Phillip Marlowe’s strange odyssey, an examination of Marlowe and the archetypes.

The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman/1973)

Be Warned, this is fairly heavy on spoilers.

In 1973 Robert Altman released an entirely unique experience upon viewers, his magnum opus The Long Goodbye was suddenly let loose upon the world, and the world reacted harshly. Luckily hindsight has been kind to The Long Goodbye, and it rightfully takes place with the best of Altman’s oeuvre. I can’t help but think of Altman’s deconstruction of the western, McCabe and Mrs. Miller when thinking of The Long Goodbye, because ultimately both films tear down the conventions of their respective genres.

 

Marlowe represents the death of an archetype, the man’s a detective who seems to walk into every event without a care in the world. His standing on life boils down to “That’s okay with me” and up until the end of the film he takes the role of observer. This Phillip Marlow is not the Phillip Marlowe of Raymond Chandler’s novel, the white knight of the novel has been replaced by an easily annoyed, sarcastic and loose moralist who rarely runs,  often walks. While Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe has been torn to pieces, a much more interesting character has emerged from the ruin. Elliott Gould and Robert Altman’s Phillip Marlowe takes the old character’s place and as a result, a more interesting and nuanced protagonist emerges.

 

Running through the beats of standard noir villains, Altman picks the bones clean off of insane gangsters, unhappy wives and tough as nails cops. By putting Marlowe in the center of these events, the way the events play out gets distorted in the translation. By turns comedic and serious, The Long Goodbye takes a standard cop shake down and makes it the source of comedy. In the questioning room Marlowe is circled by an eager detective and as he’s asked questions Marlowe proceeds to smear fingerprint ink on his face and jokes that he’s putting on his make-up, he reacts unlike a hero of a noir and simply lets the cop throw him in jail. After he gets out he asks a cop why he was in jail in the first place.

 

In another scene Marlowe goes straight to the insane mafioso to whom his friend Terry ran away from. Marlowe’s been instructed that he owes the mafioso the money Terry got away with because he was the last person seen with Terry. When he arrives he recounts how sorry he was that he nearly killed his girlfriend in Marlowe’s presence earlier in the film and asks Marlowe if he’s honest about not knowing where the money is. After a brief confrontation a fascinating thing happens, Marlowe is asked to strip naked to apologize as his completely ‘free’ self. However, since Marlowe’s not particularly insulting and hasn’t been lying the entire time he feels no need to strip down and apologize in such a bizarre fashion.  Alas, the archetypal villain won’t have it any other way. Shortly after he begins to undress a 5000 dollar bill Marlowe had received from his supposedly dead friend turns up and the situation becomes even more bizarre as the mafioso asks one of his thugs to cut Marlowe because his thug is impure. The money literally turns up just as the mafioso hands the thug his knife. The entirety of the scene rings as biting and intentionally convoluted.

 

But most striking is Altman’s use of music, he only uses “The Long Goodbye” in about 20 different ways from grocery store music to mariachi, Altman presents that one song as undeniably important to his cinema. The song essentially tells the story of strangers saying goodbye, the sentiment present in the film’s one song is reflected throughout all interactions between characters.

 

Another central figure throughout the film is Robert Wade, an angry, bitter self loathing author with more then a bit of a Hemmingway complex. Within the relationship between Marlowe and Wade a contrast emerges. While discussing matters on the beach with Marlowe, Wade’s comments on how strange Marlowe’s behavior is seems fully conscious of how strange Marlowe’s behavior is within noir clichés.

 

Ultimately, The Long Goodbye gleefully discards it’s source material for it’s own story and distinct flavor. While Altman is satirizing genre conventions he also offers a rewarding and unique experience that I’ve found myself dwelling on well after “Hooray for Hollywood” plays over the credits and Marlowes dances off into the distance. Immensely rewarding and textured cinema from Altman.