The Long Goodbye
 

PostED ON OCTOBER 15

The Long Goodbye is an adventure featuring the famous fictional private eye, whose investigations are filled with calamity:  Philip Marlowe. Forget the fog, silence, soft felt and trenchcoat of Humphrey Bogart’s Marlowe in the 1947 classic by Howard Hawks… The Altman version is a screen double of the filmmaker himself, in other words a tall, seemingly nonchalant man who looks at the world around him with humour and distance without ever seeking to seduce. 

True to form, the director films groups of people in turmoil without really knowing why. As in the brilliant novels by Raymond Chandler, creator of the Marlowe brand, what matters most is not the investigation, but the atmosphere and mood that characterise California of the era. Altman has chosen to transport Marlowe from 1950 to the ‘modern era’ of the early ‘70s; the colour, carefully nuanced music and requisite light-hearted rhythm weave around Marlowe, played by Elliott Gould and his curly hair, creating a very pleasant ambiance that nonetheless descends into cruelty and doom. Altman toys with clever and self-mockingly vain Hollywood nostalgia, such as making legendary actor Sterling Hayden play an Ernest Hemingway-style role. The Long Goodbye also becomes a real anti-hero film for a main character described as a born loser who even loses his cat. In fact, Altman turns his Marlowe into a man who escapes everything, gives no answers, and proves to be truly dangerous. 

The Long Goodbye, 1973 © DR

Virginie Apiou

SCREENINGS

The Long Goodbye by Robert Altman (1973, 1h52)
Comoedia - Monday, October 16 octobre at 1:45pm
Vénissieux - Tuesday, October 17 octobre at 8pm
Lumière Terreaux - Friday, October 20 at 10pm