Millers Crossing (1990)

Millers Crossing was directed and written by the Coen brothers, and is of a Crime/Thriller genre. It is very cleverly directed and is full of thriller signifies and intense scenes.

The style of the film is quite "gangster" as the actors play the role of American Gangsters, which almost reminds you of the Mafia in Godfather. The beginning scenes have a fantastic Mise-en-scene and are full of thriller signifies such as slattered blinds and a electric fan. The colours of the Mise-en-scene are also quite dark and dingy, which almost portray a feeling of a thriller. There are also many gruesome scenes which obviously are typical of a thriller, yet at the same time scenes are quite stylish, with quite calming music in the background. This is typical of a Coen brothers film as well, as there always made with class and well thought about story lines.

The guys in the film are also quite tough which you always find with a thriller film, however the female lead in this film isn't actually portrayed as being vulnerable, yet quite strong as she stands up for herself against the main guy lead. This is quite surprising as you normally find the female leads relying on the guy to rescue them. Although every single time you see her, she's always filmed within quite a personal place for a women. For example, at one point there's a scene where the she's filmed being invaded in the girls toilets by the main guy, and another one where she's filmed while she's in her dressing gown and underwear. Although, at the same time in these scenes she's always strong and stands up for herself. This isn't very typical of thrillers, and is therefore quite unusual.

There are plenty of varied shots used throughout this film. For instance, they used shallow focus, where one of the male protagonist is in focus, where-as the background is out of focus. This is quite effective, and therefore adds to the films style and authenticity. There are also plenty of zoomed in close-ups, longs shots and medium shots. However, in this film there are also a range of simple shots, for example there's a simple shot of one of the male protagonist hat falling upon the ground. Although the shot looks fairly easy to film, in reality this was probably quite hard to achieve, and it looks very effective and adds the films "class." Overall, Millers Crossing is a stylish film and every character you notice is dressed in glamorous clothes, and during the film there's the symbol of the expensive looking cars and the powerful men smoking. In every shot, the mise-en-scene is stylish and typical of the era that the film is meant to be shot in. For example, the colours of the room are rich such as dark browns and deep reds which are connoting danger, love and passion, and during scenes in which violence is happening, the men always seem to keep calm.