest of the cast is filled out by solid character actors like John Leguizamo, who plays Benny as a pushy little runt not to be underestimated, and the always-reliable Luis Guzman as Carlito’s right-hand man. There’s also Viggo Mortensen in a small role as a former contemporary of Carlito who has been let out of prison to get the dirt on his friend. Wheelchair-bound and wearing cheap, stained clothes, the actor isn’t afraid to portray a pathetic snitch, a shadow of his former self. He plays a sad figure that really gets under Carlito’s skin. It also shows how far the D.A. is willing to go to send him back to prison.

The only miscasting is Penelope Ann Miller as Pacino’s love interest. She looks out of place and just doesn’t have the acting chops to hold her own against Pacino. She does have a good scene with Pacino when, much to Carlito’s surprise, he discovers that Gail moonlights as a stripper to make ends meet. It is a continuation of his disillusionment in the sense that despite all of her talk of trying to make it as an actress, Gail gets naked for other men. Like Carlito, there is her dream and there is her reality. They have an interesting conversation as he awkwardly disapproves of her dancing for men, to which she unashamedly counters, “You ever kill anybody, Charlie?” Carlito realizes that he has no right to judge her as he’s done far worse for money.

Loyalty is both Carlito’s greatest attribute and vice. It is his loyalty to David that gets him in trouble with Benny Blanco and the Italian mobsters that go after in him in the film’s exciting climax. He has a personal code that he adheres to no matter what happens. However, it is the internal conflict that rages within him that ultimately clouds his judgment. It is his natural instinct to be the ruthless criminal he was versus the legit businessman he wants to be, which results in the sparing of Benny’s life when the smart play was to kill him, as he’ll be a problem later on.

Carlito knows that David is out of control and taking unnecessary risks, like ripping off a wiseguy for $1 million, but helps him break said crook out of Riker’s Prison out of friendship, a debt he feels he owes him. Ultimately, he can’t change who he is. The two men finally have it out and Carlito realizes what a true friend David is as the lawyer lays it out for him, tells him that he looks out for himself, while Carlito lives by an antiquated code. That’s all Carlito needs to hear and ends their friendship, leaving him at the mercy of a mob assassin.

New York State Supreme Court judge Edwin Torres wrote Carlito’s Way in 1975 and its sequel After Hours in 1979, both chronicling the rise and fall of Puerto Rico drug kingpin Carlito Brigante. Al Pacino came to producer Martin Bregman with these two novels and said that they could be made into a film. Screenwriter David Koepp was already working for Bregman when he was given the two novels and told to adapt them into a screenplay. He liked them but taking 800 pages and making them into a film was a daunting task. Koepp was also unfamiliar with Spanish Harlem in the 1970s. When it came to adapting the novels, he ended up using more of After Hours as it featured an older Carlito that Pacino could play.

Bregman felt that Brian De Palma was the best person to direct but he wasn’t interested in making another gangster film. At the time of making Carlito’s Way, De Palma’s personal life was in turmoil. He said, “In the space of two years, I got married; I had a child; and I got divorced!” He elaborated further: “I wasn’t able to reconcile my private life and my professional life.” Like Carlito loses Gail, De Palma lost his second wife, movie producer Gale Ann Hurd. To this end, De Palma was drawn to Koepp’s script as he recognized his own crisis in Carlito’s:

“A guy who just got assassinated and who thinks, ‘Shit, I’m dead! How did I end up here?’ And he reviews his life to understand the chain of events and to accept what has happened to him. That was my situation at the time. To make this film that conveyed what I was feeling, I had to lay myself bare.”

When De Palma called Sean Penn about Carlito’s Way he hadn’t acted in four years and needed money as his wife at the time, Robin Wright, was pregnant again. The actor said, “I certainly was interested in working with Al Pacino. And I’d had a very good relationship with Brian on Casualties of War.” When he initially talked to the director, Penn got the impression that the film was going to be very raw and his research uncovered a very gritty setting. When he arrived on the night club set during filming to find a very expensive-looking set with many extras and complex moving shots that took a long time to set up, which did not allow for multiple takes. Penn felt “a little duped. And that created tension.”

Torres gave Pacino and Penn a personal tour of the criminal justice system and Puerto Rican New York, taking them to the South Bronx, the barrio and to various clubs and bars. To prepare for the role he took Pacino to salsa clubs in Spanish Harlem. The actor said, “It was the Disney tour of the barrio: ‘So-and-so got shot here. So-and-so got shot right over there.’” According to De Palma, Pacino patterned his character’s cadences and speech patterns after Torres. The judge also arranged for Penn to watch Bruce Cutler sum up the Thomas Gambino racketeering case. The actor also talked to Albert J. Krieger who defended John Gotti. Penn looked through period articles on lawyers and came across a still photograph in Life magazine of a young law student that he based the look of David on.

There are several colorful anecdotes about the filming of Carlito’s Way. De Palma and Penn clashed over the scene in which David asks Carlito to break a mobster out of Riker’s. Penn had done ten takes with the director – happy with take three – but the actor wanted to do another 15 takes until he was happy with his performance. Incredulous, De Palma wanted to do Pacino’s side of the scene. After 25 takes, he insisted on shooting Pacino and Penn got upset as a result. Afterwards, Penn disrespectfully chewed out De Palma over the course of the rest of the day.

De Palma started filming the final chase sequence in the winter – and finished it in the middle of summer. They shot the train-to-train scene over and over again (in the blistering New York heat) with Pacino running up and down the train in a long, black leather coat and De Palma in another running parallel filming it. It was a complicated shot that took many hours. An exhausted Pacino finally had enough and took the train home at four in the morning without telling De Palma. The director recalls, his assistant director telling him, “Al took the train home. And he thinks you’re crazy. He doesn’t know what you’re doing.” When the studio first saw the pool scene they felt it was too long. De Palma interpreted that to mean it wasn’t long enough! He added more footage, setting up the action and building more suspense. Bizarrely, the studio saw the new version – and congratulated him on making it shorter.

Carlito’s Way received decidedly mixed reviews from critics. In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “Carlito’s Way is best watched as lively, colorful posturing and as a fine demonstration of this director’s bravura visual style.” Rolling Stone magazine’s Peter Travers gave it four stars and wrote, “The drug wars have raised brutality and betrayal to levels we see reflected on Pacino’s eloquently ravaged face. It’s that face that holds us even when Pacino’s ‘Rican’ accent slips into his Southern drawl from Scent of a Woman. It’s that face that cuts through De Palma’s erratic pacing and derivative shootouts.”

There were critics who wrote decidedly negative words about the film. Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman gave it a “B” rating and wrote, “Watching Carlito’s Way, I never really believed that a heroin dealer and coolly pragmatic killer could be such a simple, romantic guy.” In his review for the Washington Post, Hal Hinson wrote, “De Palma’s direction is alert but dispirited, and certainly for us there is a sense of drudgery in having to observe this gifted filmmaker run through his tired bag of tricks.” Finally, the Los Angeles Times’ Kenneth Turan criticized Miller’s character: “Miller works hard to make the part believable, but finally the role fits too snugly into the traditional ‘exotic dancer with a heart of gold’ category to allow for much genuine impact.”

Despite the clichéd premise, Carlito’s Way works well because of the caliber of actors, David Koepp’s screenplay with memorable dialogue (“You think you’re big time?! You’re gonna fucking die big time!”), and De Palma’s stylish direction. The last 20 minutes plays out in an exciting chase as the director pulls out all the stops, like the impressively choreographed tracking shot, as Carlito tries to evade mobsters and make it in time to meet Gail at the train station; he is literally racing for his life. What makes the film’s ending so heartbreaking is that Carlito got so close to realizing his dream only for it to be cruelly ripped away at the last minute by someone he could’ve dealt with earlier on but chose not to, and therefore pays for this lapse in judgment dearly.

While De Palma did not originate this project, he certainly made it his own. He found something in Koepp’s script that he connected with on a personal level and transformed what could have easily been a paycheck gig into an artistic expression for what he was going through in his own life. This might explain why he seems crestfallen in the De Palma documentary when recounting watching Carlito’s Way at the Berlin Film Festival years ago. The film was a personal expression and its mixed critical reaction and decent but unremarkable box office was likely a bitter pill for De Palma to swallow at the time. His desire to stay in the game and enjoy the resources that a major studio could provide, coupled with his hunger for a commercial hit, drove him to team-up with Tom Cruise and direct the first movie in the Mission: Impossible franchise, which allowed him to fulfill this goal.

Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars and wrote, “Carlito’s Way, like Scarface, is first and last a character study, a portrait of a man who wants to be better than he is.” Much like Carlito, De Palma was also struggling to become a better man in his own life, not wanting to look back. Unlike, his cinematic alter ego, the director overcame his personal demons and triumphed in the end, thereby proving that he was able become a better filmmaker than he had been before, delivering a powerful, personal film that stands as one of the strongest efforts in his filmography.

SOURCES

De Palma. Dir. Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow. Empire Ward Pictures. 2015.

Feeney, Sheila Anne. “So New York…Yet So Hollywood.” Los Angeles Times. November 4, 1993.

Grimes, William. “His Honor Himself is Counselor to Pacino.” The New York Times. July 27, 1993.

Keesey, Douglas. Brian De Palma’s Split-Screen: A Life in Film. University Press of Mississippi. 2015.

Kelly, Richard T. Sean Penn: His Life and Times. Canongate U.S. 2004.

“The Making of Carlito’s Way.” Carlito’s Way Blu-Ray. Universal Pictures. 2010.

Miller's Crossing

Despite opening the New York Film Festival in 1990, Miller’s Crossing was buried by a tidal wave of other gangster films that year, including GoodFellas, King of New York, Dick Tracy and The Godfather Part III. They all drew some kind of buzz or hype, whether it was through controversy, awards or a massive marketing blitzkrieg. The Coen brothers’ film was a modestly budgeted film that did not contain a recognizable movie star like Robert De Niro or Al Pacino for audiences to latch onto and, coupled with a detached, distanced approach to the characters and a densely textured plot with several implicit and explicit events occurring concurrently, Miller’s Crossing became something of a cinematic oddity, a critical darling that was ignored by mainstream audiences.

Set during the Prohibition era in an unnamed northeastern city, Miller’s Crossing weaves a complex web as two warring gangs face off against each other. Leo O’Bannon (Albert Finney), a headstrong Irishman, is the gangster who controls the town, but his power is in danger of being usurped by a rival gang headed by the ambitiously violent Italian, Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito) and his silent but malevolently evil henchman, Eddie Dane (J.E. Freeman). Caught between the two sides is Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne), a brooding thinker and right-hand man to Leo. Tom’s only hope for survival rests in his ability to play off both men until only one side emerges victoriously.

Miller’s Crossing begins with a riff on the opening of The Godfather (1972) except that instead of a man asking for a favor and having it granted from the head of a powerful mob family, as happens in Francis Ford Coppola’s film, the man – Johnny Caspar – is rebuffed and admits that he’s not really asking, “I’m telling you as a courtesy, I need to do this thing so it’s going to get done.” This “thing” is Johnny killing small-time grifter Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro) for letting word out on a fixed boxing match that the mob boss set up. Besides losing money, Johnny sees this as a betrayal of the highest order as evident from the monologue he delivers about ethics, which is his way of pitching permission to whack Bernie.

All Leo has to do to avoid trouble with Johnny is give up Bernie, but he refuses out of his love for Verna (Marcia Gay Harden), his girlfriend and Bernie’s sister. This decision sets everything in motion. Jon Polito acts the hell out of this scene as Johnny starts off all genial and then he comes on a bit stronger, getting indignant when Leo refuses him and then outraged when Leo tells him, “So take your flunky and dangle.” Johnny is tired of getting the “high hat” from Leo. It’s a fantastic introduction to the three main characters while also setting the story in motion.

The opening credits play over a stately tracking shot looking up through a forest of trees where the film derives its title from while Carter Burwell’s elegant music plays. Finally, a black hat comes to rest in a forest clearing, and then a gust of wind lifts it into the air sending it flying down an avenue of trees. It was the first image the Coen brothers conceived and an image that best describes the evocative, visual style of Miller’s Crossing. Aside from establishing the atmosphere for the film, the opening credits also set up a repeating visual motif of hats.

Tom Reagan is a fixer, someone who can see all the angles and spends the entire film trying to figure out how to play them for his advantage. If he has any weak spot it is an inability to kill someone when he needs to. For someone who, on the surface, shows little emotion, he has strong feelings for those close to him, namely Leo and Verna. Gabriel Byrne plays Tom as an intelligent guy who is always thinking. The actor does a great job of maintaining Tom’s poker-faced façade and uses his eyes to convey the emotions that exist underneath. Over the course of the film, Byrne shows Tom’s internal conflict of logic vs. feeling and how he resolves it to chilling effect.

Miller’s Crossing would introduce two important actors to the Coen brothers’ stable of regulars. Steve Buscemi has a small, but memorable role as Mink, a fast-talking grifter in league with Bernie, but who is also “friendly” with Eddie Dane. He would go on to have memorable cameos in the Coens’ next two films before being given a meaty role in Fargo (1996). John Turturro plays Bernie, Verna’s scheming brother and Tom’s doppelganger. He thinks he has all the angles covered, like Tom does. On the surface, Bernie is all emotion, cracking jokes and, at one point, shamelessly begging for his life, but underneath he is cold and calculated. Tom is generally a good judge of character; able to figure out someone’s strengths and weaknesses. Some people, like Leo and Johnny, are easier to read than others, while some people are more difficult, like Bernie because he’s so similar to Tom, which is why he takes the longest to figure out.

Despite playing an untrustworthy character, Turturro’s charisma gives Bernie a certain charm that is fascinating to watch, especially in the film’s signature scene where Bernie pleads pathetically for his life as Tom has been ordered to kill him out in the forest. Turturro goes to hysterical extremes so that you’re almost hoping Tom will whack Bernie if only to shut him up and silence his incessant pleading. The actor would go on to star in the Coens’ next film Barton Fink (1991) and appear in many more of theirs, always delivering memorable performances.

Marcia Gay Harden is excellent in an early role as a tough-talking dame who loves Tom despite how poorly he treats her at times. As she tells him at one point, “I’ve never met anyone who made being a son of a bitch such a point of pride.” Yet, for all of her bravado, Harden also conveys Verna’s vulnerable side when things go sour and she tries to kill Tom. J.E. Freeman has played his share of tough guys and heavies (most memorably in Wild at Heart) and cuts quite an imposing presence as the much-feared Eddie Dane. He knows that Tom is no good for his boss and can’t wait to kill him. Freeman gets his moment when the Dane takes Tom out to the forest to kill him. It really looks like Tom has finally gotten the angles wrong and Freeman’s Dane really makes you fear for the protagonist’s life.

As with all of the Coen brothers’ films, the attention to dialogue, in this case period gangster-speak, is fantastic as characters greet each other with a, “What’s the rumpus?” and throw around racial epithets like, “schmatte.” There’s the snappy back and forth banter between Tom and Verna, Bernie’s smartass pitches to Tom, and Johnny’s gangster philosophizing about ethics. The plotting is also a marvel to behold. The Coens had such a time trying to put it all together that they developed writer’s block while writing the screenplay and wrote Barton Fink before returning back to Miller’s Crossing. In addition to the escalating war between Johnny and Leo, the Coens also devised three love triangles between various characters. There’s the obvious one between Leo, Tom and Verna, however, two others are hinted at: that between Tom, Verna and Bernie, and the one between Mink, Eddie Dane and Bernie. These last two only become readily apparent upon subsequent viewings. If that weren’t enough, there are all kinds of colorful flourishes that the Coens sprinkle throughout, like the tough guy (Mike Starr) who takes off his coat and rolls up his sleeves before laying a beat down on Tom (whose reaction is priceless), or the polite henchman who roughs up Tom for owing money to his boss, only to leave him battered and bruised with kind rejoinder, “Take care now.”

That being said, the Coens did not forsake the visual pizazz of their first two films as evident in bravura scene where a team of rival gangsters tries to kill Leo in his home at night. It’s a wonderful bit of virtuoso filmmaking as Leo dispatches his killers to the strains of “Danny Boy.” For such an exciting action sequence, the rather somber rendition of “Danny Boy” gives it a decidedly melancholic vibe, perhaps hinting at the gradual crumbling of Leo’s empire. This would be the last film Barry Sonnenfeld would shoot for the Coens. He would go on to his own successful directing career. The Coens never broke stride, hiring Roger Deakins to shoot Barton Fink and he’s been there go-to cinematographer ever since.

Originally called The Bighead (a nickname for Tom), Joel and Ethan soon got lost in the intricate plottings of the story and went to stay with their good friend William Preston Robertson in St. Paul, Minnesota, hoping that a change of scenery might help. One night, they went and saw Baby Boom (1987), returned to New York City and wrote Barton Fink in three weeks before returning to the Miller's Crossing screenplay. The first image they conceived was that of a black hat coming to rest in a forest clearing, then, a gust of wind lifts it into the air. Ethan said, "I mean, the whole hat thing, the fact that it's all hats, is good, because even if it doesn't mean anything, it adds a little thread running through the whole thing that's the same little thread." Furthermore, he has said that "the hat doesn't 'represent' anything, it's just a hat blown by the wind." Joel continued, "It's an image that came to us, that we liked, and it just implanted itself." The Coens were interested in making “a film with people who were dressed in a certain manner, hats, long coats, and put them in an unusual context like a forest.”

Interestingly, the Coen brothers weren’t inspired by classic gangster films, but rather fiction of the period. After the cartoonish slapstick comedy that was Raising Arizona (1987), they shifted gears with Miller’s Crossing, a love letter to the works of Dashiell Hammett, a famous pulp writer of the 1930s. The film mixed aspects of crime and corrupt politics involved in running a city from the author’s novel, Red Harvest, with several triangular relationships and sadistic, often homoerotic undertones found in another of his books, The Glass Key. In regards to Red Harvest, Joel said, “It gave us the idea of making a movie where everybody is a gangster … Also typical of Hammett is the enigmatic central character.” The Coens first thought of gangsters in a small town and not a big city. They were also interested in putting an emphasis on ethnicity: “The more established Irish, the recently arrived Italians and the sort of outsider Jews all struggling for a piece of the pie.”

In addition to the literary influences on Miller’s Crossing, the Coens referenced several films. For example, the opening sequence with Johnny Caspar and Leo evokes the beginning of The Godfather. The climactic forest scene references Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist (1970). The film's final scene partially quotes the ending of The Third Man (1949) and The Long Goodbye (1973).

After the success of Raising Arizona, the Coens stayed with the same production company, which gave them between a $10-14 million budget. They decided to make Miller’s Crossing in New Orleans because they were attracted to the look of the city, as Ethan commented in an interview: “There are whole neighborhoods here of nothing but 1929 architecture. New Orleans is sort of a depressed city; it hasn’t been gentrified. There’s a lot of architecture that hasn’t been touched, store-front windows that haven’t been replaced in the last sixty years.”

Gabriel Byrne was a fan of Raising Arizona and eager to work with the Coen brothers. A casting director recommended him to the filmmakers and he was one of many actors that read for the role of Tom Reagan. The Coens originally envisioned the character to be an American, but Byrne decided to use his natural Irish accent and they liked it. The actor found Tom to be a rather enigmatic character and to keep the audience interested in him he sought to convey a vulnerable side. This was achieved in the scenes spent in his bedroom. “That’s when Tom did his thinking; that’s when Tom did his worrying; that’s when he did his plotting and his strategy.”

The Coen brothers knew John Turturro through Frances McDormand (who was married to Joel) and they had seen him in several plays. As a result, they wrote the part of Bernie specifically for him. The role of Johnny Caspar was originally written for a 55-year-old man and the Coens felt that Jon Polito was too young. They wanted him in to play the character of Eddie Dane, but he would only come in and read for Johnny. Trey Wilson, who played Nathan Arizona in Raising Arizona, was supposed to play Leo, but two days before the first day of principal photography he tragically died from a brain hemorrhage. The Coen brothers called Albert Finney in London and asked him to take on the role of Leo on two days notice. Much to their surprise, he accepted.

Miller’s Crossing received mostly positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars and wrote, “The pleasures of the film are largely technical. It is likely to be most appreciated by movie lovers who will enjoy its resonance with films of the past.” USA Today gave it four out of four stars and Mike Clark wrote, “Often accused of employing jazzy film school ‘tricks,’ the Coens have now gone the other way – all the way. Cold and cut to the bone, the film is a primer in screen virtuosity.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B+” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Miller’s Crossing is most fun when the actors bite into their roles. Polito is superb as the gravel-voiced vulgarian Johnny. John Turturro plays Bernie with a giggly hysteria that recalls some of Richard Widmark’s desperate weasels.” The Globe and Mail’s Jay Scott hailed it as “a masterpiece, but of a unique kind. It’s a gangster movie so morally and ethically bleak, it evokes the dead-end world of the ultimate twentieth-century playwright, Samuel Beckett: lower or higher than this, you cannot go.”

In her review for the Washington Post, Rita Kempley wrote, “And Miller’s Crossing is very much a story of honor among thieves. In its hard heart of hearts, it is a masterfully written and visually unsettling study in manly love.” However, The New York Times’ Vincent Canby called it, “a movie of random effects and little accumulative impact.” Finally, the Chicago Reader’s Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote, “the double crosses are so intricate and the cynicism so enveloping that it becomes increasingly difficult to care about the characters.”

A brilliant gangster melodrama, Miller’s Crossing is arguably one of their best efforts, if not the best, with complex characters and an attention to detail that makes it one of the most atmospheric films to come along in some time. As Richard T. Jameson said in an issue of Film Comment, “It has always been one of the special pleasures of movies that they dream worlds and map them at the same time.” This is exactly what the Coen brothers do with their film by creating a living, breathing world with authentic period costumes and gangster language of the time. But like their other films, they are clearly aware of the conventions of the genre that Miller’s Crossing is set in and pay to homage to it and parody its elements simultaneously.

SOURCES

Bergan, Ronald, The Coen Brothers, Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, 2000

Coursodon, Jean-Pierre, "A Hat Blown By The Wind," Joel and Ethan Coen: Blood Siblings, edited by Paul A. Woods, Plexus: London, 2000, pp. 91

Dudar, Helen. “Gabriel Byrne, Bound for Miller’s Crossing.” The New York Times. September 16, 1990. Pg. 19.

Goodman, Joan. “The Coen Brothers Return to the Screen with Miller’s Crossing.” The Globe and Mail. October 5, 1990.

Jameson, Richard T., “Chasing the Hat.” Film Comment. October 1990.

Levine, Josh, The Coen Brothers: The Story of Two American Filmmakers, ECW Press: Toronto, 2000.

Levy, Steven, "Shot By Shot," Joel and Ethan Coen: Blood Siblings, edited by Paul A. Woods, Plexus: London, 2000.

The Untouchables

Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (1987) is a film that asks the burning question: is police brutality ever justified? It is when you’re dealing with the likes of Al Capone and Frank Nitti – gangsters that had no problem blowing up children and killing nebbish accountants to get what they wanted. The film doesn’t exactly adhere to historical fact opting instead to go with John Ford’s famous credo of printing the legend and in doing so raising the characters and their exploits to mythic status. De Palma’s adaptation of Eliot Ness’ 1957 memoir of the same name had all the makings of a powerhouse production destined for greatness. It featured a screenplay written by legendary playwright David Mamet, expert cinematographer Stephen H. Burum (Rumble Fish) was behind the camera, master composer Ennio Morricone was scoring the film, and Robert De Niro and Sean Connery were signed on to play larger-than-life characters. The result was an exciting, action-packed epic that helped revitalize De Palma’s struggling career (after the critical and commercial failure of Wise Guys) and earned Connery his first Academy Award.


It is 1930 and gangster Al Capone (Robert De Niro) controls most of the illegal business in Chicago with a ruthless, iron fist. After a ten-year old girl is killed in a gang-related incident, Federal Treasury Agent Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) is brought in to clean up the city. His first attempt is an embarrassing failure so he tries a different approach. He decides to form his own task force of three men to help him take down Capone and his empire. He picks a veteran beat cop named Malone (Sean Connery), who knows the city and becomes Ness’ mentor. He also selects Stone (Andy Garcia), a cop fresh out of the academy and ace shot with a pistol. Rounding out the group is Wallace (Charles Martin Smith), a bookish FBI accountant who figures out a way to nail Capone. Together, they form an incorruptible group determined to bring Capone to justice.

De Palma and Mamet make it clear right from the get-go that The Untouchables isn’t going to be some half-assed, sanitized gangster film as they proceed to have Frank Nitti (Billy Drago) blow up a bar with a little girl in it. This shocking sequence, juxtaposed with Capone lying about not using violence to enforce his will, sets an all-bets-are-off tone as we get an idea of just how brutal life is in Chicago and how far Capone is willing to go to make a point. This is then contrasted with Eliot Ness’ blandy-McPlainWrap home life with a loving and dutiful wife (Patricia Clarkson) and cute-as-a-button child. We see just how far removed from Chicago Ness’ home life is and what a rude wake up call he will get when he starts working in the city.

Kevin Costner is wisely cast as the stiff, idealistic Ness. He’s the least interesting character and plays the role straight, trying not to go the obvious heroic route. His all-American looks and Gary Cooper-esque style are ideally suited for the role of the last honest man in the corrupt town (which Oliver Stone would also utilize in JFK). His Ness is as straight an arrow as they come which makes the character’s arc over the course of the film an interesting one. He goes from staunch upholder of the law to someone who has adopted Malone’s by-any-means-necessary philosophy.

This allows Connery to rightfully shine as the aging cop torn between riding out his remaining time and retire alive or making a difference with Ness and his crew. Unlike Ness, Malone has grown up on and worked the mean streets of Chicago. He understands that they are at war with Capone and must do whatever it takes to bust him and break up his empire because he will be just as ruthless. Upon the first meeting, Malone imparts a valuable lesson to Ness: “Make sure when you shift is over you go home alive.” It seems obvious but is an important one to know. It is also the reason why Malone initially turns down Ness’ offer to form the Untouchables. Connery shows what a once great actor can do with the right material and this results in a truly inspired performance — arguably the veteran actor’s last great one.

Rounding out his trilogy of memorable cameos in the 1980s (including Brazil and Angel Heart), Robert De Niro put on the pounds again (which he first and most famously did for Raging Bull) and transformed himself into Al Capone. Like Tony Montana in De Palma’s Scarface (1983), Capone is surrounded by luxury and opulence but is still just a cruel thug at heart. In the few scenes that he has, De Niro makes them count and it is a thrill to hear a great actor say Mamet’s tough-guy dialogue (listen to how he says the word, “enthusiasms,” in a scene). The actor clearly relishes the role and treats the dialogue like he’s enjoying a rich meal and each word is a juicy morsel that he savors.

The supporting roles feature some fantastic actors, chief among them Billy Drago who exudes just the right amount of oily menace as Nitti. For example, there is a scene where he cordially threatens Ness and his family. On the surface there is the appearance of civility but we know what is true intentions are the it doesn’t take Ness much time to figure it out by then Nitti is speeding off in his car – he’s made his point. Drago doesn’t get many lines or a lot of screen time but makes the most of the what he’s given, making a fine addition to De Palma’s roster of cinematic sociopaths.

Speaking of Mamet’s dialogue, it crackles and pops with intensity and provides many of the film’s classic scenes, perhaps none more memorable than Malone’s famous speech to Ness where he tells him how to get Capone. “He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way.” Sean Connery delivers this speech with the passion and conviction that rightfully earned him an Oscar. The other scene of classic Mamet dialogue is Capone’s infamous dinner table monologue where he talks about teamwork before braining a hapless flunky with a baseball bat for not being a part of the “team.”

Brian De Palma’s stylish direction is perfect for this epic story: long, uninterrupted takes, slow motion and excellent compositions within the widescreen format. He may well be one of the greatest practioners of this aspect ratio. Just look at a simple set-up in the scene where Malone takes Ness to a church and lays it all out for how they’re going to get Capone. Both men take up most of the foreground occupying either side of the screen. The camera is low looking up at them so that we also see part of the beautifully ornate church ceiling. It is this kind of shot that would be totally destroyed when shown pan and scanned on television. Then there is the much-celebrated train station shoot-out, which was a shameless homage to a famous sequence in the legendary film, Battleship Potemkin (1925). It’s a bravura sequence that is beautifully orchestrated by De Palma as he builds the tension leading up to the shoot-up for what seems like an unbearable eternity. The entire sequence is a brilliant lesson in editing and camerawork.

Although, De Palma does go a little over-the-top (even for him) with the Ness-Nitti show down at the end, which features the director’s obligatory homage to Alfred Hitchcock. There is also silly bit of business where we see two old cops duking it in a rainy alleyway as Connery and veteran character actor Richard Bradford laughably beat each other up in a scene that I could’ve done without. Also, Malone’s prolonged death scene drags on for what feels like an eternity but these are really minor flaws in an otherwise unimpeachable stone cold classic as De Palma does his best to distract us from these histrionics with giallo lighting in the Connery fight scene and suspenseful point-of-view steadicam work in the death scene.

In 1984, producer Art Linson met with Paramount Studio’s president Ned Tanen about adapting The Untouchables television series into a film. Tanen liked the idea but Linson did not want to do a sequel, a remake or a parody. He wanted “to create a big-scale movie about mythical American heroes.” Linson needed a screenwriter and thought of David Mamet, fresh from just having won a Pulitzer Prize for his Broadway play Glengarry Glen Ross. He met with Mamet and the writer agreed to do the film. The screenwriter was a native of Chicago and something of a gangster history buff. He envisioned a story about “the old gunfighter and the young gunfighter … It occurred to me, what happens if this young innocent, who’s charged with defending the law but only understands that in an abstract way, meets an old disenchanted veteran, the caretaker of the law, soured at the end of his career because of the corruption in the city?”

Mamet asked Paramount to show him two episodes of the original series and he liked them but felt that “there was nothing I could use in the movie.” Mamet wrote an original story after realizing that the real events – Capone being caught for tax evasion – were not that dramatic. Mamet created the character of Malone and gave Ness a family (he did not have one in real life). After eight months, Brian De Palma was approached to direct by Linson after Mamet wrote the third draft of the script. The director liked that the script was more about the characters and did not see it as a gangster film but more like The Magnificent Seven (1960). He felt that the project was “different from anything I’ve done in the past, because it’s a traditional Americana picture, like a John Ford picture.” He, Linson and Mamet worked together on it with De Palma emphasizing the Capone character more. According to De Palma, the film “reflects upon the incredible pressure we place on our police by not equipping them to adequately fight criminals. Why are we surprised that some of them go overboard?”

For the role of Eliot Ness, Linson and De Palma initially considered William Hurt and Harrison Ford, but, according to Linson, they wanted “someone with the right combination of naiveté, earnestness and strength.” They ended up casting Kevin Costner who wanted to do the film because it was so different from the television series and Ness “has to ask for help. It’s the more modern notion that a smart man takes a step back sometimes – that to be a hero you don’t have to be Rambo.” For Jimmy Malone, the filmmakers wanted Sean Connery but assumed that he would not want to play a supporting role and take a pay cut. However, Connery was drawn to the project because of Mamet’s script and the chance to work with Robert De Niro. He ended up signing on for a percentage of the profits. For the role of Al Capone, De Palma wanted De Niro. Paramount initially balked at the actor’s asking price of $1.5 million but relented.

The principal actors rehearsed together for a full week and Connery tried to remain in character even when the cast was relaxing. By the time principal photography began, whole scenes had been blocked and unworkable ideas rejected. A rapport between the actors playing the Untouchables had also been established, which definitely shows in the film. In preparation for the film, De Niro put on 30 pounds between the end of his Broadway run in Cuba and His Teddy Bear and his days of filming scheduled at the end of the 70-day production schedule. He analyzed old Movietone newsreels in order to get Capone’s voice, movements and mannerisms. On an interesting note, the famous scene in the church between Ness and Malone as originally written, took place on a street, but Connery suggested it take place in a church – the only place left in the city where they could speak freely.

Principal photography started in mid-August 1986 and utilized over 25 separate locations in Chicago with the border raid sequence shot on the Old Hardy Bridge spanning the Missouri River because of its period look. The train station shoot-out cost $200,000 to light because extra light was needed to shoot the sequence in slow motion. It took six days to shoot the scene, which cost an additional $100,000. Not surprisingly, staging this sequence like the one in Battleship Potemkin was De Palma’s idea. The budget escalated from $17 million to $24 million thanks to the cost of production designer Patrizia von Brandenstein transforming an entire block of LaSalle Street in Chicago into the 1930s complete with 125 costumed extras and 60 period cars.

The Untouchables received mixed reviews from critics back in the day and is best summed up by Pauline Kael, a fan of De Palma’s work, who wrote, “It's not a great movie; it's too banal, too morally comfortable - the script is too obvious. But it's a great audience movie - a wonderful potboiler. It's a rouser. The architectural remnants of the era (including solid traces of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright) have been refurbished to provide a swaggering showcase for the legend.” In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby praised Sean Connery’s performance: “In any other movie, this, too, would be a pretty ordinary role but, as written by Mr. Mamet, directed by Mr. De Palma and played by Mr. Connery, Jim Malone becomes something like the original on which all similar roles were patterned.” Time magazine’s Richard Schickel wrote, “Such riches abound in this film, but it is as parable, not parody, that it grips us. The Untouchables all begin as archetypes of American goodness. And they do triumph over evil; they send Capone to prison. But the cost is death or loss of innocence, for it is only by adapting crime's methods that they can defeat it.”

Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars and was disappointed by De Niro’s performance: “All of the movie's Capone segments seem cut off from the rest of the story; they're like regal set-pieces, dropped in from time to time … There isn't a glimmer of a notion of what made this man tick, this Al Capone who was such an organizational genius that he founded an industry and became a millionaire while still a young man.” The Washington Post’s Hal Hinson wrote, “But you're too much aware of the director's manipulations; his virtuosity become oppressive. Our only interest really is in whether the filmmaker can sustain the feat. It's the kind of stunt that turns filmmaking into a kind of sideshow. It's stunning but in the way that great jugglers or magicians can sometimes be stunning. But it's not art, and, at least in the case of The Untouchables, it's only marginally entertaining.”

The production design for The Untouchables is fantastic, especially the opulence of Capone’s headquarters with Morricone’s score resembling a 1930s riff on the music from De Palma’s Scarface. This film is one of those rare big-budget, star-studded blockbusters that actually works. All of the right elements came together at just the right time and place and resulted in an incredibly entertaining motion picture. The Untouchables shows what a master filmmaker like De Palma can do with a director-for-hire paycheck movie. He may not be making a personal statement with this film but he still gives it his all in terms of style and virtuoso camerawork. This film certainly set a high standard for period gangster films, casting a long shadow over future endeavors like Michael Mann’s Public Enemies (2009) and the HBO T.V. series Boardwalk Empire.

Also, check out Mr. Peel's excellent look at the film over at his blog, and also John Kenneth Muir's top notch analysis of De Palma's epic over at his blog.

SOURCES

Darnton, Nina. “At the Movies.” The New York Times. May 29, 1987.

Mathews, Tom. “The Mob at the Movies.” Newsweek. June 22, 1987.

Nightingale, Benedict. “Bottled in Bond, He’s Vintage Connery.” The New York Times. June 7, 1987.

Siskel, Gene. “De Palma Finds Untouchables within his Cinematic Reach.” Chicago Sun-Times. June 21, 1987.

Sujo, Aly. “Connery as Cop Plays on Childhood Memories.” Globe & Mail. June 11, 1987.

The Untouchables Production Notes. 1987.