Where The Dude Learned his Tricks

Robert Altman’s 1973 The Long Goodbye is an oft-overlooked masterpiece of film noir. Though heavily based on the eponymous Raymond Chandler novel, the film notably departs from the book. The novel represents Chandler at the end of his career, willing to grant sympathy to his downtrodden “White Knight” Philip Marlowe by giving him the opportunity for both lasting friendship and love at the end of the novel. Though this assertion might sound anathema to legions of Chandlerphiles, it nevertheless seems to me that the novel painfully misrepresents the hard-boiled storyworld that we have come to expect from a "proper" Marlowe story.

The formidable collaboration between screenwriter Leigh Brackett, director Altman, and Elliott Gould as protagonist Philip Marlowe renders the film darker, funnier, and more morally ambiguous than the novel. However, more than anything it is the humor that marks a complete departure from all noir films before it. The humor is dark and poignant, in no way taking the piss or detracting from the harsh reality of the intended milieu.

In many ways, Gould’s interpretation of Marlowe is lighter and funnier than the classic interpretations. Reinventing Humphrey Bogart’s signature character wouldn’t be an easy task for anyone, but Gould starts completely from scratch. He trades Bogart’s deadpan stoic for an awkward, openly compassionate smartass. Whereas Bogart’s Marlowe cracks jokes with the express purpose of wheedling response from an adversary, Gould’s Marlowe cracks jokes because he is incapable of keeping his mouth shut. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gould’s Marlowe finds his mouth shut for him on several occasions.

While the “classic” Marlowe is seen to be poor because he is too honest to make a good living, Gould’s Marlowe is portrayed as a shiftless schlub. One must wonder how he makes a living at all, save for his off-beat charm. The imprint of this film is evident on many revisionist films noirs since; the gritty realism of an unexpected Coke bottle delivered to the face is strikingly similar to the famous slitting of Jake Gittes’ nose in Chinatown. Furthermore, Gould’s Marlowe, distilled to absurdism, is doubtlessly the missing link between Bogart’s Marlowe and Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski.

While the archetypal film noir protagonist is of ambiguous moral character, he nevertheless exhibits a self-imposed morality consistent to his actions. By this statute, many find fault with Brackett and Altman’s rewritten ending, wherein Marlowe executes Terry Lennox in cold blood. At first glance, the murder appears to counter everything previously established about the character. Marlowe has traveled to Mexico with the intention of killing Lennox; he succeeds. The act is vicious, calculated, and thoroughly uncompassionate.

However, I suggest that perhaps it is the action most true to Marlowe’s personality that the film sees. Lennox not only shamelessly abuses Marlowe’s honesty and compassion for personal gain, but he also, time and again, places Marlowe at grave personal risk. Marlowe accepts this risk only by the steadfast yet ultimately misguided conviction that his friend Lennox was innocent of his wife’s murder. Thus, the only option left for Marlowe, in order to respect his code of ethics, is to destroy the monster that so mocked them. That is film noir.