Mark-
You make some great points here.
That said, I still think that movie sucked.
Respectfully-
Brian
----- Original Message -----
From:
DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net
To:
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2007 9:27 PM
Subject: RARA-AVIS: lack of respect?
Robert Altman:
"The research material we used primarily was
Raymond Chandler Speaking,
a series of letters, and I made everybody that
worked on the picture
read that thoroughly. I took the two main
characters, both Philip
Marlowe and Roger Wade, and I took character
traits of Chandler and I
applied them to both, and I made one the voice
and the other the
conscience. His plots are so complicated and so
full of holes that the
way he plugged the holes was to further
complicate them. But he used
this thread to hang about sixty thumbnail essays
on, so the real
interest in Raymond Chandler, to me, were those
essays. We tightened
the plot up; I dropped half the characters
probably; then I used that
line to hang a bunch of film essays on. They
weren't actually lifted
from Raymond Chandler so much as they were
projections of him, because
if Raymond Chandler were alive in 1972 he
wouldn't see things the way he
did in 1950 because he would himself have been
that much older. I've
kept the story in 1952, but set it in 1972. The
goodbye is people
going, not in separate directions, but going in
the same direction at a
different pace."
This hardly sounds like a lack of respect for
Chandler, quite the
opposite. Would someone who hated Chandler make
everyone read a book of
his letters? And he shows some insight into
Chandler. Holes in his
plots? Remember the problem with Joe Chill's
murder in The Big Sleep?
Plugging holes with further complications?
Remember Chandler's line
about sending in a guy with a gun whenever things
started to lag?
Seems to me Altman was trying to honor the spirit
of Chandler, even if
he felt he had to streamline the book to do
so.
As for that loser comment that pisses Jim off so
much. Chandler is a
loser, at least according to society's
materialistic standards. A few
lines after those Jim likes to quote, Chandler
says of Marlowe, "He is a
relatively poor man, or he would not be a
detective at all. He will
take no man's money dishonestly and no man's
insolence without a due and
dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his
pride is that you
will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry
you ever saw him." So he
hits someone who calls him a "cheapie." Sounds a
bit defensive to me,
like someone who's been called a loser a few
times too many and is
afraid it's true.
And in Raymond Chandler Speaking, the book
Marlowe's interpreter used as
a source, Marlowe's creator said, "If being in
revolt against a corrupt
society consitutes being immature, then Philip
Marlowe is extremely
immature. If seeing dirt where there is dirt
constitutes an inadequate
social adjustment, then Philip Marlowe has
inadequate social adjustment.
Of course Marlowe is a failure and he knows it.
He's a failure because
he hasn't any money. A man who without any
physical handicaps cannot
make a decent living is always a failure and
usually a moral failure.
But a lot of very good men have been failures
because their particular
talents did not suit their time and place."
How is Chandler's calling Marlowe a failure any
different from Altman
calling him loser, especially when they're both
referring to society's
perspective, not their own? This is where
Altman's career long
fascination and sympathy for society's losers and
outsiders that Terrill
pointed out comes in. Like Chandler, Altman was
interested in how and
why a loser/failure's particular talents do not
suit his time and place.
So it's easy to disagree with how Altman chose to
highlight Marlowe's
alienation, but to say he did not respect
Marlowe's creator is a major
stretch. Seems to me Altman studied Chandler very
closely and tried to
project his concerns two decades into the future
by showing Marlowe even
more out of place (and far more worn down for his
effort to stay a
winner in his own eyes).
Mark
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