The Long Goodbye

The first impression we get from the ‘The Long Goodbye’ is perplexing. Things which are not central to the plot have been made important by director, Robert Altman. ‘Here he is just as fascinated with the hippy chicks next door or Marlowe’s relationship with his cat as he is with the identity of the murderer’. The heavy, complicated plot consisting of numerous connections, however, keeps you on the edge of your seats, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery together with the genius of a private investigator, Philip Marlowe.

 If we look at the entire story from a distance, we can see that it is truly marvellous. Slowly the plot unravels in ‘The Long Goodbye’ and intricate details connect everything from Lennox to the Wades and the mobsters. Robert Altman generally ‘unfolds his stories according to Hemingway’s iceberg theory, wherein you can only see the tip while the great mass of the thing remains beneath the surface’, but ‘‘The Long Goodbye’ is different in that respect’. It is easy to understand what is going on. Here, even though everything is given importance, we can gradually see a flow to the film. The ‘hippy chicks next door’ reflect the laidback behaviour of Marlowe himself, ‘who manages to keep his cool even when he’s taking a beating’. The cat wasn’t fooled by him and runs away. This is followed by others including his best friend, Lennox trying to fool him. This captivates the audience, raising question in our minds about what sinister thing is really simmering under the surface.

 It reminds us of films made by producer, Priyadarshan in Bollywood, where all the characters end up being connected and the mystery unravels at the end when they all coincidently end up meeting in the same place.  Towards the end of ‘The Long Goodbye’ we see that from just the sight of Marlowe, Eileen Wade immediately understands that something is not right. The ending had come as a shock to us all, but we can relate to it, and everything fits in place. After all, ‘Robert Altman’s cinema is a cinema of uncertainty and surprise’.

The film may not have been properly adapted from the original novel by Raymond Chandler; the screenplay writer, Leigh Brackett, having added some of her own designs such as sending Marlowe to Mexico twice and including some ‘startling acts of violence’. As a result, ‘the plot is a labyrinth not easily negotiated’. The film, which is full of lies and deceptions, reminds us of Fiona Banner’s Harrier and Jaguar. It is all about appearance. The sight of these planes can take your ‘breath away’; they appear majestic, just like birds of prey such as hawks. However, they are killing machines, and sometimes we forget that their function is to kill. In the film, we learn that all people cannot be trusted. Terry Lennox, who is supposedly Marlowe’s best friend, turns out to deceive him. ‘Sometimes, the people who you thought were closest are the people who are really strangers in the end’.