Whenever a beloved franchise is adapted to the big screen, impassioned debate about its faithfulness to the original soon follows. Fans of established works are often dissatisfied with material changes to the tone, plot, or message of the original. However, approaching a film with this frame of mind is deeply flawed and reductive. Film is an art form of its own, and expecting a precise replication strips the director of the ability to mobilize his craft. Filmmakers must be given liberty to express the story in a manner that they find compelling. The source material can and should serve as the story’s skeleton, but retelling the original work in exact detail is redundant.
Robert Altman, regarded as “the counterculture director,” is recognized for his subversive dissections of genres. By bringing genre cliches and conventions to unfamiliar settings – and at times plainly mocking them – Altman’s films seek to reveal the tones and conceptions that underlie the art form itself. M*A*S*H is a decidedly “anti-war” war film, McCabe & Mrs. Miller is an anti-Western set in the American Wild West, and his 1973 masterpiece The Long Goodbye is an effort to critically examine the film-noir genre.
Based on a series of hardboiled crime fiction novels written by Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye follows a private investigator named Philip Marlowe, played by Elliott Gould, who must unveil a web of mystery to prove his best friend’s innocence. The series had already seen numerous adaptations in film, radio, and television, most notably in Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep, starring Humphrey Bogart. The abovementioned interpretations were largely endorsed by long-time fans due to their unflinching fidelity to the source material. Initially considered a box-office bomb and widely panned by fans due to its inconsistency with the novel, in the decades since its release, Altman’s satirical take on noir has garnered widespread critical laudation.
Perhaps the single most critical and overlooked consideration in an adaptation’s success is understanding each medium’s strengths and limitations. Over hundreds of pages, the novel’s plot thrives in weaving a complex, interrelated web of deception, whereas film – a medium meant to be consumed in a single sitting – struggles to execute this. Accordingly, The Long Goodbye takes less time fleshing out the actual mystery elements, electing to hint at plot advancements through character relationships. Instead, it caters to the medium’s strengths by focusing on establishing setting and ambience. The film is littered with Altman’s calling cards, from his staple use of overlapping dialogue to his long shots and repeating musical theme. The camera work is nigh voyeuristic, a stark contrast from the first-person account used in the novels. Commencing with soft, pastel colours and lighting and a crowded line of sight, the film abruptly shifts to a darker tone following tragedy, with saturated and bright visuals, the busy dialogue ceasing; the event’s gravity is implied to affect the film itself.
Portions of the book that are uninteresting, inconsequential, or difficult to adapt are either reworked, or completely omitted, opening the door to a less cluttered, tonally consistent final cut. Altman also adds wholly original scenes such as the drawn-out 10-minute opening, which follows Gould as he embarks on a mundane search for his preferred brand of cat food. Although unimportant to the plot, this scene establishes the mood, milieu, and Marlowe in a manner accessible only to the organ of film.
One major issues that fans had with the adaptation was its portrayal of the protagonist Marlowe. Upon release, fans despised Altman’s “slobbish” take on the character, finding him unsympathetic and unamusing. Whereas the original Marlowe is a “man of honour,” equipped with rude wit and stern confidence, Gould’s portrayal is one of a sarcastic, cynical, bumbling private eye, whose unwavering ambivalence separates him from the outside world. Altman alters the timeline of the original, and as such, Marlowe is a relic of the 1950’s trapped in the gritty 1970’s; a tired trope out of place in the decade of realistic, grimy portrayals. While in Chandler’s novel, Marlowe’s sense of morality is able to defeat the corruption that surrounds him, Altman recasts his values as irrelevant in the modern world. Marlowe’s once reassuring values, much like the glamour of classic Hollywood itself, are deemed inconsequential and outdated. In classic noir, it is generally accepted that characters arrive bearing their fates. The new Marlowe is a commentary on this motif, as, despite his naïveté, he suddenly recognizes what he must do, demonstrating the arbitrariness of his investigative escapades. Elliott Gould’s portrayal must be held in the highest regard. His trademark light-hearted humour magnifies the story’s darker events and powerfully showcases the emotional nucleus of an otherwise indifferent character.
The Long Goodbye is not intended to be the “perfect” noir but rather a sharp, ironic critique on the archetype of private eyes which dominated 1950s Hollywood. Altman subverts the genre’s simplistic “black and white” take on morality, challenging the notion that heroes can readily distinguish right and wrong. In doing so, he posits that Hollywood remains shackled by its past, offering the film as a “long goodbye” to outdated cinematic conventions, paving the way for the experimental “new age” filmmakers of the 1970s to take the reins and explore human nature from an introspective approach. Author Raymond Chandler was himself quite fond of the film, considering it the single best adaptation of his works; admitting that the private eye trope is “an exaggeration – a fantasy.”
The Long Goodbye exemplifies how a film succeeds as its own work of art, even when diverging from its source material. It reinforces the contention that adaptations should not be assessed based on their conformity. Binding the director to an exact replication strips him of his art, reducing him to mere translator. Sadly, in the modern film production landscape, where intellectual properties (IPs) are developed primarily for their established fanbases, studios lean increasingly towards prioritizing existing audiences with faithful adaptations. Yet, the most enduring and transformative works often arise precisely when creative reinterpretations are embraced rather than ignored.
Not only is The Long Goodbye a shrewd genre deconstruction and an effulgent effort of its own, but it also serves as an example for filmmakers torn with exercising their artistic liberties when adapting established works. Amidst fan scrutiny, Altman was particularly apathetic to the criticisms levied his way, stating “Chandler fans will hate my guts. I don’t give a damn.”