The Long Goodbye

(Dir. Robert Altman, 1973)

by A Fernie

I really like Robert Altman movies. We’ll get that out of the way right now. And I’ve never seen The Big Sleep or any of the other old-school, Bogey-with-a-cigarette Raymond Chandler adaptations. That said, I recently watched Altman’s The Long Goodbye starring Elliott Gould and a bunch of other people that I didn’t recognize. Altman lifts the classic noir story from its original early 20th Century setting and slams it down right into the 1970s, complete with hippie chicks, thuggish cops and terrible shirts.

Gould is great as an unexpectedly charming Philip Marlowe, the somewhat sleazy, somewhat noble private detective. His entire first scene is spent with nothing but a hungry cat and the LA skyline. The plot, too complicated to be adequately recounted here, hits on dead friends and cover-ups and femme fatales like all good film noirs should. But the plot and the “what” of the movie are almost secondary. Altman, with Gould as a very game co-conspirator, re-focuses the noir genre—strips it down to just the atmosphere and mechanics to see where else he can take it. And the film is a success as a result.

What struck me most, more so than the telltale signs of a Robert Altman film like overlapping-dialogue and bizarre characters coming and going, was Los Angeles itself. A quick Google search reveals that many critics have focused their attention on Altman’s setting the film in the 1970s. Gone was Philip Marlowe’s (and Raymond Chandler’s) noir-era LA, with its Western mystery and even more distinctly Angeleno dark side. Instead, we get Gould-as-Marlowe’s 1970’s LA, with its sprawl, its smog and its oppressive beige-ness. Yet, watching it now in 2007, I’m struck not by the comparison between Chandler and Altman’s LA, but with Altman’s LA and with the metropolis that bears the name today. The pollution is still here, but at some point, LA decided to grow UP. There’s no evidence of this in Altman’s 1973 LA. The steel and crystalline skyscrapers of today’s downtown are nowhere to be seen. The massive monuments to retail and the condo-life of Century City haven’t yet been hatched. In The Long Goodbye, the city is still moving outwards and it seems like no one has really thought to build anything beyond 5 stories. As Marlowe exits the elevator leading to his ridiculously unlikely apartment in the hills (maybe private eyes got paid much better during the Nixon administration), we can see the sprawl spread out behind him. And it looks like the city just goes on forever, with no distinguishing marks to mar its perfect anonymity.

Somehow, as Gould navigates the twists and turns of the plot in his impeccably tailored suit, it is the city that kept stealing the show. To the point where, at times, I completely lose track of what is happening. This, of course, is what Altman is so good at. Who is Nashville really about, if not the city itself? Is M.A.S.H. the story of Hawkeye and Trapper John or the entire unit, functioning as a small town? And it’s always utterly fascinating to see him create a character out of these places. What he does in The Long Goodbye is even more interesting, because in two scenes, we leave behind the city that Altman has spent so long creating a relationship with. In the first of these scenes, Marlowe is taken to the penthouse of a skyscraper at night. Lavishly decorated and menacingly lit, the posh suite is like nothing seen before in this movie. The break between this and what we’ve grown accustomed to seeing of this LA makes us uneasy. I had started to like the dingy, smoky backdrop of brown walls and discount stores. Now that we’re in this place, a foreign touch of modern expense, it just seems weird. By the time the goons start inexplicably stripping, there’s no denying the threat and menace permeating this locale. Our favorite character, the city, is gone, and suddenly, we’ve got nowhere to hang our hat.

The second time that Altman breaks us away from LA is more literal. For the final scene, Marlowe travels down to Mexico to tie up all the loose ends and show us what has really been going on. Of course, HE’S put it all together, in noir fashion, and it’s time to clue the audience in. But, again, this place is different. Whereas a tropical vacation might seem nice, here it’s all wrong. We’ve barely seen the color green at any point in the last hour and a half, and now all these palm fronds and tropical plants are invading the frame. Then, while you’re still getting your bearings, a gun goes off (by my count, the only bullet fired in the film) and Gould just walks away. Out of the scene, out of Mexico, out of the movie. And, even though the plot’s been all wrapped up, you want to know what happens next. Not so much what happens to Marlowe, but what happens once he gets back to the city. Even though the complicated plot tried to convince you otherwise, The Long Goodbye is a paean to a city that no longer exists, and it is fascinating because of it.