Brian wrote:
> Let me weigh in with Jim, here. I bought Robert
Altman's "The Long
> Goodbye" starring Elliott Gould sight unseen on DVD.
It is at best a
> 'loose' adaptation of Chandler's novel. But that's
not the reason I don't
> like it. I don't like it because it's meandering,
poorly plotted,
> plodding, pedestrian, and outright boring. Even the
half-naked chicks
> doing thier nude exercises next door to Marlowe's
pad couldn't revive my
> flagging interest in this turkey. It's sad, too,
because Gould's a good
> actor, Brackett's a superb writer, and Altman seems
to just left it
> rudderless. The film has no direction. The best
screenplay in the world
> can't save something where the director refuses to
show up.
>
> Avoid it.
Or don't. I love Chandler more than almost any writer, and I
love Altman's Long Goodbye. I've seen it many times, always
finding something new to enjoy or respond to. I liked Wendy
(nee Walter) Carlos's electronic versions of classical music,
too, even though I adore the symphonic originals. A different
(even extremely different) take on a story doesn't damage,
eliminate, or alter the original. I can love Chandler and
love Altman's spin on Chandler. Now if Altman had murdered
Chandler and burned all his manuscripts, we might have
something to talk about.
Jim Beaver
-- # Plain ASCII text only, please. Anything else won't show up. # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 22 Aug 2003 EDT