The Long Goodbye

The Long Goodbye (1973)

Director: Robert Altman
Cinematographer: Vilmos Zsigmond
Editor: Lou Lombardo
Actors: Elliot Gould, Nina Van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden
Composer: John Williams

The Long Goodbye seems like another exercise in Altman’s voyeur style—the camera slowly floats along, always moving; shots begin from far away and off target from the players and then slide into a framing sequence. More then his other films, this one makes you feel like you are watching going-ons from outside. Every chance that Altman gets the camera is separated from the action by a window, as if you are looking in. Often, the camera is set in a long shot, as if we were spying from a distance. This feeling of spying on reality is further increased by the use of music in a diegetic manner through the film.

The film appears to have two intentions. As is often the case, the first intention is to tell a story—the investigation by Marlowe into the murder/suicide of the Lennoxes. However, as with most Altman film’s, the story is a secondary concern. The primary concern for Altman is to show the contemporary world through an outsider’s eyes. Altman achieves this goal largely through his use of framing.

Overall, the film shies away from any special editing. The editing is kept utilitarian. Most shots are long to medium, constantly shifting and these shots are only broken up by medium close-ups during conversation, which usually quickly return to a medium shot of all the actors in the scene. Beyond the logistics of showing conversation, the film rarely breaks away from the rule of medium to long shots. This limitation on the editing can be chalked up to Altman’s style—which always favors wide, lingering shots—but in this case, there is more suggested. The film’s constant framing of sequences through windows or from an extreme distance (for what needs to be shown) tends to convey a purposeful desire to make the viewer feel consciously feel like a voyeur. Combined with the use of diegetic music, the film seems to be pushing the viewer further into the role of an outsider looking at the real world. The film intends to make the viewer feel as if they are cast a drift in a world they don’t quite understand.

The outsider feeling is further enforced by the character of Marlowe. Marlowe acts like a man stumbling confused through the world. It is the intention of the direction to make you feel like Marlowe—like you exist in a world not quite your own that you are trying to understand, yet not quite grasping. The aimless nature of his investigation is matched by the wandering of the camera and these two details allow the audience to share in Marlowe’s separation.

In his use of the camera to create a sense of alienation that the audience shares with Marlowe, Altman is successful, but there are a few slips along the way. One aspect of the film that is lacking is the dialogue. Overall, the acting is good (although Sterling Hayden does tend towards caricature), but I can only assume that large portions of dialogue were freestyle—especially Marlowe—and the end results are less than satisfactory. The abundance of ums and ahs are irritating to say the least. Kept to a minimum, the lack of coherent dialogue from Marlowe could have been beneficial to the overall goal of the film, but as it stands it only hinders the presentation. Given Gould’s performance in M*A*S*H, I have to assume that this is largely part of the characterization of Marlowe, but it is taken too far. In a film tending towards a haunting sense of realism, caricature is a handicap.

Then there is the troublesome issue of the music at the end of the film. First, non-diegetic music appears to enter the film during Marlowe’s chase of Eileen’s car, but on further examination (Eileen’s singing along) it appears that this music is meant to be issuing from the car radio. Immediately after this, however, is non-diegetic music in the film—Marlowe’s second trip to Mexico. Although the music may issue from the bus, it continues once the scene has moved on and this explanation is no longer viable. These twofold instances of outside music sources (even if the one is just a badly represented internal music source) are a disappointing slip in a convention that is fairly well maintained throughout the rest of the film.

These musical slips are especially disappointing because it calls attention away from the only other examples of non-diegetic music in the film (and presumably what should be the only examples of non-diegetic music in the film)—the bookends of “Hooray for Hollywood.” These bookends signal Altman’s direction of the film. We are shown a film about Hollywood from an outsider’s perspective—and it is a damning condemnation. Altman is very clear in his opinion of Hollywood and the ending shows that we each have to force sense onto the world we are cast adrift in. Overall, Altman must be considered successful in getting his point across. Unlike M*A*S*H and Gosford Park where the wandering camera makes you feel as if you are moving through a room, The Long Goodbye casts the viewer alongside Marlowe—an outsider looking in at a world that doesn’t quite make sense.

Madness Placement: The Long Goodbye is the first film reviewed and stands alone.