Review of The Long Goodbye (1973) by Gavin O — 19 Feb 2008

Film noir is my favoritue genre and this film, along with "Chinatown", are my favoritue representatives of this streak. While "Chinatown" is the more classic of the two, this in many ways is an "anti-noir". The protagonist is a 'borne looser' as opposed to his Chandlerian alter-ego, the characters are much more light-hearted than in your average noir and the ending, although as depressing as the genre convention demands, arises against rather than thanks to the actions of the detective.

It is precisely this bending of conventions while not defying it and accepting it's key principles that makes "The Long Goodbye" such a great movie. It's narrative originality mirrors it's form which on one hand refers back to the 40s and 50s Hollywood classics, and on the other, with it's arty zooms and much action taking place on the edge of the movie frame (as well as not being afraid to often slow down the pace of the movie), reaching out towards European filmmaking and the French New Wave.

The perfect experience is finally sealed by perfect casting. Elliott Gould manages to pull off making us care about a character who is not just a loser, but also borders on grotesque. The rest of the cast provides some great interaction and unforgettable dialogue sequences.

Of course the movie could be (and often was) criticised for it's often too outward ridiculing of conventions (and the Arnold Schwarzenneger cameo almost crosses the line of good taste) and a too light-hearted tone. However, for me, the mixture of noir, fun expressionism and the narrative focus on human dishonesty, turned out to be an ideal and well-balanced combination, rather than an incoherent mumbo-jumbo. All of this is probably thanks to the steady hand of Altman, who somehow knew precisely where to set the boundaries in order to neither ridicule himself with a grotesque comedy or to make this a boring pseudo-arty experiment. Great job, an impressive piece and one of my favoritue movies of all time.