The Long Goodbye
by Robert Altman, Greg Carson
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Elliott Gould, Nina Van Pallandt, Robert Altman, Sterling Hayden, Vilmos ZsigmondDirector: Greg Carson, Robert Altman
Brand: GOULD,ELLIOTT
Producer: Greg Carson
Producer: Elliott Kastner
Producer: Jerry Bick
Producer: Robert Eggenweiler
Writer: Leigh Brackett
Writer: Raymond Chandler
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 112 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-09-17
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of The Long Goodbye
Movie Review: Fearlessly reinterprets and reinvents to make his own classic
Summary: 5 Stars
This is both imagination and irreverence having their finest hours. Robert Altman, who is never afraid to experiment, reinvented the character of Philip Marlowe to make him relevant to modern times--"modern times" here being the early 1970s. If Marlowe or film noir or detective yarns are sacred cows to you, you'll be put off by the changes introduced in this update--you may even find them sacriligious. I'm not beholden to the traditions, or even all that familiar with "traditional" Philip Marlowe I have to admit, so that must be why I was blown away by this film. Everything about it feels so fresh and audacious for its time.
Riffing on and refining the "fish out of water" motiff, Altman transplants Marlowe of the 50s into the early 70s, and we watch with amusement as he struggles with pop psychology, the sexual revolution, yoga, a "smoke-free" environment, and other trappings of modern times. But Marlowe still has his old code of ethics, and, like Jakes Gittes in Chinatown, another updated noir classic, he despises liars. Unfortunately, in his business he's surrounded by them, which makes life difficult.
But in the sly Leigh Brackett script, it's not just humans who are cynical and self-centered. Marlowe has a cat who can tell if he's not getting his preferred brand of cat food, and who doesn't stick around if he's not. That Marlowe is loyal to the cat, but the cat doesn't give a whit about Marlowe is just the first strand of interesting character development, and it's a clever technique. In most other movies this "prelude" to the real story would just seem like padding, but here it's essential. (The script, by the way, is one great line after another, with very natural, effortless dialogue. Bracklett penned the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back for George Lucas, which may explain why Empire is the wittiest and smartest of all the Star Wars movies.)
Despite his being a man far out of step with the times, our sympathies are carefully set up to reside with Marlowe. Altman emphasises the "unrealness" of the modern world by housing Marlowe in a strange apartment complex that seems, like Marlowe, cut off from the rest of the world, but in a modern way, a way he is not. Throughout the film I got the impression the modern day people are as isolated in their own way as he is. The difference is they don't seem to sense it.
And Elliott Gould is perfectly cast for this sort of thing. He always plays characters who seem a little bit "out of it," and this is one of his best. He also has an improvisational quality to his delivery that meshes perfectly with what Altman is trying to achieve. The other characters are not as memorable, and frankly I was not as impressed by Sterling Hayden's Hemingwayesque character as some other people were. Nina van Whatshername was a standard issue b(l)each blonde, but perhaps that's just what was needed here.
The main interest outside of Gould and the setting is the handling of music, and sound in general. Rather than ask for a full score, Altman had John Williams and Johnny Mercer write a simple, slightly wistful song which is then worked into the picture every way imaginable. It's in the soundtrack, but also in source music, everywhere from supermarket Muzak to Mexican funeral music to the chimes on a doorbell. The concept sounds gimmicky, but somehow Altman makes it work, and it adds to the "unrealness" of the surroundings that our hero lives in, an unrealness no one else seems to notice. Here Altman has found a bizarre quality in the contemporary everyday that in MASH he had to go all the way to Korea/Vietnam to discover.
The transfer to DVD appears to be a good one. I say "appears" to be because much has been made over the "flashing" technique that Altman and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond use to soften the film's contrasts and give it a more naturalistic effect. It's hard to say if the result on DVD is exactly what was intended, but I think it looks good, though the difference between the gritty and realistic approach to cinematography then and today are apparent. For one thing, aside from the flashing, I don't think any movie lights were used, and if they were, they certainly weren't used heavily. Many scenes, such as those at the beach house (Altman's real-life beach house, by the way), look like they were shot just by popping the camera into the surroundings. Characters are in shadow, and there's little of the key/spot/fill lighting we're so used to in modern films. I love this harsh realism--it's what real life looks like, and it complements the rest of the film beautifully--but they'd never do it this way today, as Zsigmond alludes to on a supplementary featurette.
And that brings me to the supplements. They aren't huge in number but they are rather generous given this is a cult film. There's a discussion by Altman himself. He often can be boring or redundant, but here he says a lot of interesting things. There's also the featurette featuring Zsigmond, which is even more fascinating as he discusses his methods. Then there's a reproduction of an article that appeared in American Cinematographer about how the film's "flash" techniques were achieved. This reproduction is very well done and is easy to read on the TV screen. Finally there's the film's trailer, which is very entertaining itself.
As I said, I'm not beholden to classic Marlowe, and I love directors who experiment, so this worked for me. This is Altman during a wonderful streak of triumphs, before the late 70s and early 80s pushed him almost to irrelevance. As I frequently find myself saying with my favorite films, they just don't make 'em like this anymore.
Summary of The Long Goodbye
Irreverent characterization of detective Philip Marlowe in a sophisticated murder mystery.Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 7-SEP-2004
Media Type: DVD
Raymond Chandler's cynically idealistic hero, Philip Marlowe, has been played by everyone from Humphrey Bogart to James Garner--but no one gives him the kind of weirdly affect-less spin that Elliott Gould does in this terrific Robert Altman reimagining of Chandler's penultimate novel. Altman recasts Marlowe as an early '70s L.A. habitué, who gets involved in a couple of cases at once. The most interesting involves a suicidal writer (Sterling Hayden in a larger-than-life performance) whom Marlowe is supposed to keep away from malevolent New-Ageish guru Henry Gibson. A variety of wonderfully odd characters pop up, played by everyone from model Nina Van Pallandt to director Mark Rydell to ex-baseballer Jim Bouton. And yes, that is Arnold Schwarzenegger (in only his second movie) popping up as (what else?) a muscleman. Listen for the title song: It shows up in the strangest places. --Marshall Fine
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