Characters are named Rug, Tic-Tac, Casper, The Dane and Mink. Newspaper headlines advance the narrative. Miller's Crossing is more homage than deconstruction. And Reason's name is, of course, Love. The film also has style to burn, offering the first fully-formed display of the Coens' stylistic panache.
Cameras slink, glide and tip-toe through the action.
Violence always comes with music, usually show tunes or standards. Similar sequences by Scorsese, Peckinpah or DePalma have nothing on it. T he Coen brothers really hit their stride, however, with Barton Fink , an intriguing curiosity written during a bout of writer's block on Miller's Crossing . Superficially, the film is about Barton's inability to create in the purgatory of Hollywood, here painted as a hellhole with really nice urinals. Mayhew is a sellout with a broken heart, the wicked Charlie is a brawny common man, and Barton himself is a brainy dreamer.