Chris,
Re your questions and comments below:
> You and Terrill and Mario are forgetting
an
> important name here: Leigh Brackett, who wrote
the
> "Long Goodbye" screenplay. And, before you
start
> placing a black hat on Altman and a white hat on
her
> 'cause Brackett wrote her own HB, let me add that
an
> interview I read with Brackett made it clear
the
> ending of the 1973 "Long Goodbye" reflected
*her
> own* attitude toward the Marlowe
character.
All that means is that the criminal abomination that was the
1973 film adaptation of THE LONG GOODBYE was a conspiracy
instead of a solo act. And Leigh Brackett's culpability is
not mitigated by either her contributions to the screenplay
of the much superior
(and much more faithful) BIG SLEEP or her own NO GOOD FROM A
CORPSE. Nor does her work on those much superior pieces make
THE LONG GOODBYE somehow more acceptable or more valid.
On the contrary, Leigh Brackett's (presumably) superior
understanding of the hard-boiled genre and the hard-boiled
ethos makes THE LONG GOODBYE even more of a betrayal than if
Altman had also written the script. At least Altman was
following his own artistic vision, flawed and ugly though it
was. Brackett was betraying a genre in which she had proved
herself capable of producing first-class work.
> Also, as far as screen adaptations which employ
the
> same title are concerned ... the '40s "Big
Sleep"
> (screenplay: Brackett, William Faulkner,
Jules
> Furthman) reassigned the murder of Regan to
somebody
> else. Do you disapprove of that adaptation as
well?
It was true to the spirit of the book, if not the absolute
letter. Film and prose are different mediums. Sometimes
changes are necessary to telscope action, to make the piece
more visual, etc.
But though film and prose are different "languages," so to
speak, the adapter's job is much the same as a translator of
actual languages, to faithfully interpret the story in a
different medium.
Just as a translator might have to use a phrase in one
language to convey the exact meaning of a single word in the
original language (or conversely a single word to convey the
meaning of an entire phrase), a prson adapting a complex
novel into a two-hour film might have to combine characters,
delete scenes, etc., to convey the story as faithfully as
possible given the constraints of the medium and the
available time.
That's wholly different from what Altman did, and did
deliberately, by decontructing the whole hard-boiled genre
within the context of "adapting" one of the most respected
novels in that genre.
Chandler approved (with some reservations) of the film
adaptation of THE BIG SLEEP. Do you honestly think he would
have approved of THE LONG GOODBYE?
JIM DOHERTY
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