The A posteriori le cinema series is an opportunity to celebrate the 7th art by revisiting key titles that celebrate important anniversaries.
In the middle of the night, Philip Marlowe is awakened by his hungry cat. However, the animal only eats one brand of food, and the private detective has none left. After trying in vain to convince the feline to feed on another variety, Marlowe goes out at night to satisfy the animal. Seemingly anecdotal, this opening sequence of the film The Long Goodbye (Private), released 50 years ago, immediately informs us about the nature of the protagonist: if he is ready to go to all the trouble for his cat, he is probably the type to split into four for his friends. And indeed, when Lennox, an old friend, arrives and asks him a huge favor, Marlowe accepts without asking questions. He takes it badly.
Taken from what Raymond Chandler considered his best novel, The Long Goodbye was written by Leigh Brackett, who had previously adapted The Big Sleep (The big sleep), where Humphrey Bogart played Marlowe. The screenwriter opted this time for a very free adaptation.
In an interview recorded in the collection Backstory 2. Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1940s and 1950s, Brackett summarizes: “Time had passed; it had been twenty years since the novel had been written, and the private detective as such had become a cliché. It had become funny. »
She and Robert Altman further agreed to transpose the action from the 1950s to the present, in this case the 1970s.
“Chandler used Marlowe to comment on his time, so I thought it would be a stimulating exercise to use him to comment on our current time,” the filmmaker said during the release, as reported by Daniel O’ Brien in his work Robert Altmann. Hollywood Survivor.
It’s as if Philip Marlowe had slept for twenty years, and woke up to a world that had become “sour, harsh, and more cynical”. said O’Brien.
As Leigh Brackett had understood from the start, the noble private detective of yesteryear had become an anachronism. A reality that Altman decided to amplify by having Marlowe drive a 1948 Lincoln Continental and making him the only chain smoker in healthy lifestyle-obsessed 1970s Los Angeles.
A lovable fool
By criticizing LA through this quirky protagonist, however, it was all of America that the filmmaker was attacking. The infamous Vietnam War continued, while in the White House, Richard Nixon clung to power as the Watergate scandal swelled. As Altman told the magazine Movie How in 1974: “It is true that my Marlowe is devoid of the heroism of the previous Marlowes of the cinema […] I guess I have a lot of affection for fools. I consider myself a fool. The only people you can feel affection for are fools. It’s a question of trust: if you don’t trust, then affection is not possible. I think being a jerk is the only way to be. I don’t think Nixon is a fool. »
That says it all.
Irreverent, satirical, The Long Goodbye was sure to displease Chandler purists as well as cinephiles who prefer film noir, how to say, noir. Faded pastels, ethereal finish: the looks favored by Robert Altman and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond is far removed from the classic style of black cinema.
This particular rendering was obtained by a risky process: the post flash, which involves exposing the negative to a varying amount of light prior to development. In an analysis that the magazine American Cinematographer devoted to the film in 2019, we are talking about an “aesthetically exciting” result.
Exciting is not, however, a qualifier appropriate to the development of the film: it is intended. As Daniel O’Brien points out in his book: “Abandoning the fast, relentless pace typical of many private detective films, Altman lets events unfold in a more measured way, in tune with his Marlowe’s seemingly laid-back demeanor.” Marlowe gets the answers he wants, but he’s more than happy to bide his time. »
Chandler themed
In short, when he took the poster in March 1973, The Long Goodbye planted himself. As so often with Altman’s films, their brilliance—even their genius in this case—was not recognized until later. The iconoclastic influence of The Long Goodbye is noticeable in Jackie Brownby Quentin Tarantino, out of sight (Far looks), by Steven Soderbergh, InHerent Vice (Hidden defect), by Paul Thomas Anderson…
The film is now considered one of the director’s best. Nashville, The Player (The leader) And Short Cuts (crossovers).
For example, Murielle Joudet spoke of it in these terms in Les Inrockuptiblesin 2017: “A languid film noir in an insomniac Los Angeles populated by freaks. A splendor. »
Pauline Kael, from New Yorker, was one of the few American critics to adore the film on the spot: “Robert Altman is one piece, but he is complicated. You can never predict what’s coming in the movie; its fullness emanates from somewhere beyond reason […] Altman offers variations on Chandler’s theme in the same way John Williams’ score offers variations on the main theme, which becomes a tender ballad in one scene, then a funeral march in the next,” she wrote in 1973.
It is true that my Marlowe is devoid of the heroism of previous Marlowes in cinema […] I guess I have a lot of affection for fools. I consider myself a fool. The only people you can feel affection for are fools.
Kael is on target by speaking of “variations on the Chandler theme”. As tortuous as it is, the plot indeed seems almost secondary. Lennox is suspected of having killed his wife, but the discovery of her corpse accompanied by a suicide note closes the case quickly in the eyes of the police. Marlowe refuses to believe in his friend’s guilt and pursues the investigation, but again, his various encounters (including with a very young Arnold Schwarzenegger!) seem to lead nowhere. When his cat disappears, we are as if shaken by a kind of torpor, the film readily resembling a dream.
In the interview at Movie HowAltman quips humorously: “You could say that the real mystery of The Long Goodbye is to find out where Marlowe’s cat went. »
friendship betrayed
This does not prevent the filmmaker from pursuing serious plans. In Robert Altmann. interviewby David Sterritt, the filmmaker is unequivocal (discloser opinion): “My intention in The Long Goodbye was that the greatest crime that could be committed against Philip Marlowe, who is a romantic, was that his friend cheated on him. »
This, while in real life, President Nixon was “cheating” the nation, one would be tempted to add.
In the film, Marlowe reaches his saturation point when he faces the betrayal of Lennox, who manipulated him and faked his own death. During the final exchange between the two men, Lennox laughs: “You will never learn: you are a born loser. »
To which Marlowe retorts, in a final line that has become famous: “Yeah. I even lost my cat. »
And boom! The private sends the false brother to sleep the proverbial big sleep. This conclusion, which shocked in 1973 since Marlowe does not act in this way in the novel, does not shake more, with hindsight, than the said loss of the tomcat, upstream.
Because by fleeing despite the little care of his loving master, the feline will have proved to be as deceitful as Lennox. And this betrayal is, basically, almost more cruel. In fact, what can you expect from a world in which you can’t even trust your beloved cat?
The film The Long Goodbye is available as VOD on most platforms.