I've had this film on video for over twelve years, as it was a film that I watched on a long-defunct UK film 'slot' called Moviedrome. I remember watching it and thinking it was intriguing but hard to follow...but I was only fourteen or so. The video has sat on the shelf for a while, and I've kept it the same way that I've kept other films that intrigued me. One day I'll sit through them all and see what all the fuss is about. There are some films that you have to be ready to watch. Anyway, it's been a good four or five years since I last watched it, and I decided to read the novel that it was based on a couple of days ago. (I like Raymond Chandler books - they're fantastically written, imaginative and inventive and effortlessly elegant, but in a hard-boiled way.) So I read the novel yesterday - it was my day off, and I really concentrated and read hard - and then watched the film again this morning.
SPOILERS
What was Altman thinking? OK, so he wanted to make an adaption of The Long Goodbye... but he didn't. He used the same characters and elements of the same plot, but why did he bother doing all the different stuff? Why not make a 'new' film? So he wanted to update Chandler. Fair enough, "That's OK with me". But why in such an inconsistent manner, and with such little regard or respect for the source material?
Elliot Gould is fantastic, as always, the acting is uniformly splendid, the score is excellent and the camerawork is impressively foreboding. My problem is with Altman and his rather childish treatment of such a great source. There's something that has always bothered me about him - the 'easy target' syndrome. MASH, The Long Goodbye, Short Cuts, The Player.... all great films (yes, The Long Goodbye IS great, but VERY flawed). But why does he do things in such a childish and transparent manner? (Not just here - witness the clumsy dog sh*t in Pret A Porter, the war metaphors in MASH...and so on.) You can almost hear the conversation when he pitched this film to United Artists.
"Hey, let's make Marlowe a shambling fool. If someone was transposed from the early 50s to the early 70s, that's what he'd be, right? He can let people walk all over him. He can drive an old car and wear these strange anachronistic clothes so that it refers back to the period when the book was set... What? Have I read it? No, I didn't bother (allegedly). Anyway, forget all this mystery business, and the plastic surgery, and the intertwining relationships and the betrayal at the end and the rather tender and touching ending (so I've been told, I didn't finish it, remember?). Let's dumb it down. Let's include some senseless mysogyny, because that's what the 70s is all about. In fact, forget about telling a story, that can be incidental. Let's make it a big in-joke, and a scathing comment about cinema in the 1970s! Yeah, that'll work. The audience can unpick it themselves, including the references to Hollywood that pervade every scene. You know, the way that the security guy imitates Hollywood stars. The way that everything is done on looks and image and how people see things. Let's throw in some contemporary politics, some sly cursory nods to current fads. We can get rid of all the intriguing things about the novel...and replace them with generic stereotypes. 1970s audiences can't cope with subtlety or anything too complicated. And throw in a big chunk of missing money, cause that's what everyone's obsessed with nowadays. And get him to shoot an unarmed man at the end. Can he be in danger? No, he just commits a cold-blooded murder. Yeah, that's right, to end the film with. Then Marlowe can wander off as happy as Larry, and we can dub an ironic song on the end...yeah, 'Hooray For Hollywood' will do. After all, hooray for any town where we can get away with this butchery, huh?"
BUT.................criticism of Altman's motives aside.......... If you haven't read the book, or you don't read the book after you've read it, it works pretty well as an Altman film (a look at Hollywood from the inside, although not necessarily a subtle one). As an abstract look at Hollywood in the 70s (as I've outlined above) it works well and gives an insight into what was in vogue at the time. I only question Altman's reasoning behind using such an excellent text, butchering it completely and subverting the storyline for his own ends. I haven't got anything against adapting texts - after all, a book is a book and a film is a film. But when the source is so perfect, why not just come up with something _original_? ...And before you say it, I mean why not come up with your OWN story rather than dessicating someone else's. Why put Chandler's name on the credits at all?
SPOILERS
What was Altman thinking? OK, so he wanted to make an adaption of The Long Goodbye... but he didn't. He used the same characters and elements of the same plot, but why did he bother doing all the different stuff? Why not make a 'new' film? So he wanted to update Chandler. Fair enough, "That's OK with me". But why in such an inconsistent manner, and with such little regard or respect for the source material?
Elliot Gould is fantastic, as always, the acting is uniformly splendid, the score is excellent and the camerawork is impressively foreboding. My problem is with Altman and his rather childish treatment of such a great source. There's something that has always bothered me about him - the 'easy target' syndrome. MASH, The Long Goodbye, Short Cuts, The Player.... all great films (yes, The Long Goodbye IS great, but VERY flawed). But why does he do things in such a childish and transparent manner? (Not just here - witness the clumsy dog sh*t in Pret A Porter, the war metaphors in MASH...and so on.) You can almost hear the conversation when he pitched this film to United Artists.
"Hey, let's make Marlowe a shambling fool. If someone was transposed from the early 50s to the early 70s, that's what he'd be, right? He can let people walk all over him. He can drive an old car and wear these strange anachronistic clothes so that it refers back to the period when the book was set... What? Have I read it? No, I didn't bother (allegedly). Anyway, forget all this mystery business, and the plastic surgery, and the intertwining relationships and the betrayal at the end and the rather tender and touching ending (so I've been told, I didn't finish it, remember?). Let's dumb it down. Let's include some senseless mysogyny, because that's what the 70s is all about. In fact, forget about telling a story, that can be incidental. Let's make it a big in-joke, and a scathing comment about cinema in the 1970s! Yeah, that'll work. The audience can unpick it themselves, including the references to Hollywood that pervade every scene. You know, the way that the security guy imitates Hollywood stars. The way that everything is done on looks and image and how people see things. Let's throw in some contemporary politics, some sly cursory nods to current fads. We can get rid of all the intriguing things about the novel...and replace them with generic stereotypes. 1970s audiences can't cope with subtlety or anything too complicated. And throw in a big chunk of missing money, cause that's what everyone's obsessed with nowadays. And get him to shoot an unarmed man at the end. Can he be in danger? No, he just commits a cold-blooded murder. Yeah, that's right, to end the film with. Then Marlowe can wander off as happy as Larry, and we can dub an ironic song on the end...yeah, 'Hooray For Hollywood' will do. After all, hooray for any town where we can get away with this butchery, huh?"
BUT.................criticism of Altman's motives aside.......... If you haven't read the book, or you don't read the book after you've read it, it works pretty well as an Altman film (a look at Hollywood from the inside, although not necessarily a subtle one). As an abstract look at Hollywood in the 70s (as I've outlined above) it works well and gives an insight into what was in vogue at the time. I only question Altman's reasoning behind using such an excellent text, butchering it completely and subverting the storyline for his own ends. I haven't got anything against adapting texts - after all, a book is a book and a film is a film. But when the source is so perfect, why not just come up with something _original_? ...And before you say it, I mean why not come up with your OWN story rather than dessicating someone else's. Why put Chandler's name on the credits at all?