A quick follow-up on deconstruction. The other day, the
Independent Film Channled showed a chapter in a series
dedicated to film directors. This one dealt with the
seventies, one of the great decades for American
cinema.
They had interviews with Corman, Scorsese, Altman, Coppola,
Hopper, Mazursky, Hellman, and several other protagonists of
the era (actors and directors). The protagonists themselves
make it clear that what they were doing, despite the
differences in temperament and thematic choices, was a
deconstruction of Hollywood itself, of its production system,
of its censorship system, of its star system.
Concomitantly, they were continuing and deepening the
deconstruction of the values that the old Hollywood was still
tryint to put on the screen (essentially, fifties values,
long out of step with the population).
Against this background, Altman's _The Long Goodbye_ is not
only understandable but it's a rather conservative
deconstruction. For example, it does not tamper with, expose
or denounce the concept of courage that Chandler wrote into
Marlowe.
For more on courage (a central topic in our genre), I highly
recommend Paul Tillich's classic _The Courage to Be_, as
valid today as in 1952, when it was delivered as lectures.
The entire book deals with a binary opposition between the
ethical (doing the right thing) and the ontological (courage
as self-affirmation) senses of
"courage". Marlowe is particularly hard to analyze in this
framework.
Captain Bill, be lenient. It's a book (and who can dislike a
philosopher like Paul Tillich?).
Best,
MrT
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