MILLER'S CROSSING
Rating: 
Original Review: One of the cinemas enduring director-composer collaborations is the one between Joel Coen and Carter Burwell. Joel, and his brother Ethan, were almost solely responsible for plucking Burwell from obscurity and making him the film music hot property he has become today, through films such as Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Barton Fink and the Oscar-winning Fargo. Miller's Crossing was their third film together, and gave the film music world two things: Burwell's most impressive theme, and his least impressive album.
A labyrinthine crime drama, Miller's Crossing told the tale of gang warfare between Irish and Italian mobs of the 1940s, and the incredibly intricate relationships that existed between various members of each group. Gabriel Byrne starred as a drunken, gambler-cum-hitman for Irish kingpin Albert Finney who, after a disagreement with his boss over his moll Marcia Gay Harden, offers his services to Mafia leader Jon Polito. To prove his loyalty, Polito instructs Byrne to murder weaselly conman John Turturro - who happens to be Harden's brother. After that, it all gets very complicated, in a distinctly Coen Brothers kind of way, but turns into a very satisfying and engrossing gangster drama, which would ultimately pave the way for further hit movies.
The best thing to come from Burwell's score is the fabulous main theme. Dripping with pure Irishness, the theme does not adhere to the now-familiar instrumentation of the type, but retains its romance and pathos. A gently playful solo clarinet slowly give way to a performance by the full orchestra, and the cues in which it appears ('Opening Titles', 'A Man and His Hat', 'The Long Way Around', 'After Miller's Crossing', 'End Titles') are without doubt the best on the album. The Miller's Crossing theme was later immortalised in the UK by being used in a highly successful series of beer advertisements starring Denis Leary.
It's just a shame, therefore, that the rest of the score (where the theme is not present) is so redundant. With only the eerily unnerving 'Miller's Crossing' and the violent 'Nightmare In The Trophy Room' being of note, the rest are terminally uninspired dissonance cues, many of which run for less than a minute ('Rage of the Dane' lasts for 6 seconds!), and it is left to the inclusion of four source music selections to pad out an album which only runs for half an hour anyway, but even then only has just over 18 minutes of score. Admittedly, Frank Patterson's performance of "Danny Boy" is soul-stirring, but I can't help but be left a little bemused by the lack of consideration given to Burwell's original music.
Track Listing:
- Opening Titles (1:54)
- Caspar Laid Out (1:57)
- A Man and His Hat (0:56)
- King Porter Stomp (written by F. Morton, S. Burke and S. Robin) (2:10)
- The Long Way Around (1:39)
- Miller's Crossing (2:36)
- After Miller's Crossing (0:42)
- Running Wild (written by J. Grey, L. Wood and A. Gibbs) (3:06)
- Rage of the Dane (0:06)
- All A You Whores (0:24)
- Nightmare in the Trophy Room (1:37)
- He Didn't Like His Friends (0:22)
- Danny Boy (traditional, performed by Frank Patterson) (4:07)
- What Heart? (0:50)
- End Titles (4:44)
- Goodnight Sweetheart (written by R. Valee, R Noble, J. Campbell and R. Connelly, performed by Frank Patterson) (0:55)
Running Time: 30 minutes 05 seconds
Varése Sarabande VSD-5288 (1990)
Music composed and conducted by Carter Burwell. Orchestrations by Sonny Kompaneck. Recorded and mixed by Michael Farrow. Album produced by Carter Burwell.
Home Page | Reviews A-M | Reviews N-Z | Composers | Links
Movie Music U.K is designed and maintained by Jonathan Broxton (c) 1999. All opinions and views expressed on these pages are my own and are in no way intended to reflect those the University of Sheffield. All photos and album artwork used on Movie Music U.K. are only for the non-profit making promotional purposes and no copyright infringement is intended.