Synopsis
Nothing says goodbye like a bullet…
Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.
1973 Directed by Robert Altman
Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.
Elliott Gould Nina van Pallandt Sterling Hayden Mark Rydell Henry Gibson David Arkin Jim Bouton Warren Berlinger Jo Ann Brody Stephen Coit Jack Knight Pepe Callahan Vincent Palmieri Pancho Córdova Enrique Lucero Rutanya Alda Tammy Shaw Jack Riley Ken Sansom Jerry Jones John Davies Rodney Moss Sybil Scotford Herb Kerns Robert Altman David Carradine Carl Gottlieb Arnold Schwarzenegger George Wyner
[Me, generally enjoying a film but feeling vaguely as if I don’t fully grasp whatever subtext or characterizations Altman has woven into it as I know both he and Raymond Chandler are generally more thoughtful than to make something to be viewed on a purely surface level, but also having nothing more to say about it besides recognizing how strongly it influenced Under the Silver Lake and laughing at Philip Marlowe’s constant oral fixation] It’s okay with me!
Maybe the calmest thriller ever made, so when the ending comes it's like a thunder clap on a quiet evening. That isn't to say it doesn't get the blood pumping with a coke bottle moment that may be the most shocking thing since Cagney's grapefruit, with an undertone of menace, violence, and mystery - it's just that it saunters along on skinny legs for two hours, a slow burning cigarette, a rumpled suit. Gould's Marlowe is nothing short of incredible, a role that makes it seem as if he just popped out of the womb dressed and ready to go for this film. He doesn't pay attention to topless women or money not because he's too cool but because he's…
elliot gould feeding his cat in The Long Goodbye vs. brad pitt feeding his dog in OUATIH. battle of the charming-but-lonely new hollywood rogues
the tragedy (and hilarity) of being a cat, aimlessly wandering a ruthless, dog-eat-dog world
Guy trying to feed his cat in cool apartment. One made-up jazz standard with infinite different versions being the only score. Love this weird movie!
Just finished Neon Genesis: Evangelion yesterday. Play Animal Crossing every day and pick up sticks and fruit with no goal in sight. Between this (movie), that (television show) and the other thing (video game), I am proud to be forgetting about "plot" and only rocking "mood"!
On the east coast we have hundreds -maybe thousands- or signs advertising “George Washington slept here.” I’m sure if you did the math there are more signs than there were possible nights in his life. In LA they have a similar phenomenon but the signs say “Elliot Gould lit a match on this surface to light a cigarette in The Long Goodbye.”
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a loser portrayed quite like this. Every moment of every scene bends over backwards to find a new way to humiliate Marlowe. But he doesn’t give a shit. He’s already lost. There’s a zen sadness to him that all the early 70s yoga freaks in LA can’t even touch. He’s dealing…
Philip Marlowe takes a big sleep sometime in the mid 40s and doesn't wake up until 1973, and only then because his cat is hungry.
One of the things I love about Robert Altman is that his movies are essentially long jokes, but unlike most comedians he knows when to stop kidding around - here in the scene where a heavy chooses to intimidate Marlowe through a chilling combination of a Coke bottle and his girlfriend's face. Nothing graphic is shown but it remains one of the most disturbing sequences of violence I've ever seen in fiction. And I'd never thought of it before, but the thread of violence against women runs very deep through the entire movie, from the…
Elliot Gould stars as Philip Marlowe a private investigator searching for the truth about a murder and a lot of missing money in legendary director Robert Altman's adaptation of famed author Raymond Chandler's novel. Pussy lick. Midnight snack. Salt makes everything taste better. Nude neighbors. Celebrity impressions. Badass hair. Elliot's cigarette. Brownie mix. Bootleg cat food. El Porto Del Gato. Shaft's cousin. Police harassment. The pokey. Bill before Beatrix Kiddo killed his ass. Piano man. Guard doggie. Sexy Mrs. Wade. Sterling Hayden's beard. Writer's block. Goons. Bloody bitch slap. Missing loot. Unfocused binoculars. Pretend Philip. The Marlboro Man? Sterling Hemingway? Beachside chit-chat. James Madison is on the $5000 bill. Doggie style. Dr. Quack. Ocean waves. The Terminator? Nose cast. Butt…
Part Five of Preparing (As Much As Humanly Possible) For Inherent Vice
A maddening, roaming, witty, wandering, and fascinating work of disillusion and social deconstruction; Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye is also a striking and vibrant neo-noir that cleverly subverts and wrecks expectations. Elliot Gould's performance is simply the cool of cool, and the tortured landscape that he flows through is both entrancing and sharply edged. Altman's direction is as smooth as butter, and his eye for the meandering and the pointless works astonishingly well here. Also worthy of mention is Vilmos Zsigmond's cinematography, which shows the luscious result of "flashing" the undeveloped film negative.
At the end of the day, I really dug it, but I have a feeling…
Compelling watch - watched in three parts- but struggled to follow the plot. Imagine UTSL but, in the 70s, so less Reddit.
The only disappointing thing about this masterpiece is that’s it’s taken me 31 years to watch it.
Alternative title : How to use your surroundings to light a match anywhere.
I guess now is the time to rewatch Inherent Vice and appreciate it a bit more.
Watched on Mubi UK.
Private detective, half naked hippies, hungry cat and pointless crime. Dark, cynical and with Arnie flexing his muscles in a cameo. What’s not to like about it?
Cool as a cat.
Most thrillers send chills up your spine. The Long Goodbye just chills you out. How Robert Altman achieves this is pretty simple - Elliott Gould. The guy is such a natural at being a naturally cool dude. You know his character Marlowe is always working out the intricacies of the case, but we don't need all that shoved down our throats. Watching him light a cigarette, buy some cat food and say something nice to a thug explains it all just fine.
“Well that’s you Marlowe. You’ll never learn, you’re a born loser”
Marlowe couldn’t take his eyes off the dog to see the wolf, unwilling to look past the smoke to realise that honour is dead, loyalty is a matter of money and that friendship is an individual affair. Regrettably, the intuitions of a good man can only ever make for a bad detective. Even if he looks distractingly like Jamie Gillis.
Damn fine cat acting and a wonderfully dishevelled Elliot Gould.
Could envision a remake with maybe Sam Rockwell as Marlowe and Schwarzenegger reprising his role.
Philip Marlowe is lying to his cat, and himself. Appreciated so much more of the self-deception alongside Altman's bravura filmmaking on rewatch. The highlight is a slow zoom through a window that follows a white blob into the dark, thronging mass of the Pacific.
some part of me really wishes someone would give me a suit and a box of matches so my appearance could instantly become cooler
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