Eric,
Re your question below:
"You have stated that Altman disrespected Chandler. I have
assumed that you based that on a specific quote. Dick Lochte
has contributed a quote to the contrary. Do you, in fact,
have a specific quote or interview to back up your argument?
If you do, I'd like to hear it."
First of all, apologies to all here who are heartily sick and
tired of this subject. I sympathize and, in fact, am getting
heartily sick of it myself. Much of what I'm about to say,
you've all heard a time or two already, so you can probably
just skip this. May I suggest (and this isn't aimed at Eric,
whose question is framed in a courteous manner) that if
there's anyone left on R/A who still wants a further
explanation of my views, you contact me off-list?
Altman once said, "I see Marlowe the way Chandler saw him, a
loser. But a real loser, not the fake winner that Chandler
made out of him. A loser all the way."
Among other places, the quote can be found in the chapter on
THE LONG GOODBYE in Al Clark's RAYMOND CHANDLER IN
HOLLYWOOD.
Let's take that statement piece by piece. First of all, he
asserts that Chandler saw Marlowe as a loser. Clearly
Chandler did NOT. He saw Marlowe as "the best man in his
world and a good enough man for any world," as "a man fit for
adventure," and as "the hero . . . everything." So, at the
very least, Altman is misunderstanding Chandler, if not
disrespecting him.
Elsewhere, it's true, Chandler DID admit that Marlowe might
be, if I remember the phrase correctly,
"socially immature," but also said that the accuracy of this
description was predicated on certain conditions, those
conditions being that being against injustice and corruption,
and accurately and bluntly describing such conditions was
socially immature. Clearly, again, Chandler was being ironic,
since he obviously didn't think that those traits are signs
of social immaturity, but of basic integrity.
Also he said this in a letter. The way the letter is written
suggests that he is answering a comment. That perhaps the
person he was writing to had written first something along
the lines of, "Ray, doesn't it occur to you that Marlowe is
sort of, well, shall we say socially immature," and that
Chandler was responding ironically.
Still elsewhere, he admits that Marlowe is a failure, because
he is a healthy young man, but can't seem to make a financial
success. Again, clearly, he doesn't really think Marlowe is a
failure because his lack of financial success is the result
of his freely choosing to live life on his own terms.
So to take these letters and, from them, extrapolate that
Chandler viewed Marlowe as a loser is, at the very least, a
serious case of misinterpretation, and, at worst, deliberate
disrespect.
Second, Altman states that he sees Marlowe as a "REAL
[italics mine] loser, not the fake winner that Chandler made
out of him."
Now we're getting closer to the nub. According to Altman, who
obviously thinks he understands both Chandler and his
character better than Chandler did himself, Chandler may not
have presented his character as a loser in his fiction, but
he always KNEW, in his heart, that he was a loser, and,
conseqently, his depiction of Marlowe as a winner was somehow
false and phony.
Describing someone as a phony, and this is the inescapable
inference of Altman's comment, is certainly showing
disrespect.
Finally, as to Dick's recollections of Altman's comments some
years after the release of the film:
He said that he didn't like thrillers and had no interest in
"whodunit." In other words, it wasn't just Chandler he didn't
like, or even hard-boiled crime fiction in general, but the
whole mystery genre.
Yet, he could do a competent, straightforward crime film when
it suited him. Again, see the TV-movie NIGHTMARE IN CHICAGO.
Or see the more recent Agatha Christie-style "British stately
home" whodunit, GOSFORD PARK, in which he certainly worked in
some more complex characterization and character dynamics
than are usually seen in the cozy sub-genre, but still held
true to the basic structure and ambience of that kind of
story. Oddly, he was kinder to Christie, without actually
adapting anything from Christie directly, than he was to
Chandler who he WAS supposed to be directly adapting.
But then, with TLG, his purpose was clearly to ruthlessly
"expose" the whole concept of the hard-boiled private eye
figure in all its "phoniness."
Indeed, in another TV interview, first recorded closer to the
time the film was first released, in which he appeared with
Gould, he said that he really thought he'd finally put an end
to the Marlowe character, and that he believed that Marlowe
would never come back as a film character. I took that to
mean that he felt that Marlowe SHOULDN'T return as a film
character.
Gould, FWIW, disagreed. "He's a good guy," Gould said. "Good
guys always come back." Less than two years later, Gould was
proved right when Robert Mitchum, though 10 or 15 years too
old for the part, played Marlowe in the infinitely superior,
and far more successful, FAREWELL, MY LOVELY.
This, in turn, was followed by the sub-standard, London-set
remake of THE BIG SLEEP, by the HBO TV series with Powers
Boothe, by a TV-movie version of Chandler's unfinished final
novel POODLE SPRINGS, and by a TV-movie version of "Red Wind"
with Danny Glover as an African-American Marlowe. Not all of
these are necessarily good, but they do prove that Marlowe
was a far more durable character than Altman thought (or, as
I inferred, hoped).
Second, according to Dick, he admitted that he didn't even
really use Chandler's novel as his template, but rather a
collection of letters by Chandler. These letters, fascinating
and well-written as they are, reveal a man who was often
bitter, depressed, scared that he really had betrayed his
talent, often back-biting, occasionally back-stabbing.
Moreover, they were never meant for publication.
So, instead of making a movie based on the novel he was
ostensibly adapting, he makes a movie based on the private
thoughts of an old man at his most vulnerable, and uses those
private, vulnerable thoughts to turn the man's actual
published work on its head.
Excuse me if that doesn't strike me as a mark of signal
respect.
Yeah, I know this runs a little long, Eric, but you DID
ask.
JIM DOHERTY
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