An (Éminence) Gris Area: Thinking and Acting in Miller's Crossing

 

The one two punch of Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink are probably peak Coen brothers for me. They have other films that are considered classics (No Country for Old Men, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, etc.), but they are two films that typify everything that comes to mind when one thinks of the Coen Brothers, the obsessions with classic Hollywood films and the culture that produced them; the attention to dialogue that turns every line into both an archive and a poem; and a dark sense of humor. A few years ago, thanks to the Maine International Film Festival I got to see the film with Gabriel Byrne speaking afterwards. One of my best movie going experiences.

I watched the film again recently. It stirred up a few ideas I had about writing something about the movie that have been lingering around for some time. Those ideas begin at the end, from the image that closes the movie. Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne) the éminence gris of the film's local Irish mafia, "the man behind the man," to use the parlance of the film, stands alone in the woods. The problems that opened the film, how is Leo O'Bannon, the head of the Irish mafia and ruling town boss, going to deal with his rival for power, the head of the Italian mafia, Johnny Caspar (John Polito), and contend with the fact that Bernie Berbaum /(John Turturro), a grifter and loose canon, is the brother of his romantic interest, Verna (Marcia Gay Harden). All these problems are solved, Caspar and Bernie are both dead, and no one can trace that back to Leo who is now able to marry Verna. Everything has been put back into place except for Tom. He stands alone. He neither gets the girl, he is also seeing Verna, nor his place next to the throne. He only pays off his gambling debts,  a temporary victory. He has planned for everything except for himself.

 

This final scene always seemed like one of the best adaptations of Dashiel Hammett's Red Harvest's premise of one man standing between two rival gangs, pitting them against each other, and a statement on the gap that separates knowing from being. Tom has seen all of the angles, orchestrated a plan in which everything falls back into place except for him. He occupies a kind of Archimedian point, outside of everything, thrown out of Leo's gang, separated from the woman he seems to love, and alone. It is because he is outside, not attached to anything, that he can see everything, see all of the connections the lust, the greed, and the fear that connects everyone, but it is also because he is outside, not attached to anyone, that he is alone. You can see the situation or you can be in the situation, but you cannot do both. 

Watching it again I had a different thought, one strung between three bits of dialogue that occur, and even repeat over the course of the film. In the opening scene Tom says to Leo that it helps to have a reason for an action, pitting him as the thinking man against Leo who operates by his feelings, his love of Vera and his pride at being the ruler of the more powerful gang. Tom presents Leo with calculation as the degree zero of thought. 

Tom Reagan: Think about what protecting Bernie gets us. Think about what offending Caspar loses us.

Leo O'Bannon: Oh, come on, Tommy. You know I don't like to think.

Tom Reagan: Yeah. Well, think about whether you should start.

In the closing scene (in the clip above) when congratulated by Leo on his elaborate plan, of thinking it all through, Tom contradicts this idea of being governed by reason, stating that he does not always know why he does things. These two statements form a contradiction of sorts; one that is resolved by a third line of dialogue, repeated by Tom several times throughout the film, "Nobody knows anybody. Not that well." Tom says this primarily about others, nobody knows what another person is capable of, anyone could kill or lie if it came to that. It also could be turned back on ourselves. We do not know what we are capable of, or why we do what we do--we do not even know ourselves that well. 

There are then two different ways of looking at the end of Miller's Crossing. In one version Tom is the Archimedian architect of a master plan, one that sees all of the angles and all the connections. Tom knew that Caspar would recruit him once he and Leo fell out over Verna, that Caspar would have him kill Bernie as a test of loyalty, that Bernie would try to double cross Tom, and so on. In the second version any such master plan is only a retroactive illusion. Tom is just trying to stay alive, driven by this striving, this desire to survive, combined with some revenge, some lust, and perhaps a desire for drink, he is just taking each moment as it comes. These momentary decisions only look like a master plan when everything is done.

 

I would say that the film supports both readings, that of the master plan and that of the spur of the moment striving for survival. If one was looking for a philosophical reference to distinguish the two versions, a modern one, then it is possible to say that the first reading is cartesian. Descartes had a fondness for Archimedes and constructed his own cogito, his own subjectivity, for lack of a better word, on that of a point of thought separated from its body, from its relations, and from the world. This metaphysics has as its unstated condition of possibility that of the emerging urban space which detaches individuals from any kind of familial or local belonging while simultaneously related them as isolated atoms. As Descartes writes

…[T]his desire made me resolve to take leave of all those places where I could have acquaintances, and to retire here, in a country where the long duration of the war has established such well-ordered discipline…and where among the crowds of a great and very busy people and more concerned with their own affairs than curious about the affairs of others, I have been able to live as solitary and as retired a life as I could in the remotest deserts—but without lacking any of the amenities that are to be found in the most populous cities.”

One can see echoes of this ideal down through the ages right down to the lone hero of film noir. In this view connections and attachments can only muddle seeing the angles and connections. In this view subjectivity is transparent to itself so long as it does not connect itself to others. 

The second perspective, the one in which no one really knows what one does, can be supported by Spinoza. From the Spinoza that posits an opacity at the heart of subjectivity. As Spinoza writes,

"So the infant believes that he freely wants the milk; the angry boy that he wants vengeance; and the timid, flight. Again, the drunk believes it is from a free decision of the mind that he says those things which afterward, when sober, he wishes he had not said...Because this prejudice is innate in all men, they are not easily freed from it."

And 

“From all this, then, it is clear that we neither strive for, nor will, neither want, nor desire anything because we judge it to be good; on the contrary, we judge something to be good because we strive for it, will it, want it, and desire it.” 

 In this view, which has been supported by some studies of affect and thought, what we call our reasons are nothing more than retroactive justifications of our striving, our desires. We are only the fly in the coach, believing ourselves to be in control of that which exceeds our intentions. 

Of course it is hard to see from the outside which of these are true. The film's ambiguity is the ambiguity of subjectivity itself. Do we construct our plans in advance, comprehending the world from outside of attachments, passions, and desires? Or do we act first, struggle to survive, only coming up with reasons after the fact. Perhaps it is as Tom says, "Nobody knows anybody. Not that well."