TaylorTRoom
1,000+ Posts
Like most here, I’m a fan of “The Big Lebowski”, the Coens’ reimagining of a Philip Marlowe-type story updated to the mid-90s scene. The most jarring change is that the leboski character shares Marlowe’s principles and sense of justice, but lacks his street smarts and worldly-wise experience. You’re left with a film noir plot that always threatens to careen out of control.
Two decades before “The Big Lebowski”, Robert Altman tried to update the Marlowe character into the modern age. In 1973 he directed “The Long Goodbye”, where Elliott Gould’s Marlowe is a ‘40s style gumshoe transplanted into the ‘70s. Altman called his approach ‘Rip Van Marlowe’, but the character does not seem nearly as anachronistic as you might fear (strangely, a character walking around in a dark suit with a tie of normal width seems much more normal to a 2008 audience than he must have seemed to one in 1973).
So, there you have it- a Raymond Chandler hard-boiled detective plot transplanted to the narcissistic southern California of the mid-70s. How does it work?
Well, the first test of a movie is how it functions as stand-alone entertainment. Would a person who is reasonably discerning, but has no history with the source material or affinity for film experimentation, still enjoy the film on its own merits? The answer is “yes”. The movie has a plot which presents a mystery, and slowly unfolds to its resolution. The viewer, like Marlowe, is only given partial glimpses, smatterings of clues of indeterminate significance, and introductions to characters who (in the tradition of this kind of movie) reveal themselves to be worse people than initially thought. Marlowe never holds all the cards or puzzle pieces, but his strong sense of principle (stronger than any other character) serves as a center for the story to revolve around. By the end, we’re disappointed in almost everybody (with the possible exception of Marlowe), but satisfied that the story is resolved in a coherent manner.
Gould’s Marlowe is a sympathetic figure. He has a detached cool (a running joke is the way that he is completely unaffected by the girls in the neighboring apartment who are constantly practicing nude yoga on their balcony; while every other character is fascinated by them), and wisecracking manner. There are moments of wry humor- not gags, just fleeting moments where the ludicrousness of these self-infatuated lives are revealed. As far as entertaining detective movies go, “The Long Goodbye” is better than most that Hollywood still tries to create, although not as good as the original “The Big Sleep” or “The Maltese Falcon”.
How does it work as “film”? More hits than misses. The trademark Altman direction of dialogue is there, where actors don’t necessarily wait for each other to finish their lines, but instead talk like regular people. The stunt where Marlowe has a catch phrase (“It’s all right with me”) works. The stunt where there is only one piece of music (the theme song “The Long Goodbye”, composed for the film), played by different performers and by different media through the film, doesn’t add or subtract anything to the film.
This movie was released a year before “Chinatown”, which I liked. I enjoyed this one more. Another mid-70s film noir update, “Night Moves” with Gene Hackman, is next in the hopper.
Two decades before “The Big Lebowski”, Robert Altman tried to update the Marlowe character into the modern age. In 1973 he directed “The Long Goodbye”, where Elliott Gould’s Marlowe is a ‘40s style gumshoe transplanted into the ‘70s. Altman called his approach ‘Rip Van Marlowe’, but the character does not seem nearly as anachronistic as you might fear (strangely, a character walking around in a dark suit with a tie of normal width seems much more normal to a 2008 audience than he must have seemed to one in 1973).
So, there you have it- a Raymond Chandler hard-boiled detective plot transplanted to the narcissistic southern California of the mid-70s. How does it work?
Well, the first test of a movie is how it functions as stand-alone entertainment. Would a person who is reasonably discerning, but has no history with the source material or affinity for film experimentation, still enjoy the film on its own merits? The answer is “yes”. The movie has a plot which presents a mystery, and slowly unfolds to its resolution. The viewer, like Marlowe, is only given partial glimpses, smatterings of clues of indeterminate significance, and introductions to characters who (in the tradition of this kind of movie) reveal themselves to be worse people than initially thought. Marlowe never holds all the cards or puzzle pieces, but his strong sense of principle (stronger than any other character) serves as a center for the story to revolve around. By the end, we’re disappointed in almost everybody (with the possible exception of Marlowe), but satisfied that the story is resolved in a coherent manner.
Gould’s Marlowe is a sympathetic figure. He has a detached cool (a running joke is the way that he is completely unaffected by the girls in the neighboring apartment who are constantly practicing nude yoga on their balcony; while every other character is fascinated by them), and wisecracking manner. There are moments of wry humor- not gags, just fleeting moments where the ludicrousness of these self-infatuated lives are revealed. As far as entertaining detective movies go, “The Long Goodbye” is better than most that Hollywood still tries to create, although not as good as the original “The Big Sleep” or “The Maltese Falcon”.
How does it work as “film”? More hits than misses. The trademark Altman direction of dialogue is there, where actors don’t necessarily wait for each other to finish their lines, but instead talk like regular people. The stunt where Marlowe has a catch phrase (“It’s all right with me”) works. The stunt where there is only one piece of music (the theme song “The Long Goodbye”, composed for the film), played by different performers and by different media through the film, doesn’t add or subtract anything to the film.
This movie was released a year before “Chinatown”, which I liked. I enjoyed this one more. Another mid-70s film noir update, “Night Moves” with Gene Hackman, is next in the hopper.
