Miller's Crossing

The king’s cleverest and most trusted man is having an affair with the king’s woman (despite being one of those who would never want to be seen running after a woman), and, when they are caught, the king is reluctant to acknowledge the betrayal until he feels he no longer has any choice but to admit it and excommunicate him. The man, who is the best tactician (that is, the best calculator), makes a show of going over to the side of the king’s enemies (if only because he seems to have “no choice”), but it is unclear, perhaps even to himself, whether this is really out of self-interest or part of a grander strategy allowing him to make amends by enabling the king to succeed against those enemies, but where, beyond this calculation of calculations, it turns out that such a making of amends can do no more than serve his need to find another path, beyond all of those calculations, beyond anything calculable, or even anything existent, nothing more, perhaps, than the wish to avoid the humiliation and the comedy of being one of those who runs after their own hat, or, conversely, that there is nothing to be done other than run after one’s own hat (and if so, then perhaps “with the manliest ardour and the most sacred joy”), those humiliating or comic things being very often the “things that are most worth doing” (Chesterton, 1908, p. 31).

In short, an excellent film about the question of ethics. Also about hats (most likely influenced, I think, by Chesterton’s 1908 essay, “On Running After One’s Hat”, as indicated by the above). And also, as I did not realise until 2018, a retelling of the tale of Lancelot, Arthur and Guinevere, and more specifically a remake of Robert Bresson’s LANCELOT DU LAC (1974), whose visage-concealing helmets are here replaced by the aforementioned hats. Even the woods at Miller’s Crossing resemble those where Lancelot brought the life of Mordred to an end (like a dumb animal). The discovery of these probable sources only adds to the feeling that what already seemed an excellent film is in fact a great one.