Netflixin' Robert Altman

Previously on Hollywood Elsewhere I wrote about my self-created Robert Altman film festival on Netflix, and got some response about McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Now I have seen The Long Goodbye. It's an interesting, somewhat entertaining film that updates Raymond Chandler into the druggy, hedonistic seventies. Elliot Gould, who perhaps more than any other actor typifies the swingin' seventies, is perfect in the role of Philip Marlowe, who now lives in an L.A. apartment across the way from a gaggle of nudist, yoga-practicing hippies. Altman was clearly setting about redefining genres, as he did with the war film (M*A*S*H) and the western (McCabe). The noir private-eye film was an interesting genre for him to tackle, as he has repeatedly said he is not interested in story, and noir films, though atmospheric, usually have a strong story as a basis. Altman also uses a technique he would later use in Gosford Park--the camera is always moving. Also, typical of Altman, there is a lot of improvisation. The screenplay is by Leigh Brackett, who also wrote The Big Sleep (and wrote an orginal draft of The Empire Strikes Back (!) before dying.





Altman does not provide commentary on this disc but there is a good featurette with him discussing the film. Gould appears as well, talking about how at one time he was on the cover of Time magazine, but by the time The Long Goodbye came his way he had been unemployed for a year and a half.