The Long Goodbye (1973)

[ShogunRua]

The Long Goodbye (1973)-

Originally, this was the name of a 1953 Raymond Chandler story featuring his famous private detective, Phillip Marlowe. When first offered the movie, director Robert Altman wanted nothing to do with it. However, when the studio agreed to cast gangly Elliot Gould as the lead, then a Hollywood pariah, instead of their first choice, highly-regarded tough guy Robert Mitchum, Altman reconsidered. And what he ended up doing with the film was extraordinary.

Ostensibly, the movie follows a murder mystery. A good friend of Marlowe's, Terry Lennox, asks him for a ride in the middle of the night to Tijuana after a domestic squabble. After dropping him off, Marlowe is picked up the next day by the cops as an accessory to murder, since Lennox supposedly killed his wife Sylvia. They let him go only when Lennox's body is found, an apparent suicide.

Marlowe thinks Terry didn't kill Sylvia, and was then murdered himself. He vows to uncover the truth.

The first significant aspect of the movie is that the setting is 1973, not 1953. Marlowe's neighbors are crazy, new-age, hippy women who do topless aerobics. And while this should have been a clue, I didn't figure out what the movie truly was for a long time.

At first, I thought it was just an updated, grittier version of Chandler's story. Later, I thought it was an alternative interpretation. Only near the end did it finally strike me; the movie is a ruthless yet subtle parody of the whole noir genre.

At every stop, Altman turns the conventions of the genre on their head, to great effect. The opening itself epitomizes this. Instead of a thrilling action sequence, Marlowe is woken up in the middle of the night by his cat. Then, he walks to the local convenience store and buys cat food.

The asshole, deluded cops turn out to be pretty sharp after all, reasonably decent, and largely correct. Marlowe's romance never turns into anything. The only injuries Marlowe sustains are from being accidentally hit by a car while in hot pursuit. Instead of staking out and infiltrating dangerous territory, Marlowe prowls around a rehab center. Instead of armed guards, he avoids confused nurses and doctors.

The politest people Marlowe meets are a corrupt police chief and coroner in Tijuana. They're genuine sweethearts. The worst assholes are the female nurses and an upscale realtor in Malibu.

Marlowe is also harassed by gang members who demand money from them. Does this end in a dramatic physical confrontation? Nope, not here. They find their money, and politely bid him farewell. In a particularly funny scene, when the gangsters have Marlowe in their power, they don't make him strip, as in so many films. Instead, they all strip in front of him.

The characters throughout are very memorable. There's the security guard who is forever doing impressions of famous Hollywood stars. There is Sterling Hayden's terrific performance as an Ernest Hemingway-esque writer suffering from alcoholism and writer's block, but desperately trying to seem macho.

Most of all, I love Elliot Gould's portrayal of Marlowe. He is low-key and calm, with a sarcastic quip for any situation. He accepts the shit of the world with his philosophical refrain "it's okay by me", chain-smoking all the while. In fact, the chain-smoking might be part of the satire. There is virtually no scene in the movie where Gould doesn't have a cigarette in his mouth, regardless of situation. Yet, he is the only significant character to light up. It's a part of his old-school values and personality. Because, after all, Marlowe is the character Chandler envisioned. That's the central part of the satire! Marlowe himself is unchanged. However, he is stuck in a bizarre world very different from his original setting, and that's responsible for all the nonsense.

Amusingly, Gould's Phillip Marlowe, with the chain-smoking, fuzzy, curly hair, formal suit, tall, thin body, and sarcastic sense of humor reminds me a lot of Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop. He might well have been an inspiration for Shinichiro Watanabe.

But unlike most parodies, this one doesn't just play with audience expectations of the genre, and mock them. It isn't solely tied to the object of its satire. No, The Long Goodbye is a great movie in its own right.

Despite the humor, the film is unremittingly bleak. It portrays an insane, selfish, realistic society filled with rude liars at every turn. There is astonishingly little violence, but one constantly gets the sense of how fucked-up and unjust the world is.

But when the violence erupts, it has the effect of an atom bomb. Even someone as inured to violence as myself was shocked and moved at every such explosion in the film. It's so damn unexpected, and so unflinchingly cruel.

And all throughout the movie, Marlowe takes it. He accepts the rudeness. He accepts being pushed around. He accepts the abuse. There isn't a single action scene where he fights or shoots anyone. Until the end. The very very end.

And that ending is so cathartic, so beautiful and brilliant, so exemplary of the film's central ideas, that I will always remember it. In fact, it's one of the best I have seen in a film. Even as the camera pans out, as I saw what Gould's character was doing in the background, my eyes dilated still wider in awe.

An amazing, all-time great film.

[glumpy_99]

Very nice, perceptive review; I love Altman, but the film itself left me cold on first watch, as a glib, snarky send-up of Bogart, Mitchum etc. noir, personified by Gould's performance.

That being said, certain scenes and characters have stuck in my mind and have kept it permanently on my "must re-watch" list; certainly the film you are describing sounds far more interesting and intriguing than the one I remember seeing. One more reason to import what looks like an excellent blu-ray from the UK!

Cheers

[hellboy76]

Nice work. I am an Altman fan but not a huge fan of Gould's, so was not sure how this one would sit with me. I ending up really enjoying it.

[ShogunRua]

Thanks for the kind words, both of you.

And while it's certainly a parody, it feels to me a satire made out of love and a desire to do something creative. It doesn't strike me as being malicious, or derisively sticking its tongue out at the original material. Especially considering they retained the character of Marlowe as well as the original ending to the book.

On an amusing note, I don't think anyone will be shocked that this film did poorly at the box office. People went in expecting an action-packed mystery with a badass protagonist, loaded with sex and violence. Instead, they got something else.

At some point, the producers recognized this, and commissioned a second, alternative poster;

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uPrT4PK9iPg/T ... _Davis.jpg

Opinions will likely be mixed, but I personally love it.

[hellboy76]

Thanks for the kind words, both of you.

And while it's certainly a parody, it feels to me a satire made out of love and a desire to do something creative. It doesn't strike me as being malicious, or derisively sticking its tongue out at the original material. Especially considering they retained the character of Marlowe as well as the original ending to the book.

On an amusing note, I don't think anyone will be shocked that this film did poorly at the box office. People went in expecting an action-packed mystery with a badass protagonist, loaded with sex and violence. Instead, they got something else.

At some point, the producers recognized this, and commissioned a second, alternative poster;

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uPrT4PK9iPg/T ... _Davis.jpg

Opinions will likely be mixed, but I personally love it.

Wow... that poster. Might as well rename the film "Yuk Yuks". It's quite amazing.