The Long Goodbye

‘The Long Goodbye’ (1973) is Robert Altman's antidote to the social disfigurement and ephemeral changes in America (namely Hollywood) following the three decades since the idealistic morals of Raymond Chandler’s iconic private detective Philip Marlowe. It's an adaptation that innovatively regurgitates film noir mythology, both by departing significantly from Chandler’s titular novel and by relocating to contemporary 1970s L.A, (the original book took place in the 1950s) while keeping Marlowe firmly rooted within his own antiquated era. Renowned for his innovative experimentation with soundtrack, Altman utilises various instrumentations and renditions of the film's dominant musical score, to reinforce this unique re-contextualisation and convey a romanticism and nostalgia around the main character of Philip Marlowe (Elliott Gould).

The opening sequence of ‘The Long Goodbye’ sets up the unusual ambivalent style that the rest of the film follows. A slow, gradual panning shot at first focuses on an antique radio mounted on a wall in an apartment, which diegetically emits a brief interlude of the upbeat tune “Hooray for Hollywood”. This discretely trails off to be substituted for a gentle and dreamy underscoring of piano jazz, rather like that of traditional lounge music. The shot continues in its prowling motion eventually revealing our protagonist Philip Marlowe, lying in bed, in a daze having just been woken by his hungry cat. Lighting a cigarette, he stumbles out of bed mumbling the lyrics of the title tune, which play harmoniously throughout, and staggers towards the kitchen to attempt to fix something for his cat. However, his cat appears repelled by the food that is presented and so Marlowe embarks on a quest to find the right brand of food to satisfy his cat, thus setting off the credit title sequence.

For all its irregular deviations from the source novel, this audacious opening aptly demonstrates Marlowe's metaphoric awakening into an unfamiliar time dimension. The use of historically contrasting underscoring completes this theory as does Altman's original conception that this would be a 1940s Philip Marlowe who has just woken up in contemporary Los Angeles. In this respect the music playing in this scene could in fact be playing non-diegetically within Marlowe’s head, to reflect his reminiscence of a previous era.

Accompanied by alternating gender variations of John William’s, title song, the credit sequence commences with the introduction of a second focal character Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton), a supposed friend of Marlowe. As he pulls up to a security gate the attendant, who attempts a humorous impersonation of Barbara Stanwych’s character Phyllis Dietrichson in ‘Double Indemnity’ (1944), greets him. This is appropriately ironic considering that the film was set out by Altman to deconstruct the conventional thematic devices of film noir from this very period. It further displays a post-modernist recognition and reminiscent yearning for the past. As Terry Lennox sets off on his journey a lone male vocalist is heard singing a wistful variation of the jazz theme, which in turn is replaced with another variation of the song, this time sung slower and more seductively by a lone female vocalist intercut, while Marlowe (driving a decidedly out of place 1948 Lincoln) pulls up to the supermarket. In the supermarket the tune bridges off sonically into the speaker in a sole violin version of the theme.

This audacious twelve-minute opening sequence is significant, not only for its utilisation of the director's trademark prowling camera, (which appears to reflect the sleepiness of our protagonist through its relentless mobilisation) but by the way it attempts to encapsulate a lost period of filmic history. It reproduces this period through the use of significant 1940s audio and visual preferences to comment on its displacement within this new time period. For example, Marlow’s 1948 Lincoln can be said to function as an illusionary iconography of the past, representing, like Marlowe, a pastiche of a previous historical period.

Also noteworthy are the bluesy lyrics of the title song “The Long Goodbye”, which can be said to comment on Marlowe’s future situation and lonely temperament throughout the film, for example: “There’s a long goodbye…and it happens every day, when some passer by invites your eye to come his way”. This points out that Marlowe is about to be visited by his old friend Terry Lennox, who in turn wants him to secretly take him across town. “Even when she smiles a quick hello, you let her go”, relates to the point at which Marlowe becomes attracted to the femme fatale character Mrs. Wade (Nina Van Pallandt), and then gradually becomes suspicious and learns not to trust her. ” Can you recognise the things? On some other street two people meet as in a dream”, highlighting the web of deceit that Marlowe becomes unknowingly tangled up in. And finally, “It’s too late to try when a missed hello, becomes a long goodbye!” this questions the personal loyalty of Marlowe’s friends and indicates that when he is betrayed by a friend, he will eventually bid them a long ‘goodbye’.

‘The Long Goodbye’ continues throughout to pronounce the lyrics of this song through various renditions, seemingly referring back to a precedent. Specifically, the lyrics are based on the idea of the original Philip Marlowe in Chandler's novel of the same name. But infamously fans at the time of the film’s release were on the whole outraged by Altman’s reinterpretation of their beloved private eye character, possibly indicating their own nostalgic yearning for the original Chandler roots.

Altmam’s use of jazz acts as a decisive, historical visual replacement. The film itself doesn’t actually attempt to, in any fetishistic sense, recreate the period of 1940s film noir. The visuals (lensed by Vilmos Zsigmond) have a decidedly washed-out consistency - a result of a partial exposure of the negative print. There are no particularly stark contrasts within the lighting techniques, or any expressionistic use of shadows. Instead, the aesthetics serve as a signifying contrast, through the utilisation of Philip Marlowe as a representation of a dislocated past, within the sun-bleached picturesque setting of 1970s Los Angeles. Marlowe, in these terms could be figuratively considered as the ‘night’ as opposed to Los Angeles, which represents the ‘day’.

This can be appreciated in consideration towards Marlowe’s rejection of contemporary life and the lack of descent values that are attached to it. The jazz score in the film connotes the aroma of a prehistoric Marlowe lumbering around within a world he no longer understands, longing for these past morals.

Elliott Gould’s mostly ad-libbed, improvisational performance meshes appropriately with the improvisational qualities of jazz. He inflicts Marlowe with a laid-back, wry persona, shambling through the film as if unable to comprehend the change of America since the 1940s. He is disillusioned, his state of mind could be said to be yearning for previous values of duty, loyalty and honour. Even the film’s title suggests a yearning for previous values, which have to be reluctantly dismissed by our main protagonist in order for him to prevail.

In a later scene, after an interrogation scene with the police, Marlowe journeys to a bar. Inside a pianist, who gently sings and plays a velvety variation of the theme tune, greets him. This scene echoes loneliness in the character of Marlowe, indicating how out of sync he is to the rest of the world-where his values just don’t fit in with the uncaring ephemeral lifestyle led by the “Me generation” of modern L.A. in the 1970s. It must also be remembered that the lounge bar is traditionally a setting where characters, like Marlowe, go to down their sorrows. In this sense Marlowe appears now to have become a caricature of himself, one who has very different social relations with the other characters in the narrative than in previous incarnations. He is now left isolated appearing to have lost any worthwhile or commendable identity.

A sweeping melodic brass and strings variant of the title theme is playing during Marlowe’s introductory meeting with the femme fatale character Contessa Wade (Nina Van Pallandt). As she talks blissfully about her once happy relationship with her husband (played by genre veteran Sterling Hayden), a tenor saxophone plays over the top of the main theme. The linkage of a particular musical style and quality to the notion of loss can be recognised as one of the various popular associations of jazz in the cinema.

This air of romanticism is reflected in both ‘The Long Goodbye’ and Altman’s later ‘Kansas City’ (1996). Both can be seen as reflective of a personal nostalgia and romanticism for its director Robert Altman about the nature of jazz. Altman was known to talk admirably about how he grew up to love jazz from an early age, and how his childhood was spent sneaking into jazz clubs in his hometown of Kansas City. It must also be noted that some correlations can be made between the construction (or even deconstruction) of the narrative within his films, and the structural discourse of jazz. In ‘The Long Goodbye’ the narrative framework relies on the jazz interludes to blend the scenes together, to give them some added ideological value.

On the whole Altman’s unique recontextisation of Raymond Chandler’s creation, through the adverse rendering of visual stimuli and audio signification has allowed a broader study of an alternative type of 'nostalgia film'. Altman decidedly directed against the image and provided an alternative to political persuasion. He presents the glossy contemporary world and uses the jazzy score to unearth, expose and point out all that’s wrong beneath the shiny surface.

Consequently, the final shot in the film acts as a metaphor for a glimmer of hope and final overruling of capitalist society. Marlowe has exposed the mystery of the case and defeated it with a bullet; his evolutionary mental state allows the camera to finally remain steady as he begins to dance joyfully within the frame. The music’s alternating fluctuation back to the initial opening song: Hooray to Hollywood would now seem to signify Marlowe’s victory in overcoming his personal problems with 1970s American society, and subsequently appears to mark his return back to his own time period where he relinquishes his personal values and codes of honour.

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Country: USA
Budget: $1,700,000
Length: 112mins

Filmography:
'Kansas City’, 1996, Robert Altman, CiBy 2000 ‘Double Indemnity’, 1944, Billy Wilder, Paramount Pictures

Pub/2007

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Taxi Driver, 1976, directed by Martin Scorsese
Rear Window, 1954, directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Old Boy, 2003, directed by Chan-wook Park