The Long Goodbye [Altman 1973]

This film’s greatest weapon is its sense of light hearted anarchy. It glows with whimsy and narrative disinterest. Some films are riveted together plot wise, no air for spontaneity. This one uses a thin string (private eye’s misfortunes) to assemble a gallery of oddballs.

It also reminds me of the last week of December; something is going to happen soon. but there is no rush, whatever happens in between is ok with me.

Elliot Gould is detective Marlowe and its fascinating to see a film so aloof of its own main character. In the joyful opening scene of him going through all sorts of land mines to get his cat fed, the camera is content to just watch him descend into madness more and more, as if to say “What a schmuck”.

Marlowe’s love for his cat is probably the truest affection in the film (I adore it when the apathetic grocery clerk says “I got a girl, what I need a cat for?”), certainly no else has this. love for him (nor he them). Indeed this film has him almost as a moral mummy walking through a sun drenched ghost town, cigarette ever dangling.

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The camera is always active (tons of details in the back) but strangely in rhythm with the emotions of the people framed. The use of light to blanket the characters is disarming.

Camera man Vilmos Zsigmond makes it all feel like a children’s book.

All the more shocking when a coke bottle is used in a truly random bit of violence. There is a real darkness underneath the floorboards.

This is simply a film where everyone was hanging loose and doing their best work. John Williams turns in a giddy score. Leigh Bracket turns the screws beautifully. Sterling Hayden is a writer lusty and boastful about a life he doesn’t truly have. Nina van Pallandt is a lighthouse ray of tragedy hoping to find a comforting boat. All those girls having a “melon convention”.

And in the background, director Robert Altman is pulling the strings, happy to see these puppets fling themselves around without a care.

It’s a film where several things pop out at once with each viewing(the striking of matches, the disjointed car ride loop under a big reveal, the way a dog holds onto a cane), and like a good bit of music, never truly reveals all of its tricks even across multiple interactions.

As much as a film can be deathless and contain multitudes, this is that film. Savor every bite, like a mouse finding his new favorite cheese.