Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Movie Marlowe

From: Patrick King ( abrasax93@yahoo.com)
Date: 03 Feb 2007


DJ wrote: And that's another reason why I don't buy it that this was supposed to change Gould's image -- from what, to what?
***************** From a character actor to a leading man a la Bogart and Mitchum. The fact is that Gould has a good face, but it's not a romantic face. While they certainly are not even similar looking, both Bogart and Mitchum worked easily into the romantic male lead over and over again. Gould is more like an Edward G. Robinson. He makes a good dad, uncle, grandad, but the love interest of a temptress, only if the character has no clue what he's getting into. Gould could do a Cain anti-hero effectively, but not a Chandler hard boiled character.

Patrick
--- DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net wrote:

> TL wrote (and then ducked and covered):
>
> "BTW - I find it ironic that Gould would be
> considered too whiny as
> Marlowe. In Chandler's books Marlowe spends quite a
> lot of time whining.
> Some of those scenes seem to be less about character
> and story and more
> about Chandler's inability to fit in with modern
> society. And that's not
> necessarily a criticism."
>
> And that's one of Chandler/Marlowe's legacies. John
> D MacDonald would
> take it to an extreme with Travis McGee. And I kind
> of think that's a
> starting point of this movie, the '40s PI's
> inability to fit into '70s
> America.
>
> "There are many scenes where Gould is the perfect
> wisecracking tough
> guy."
>
> And that's another reason why I don't buy it that
> this was supposed to
> change Gould's image -- from what, to what? I don't
> see his persona
> here as being very different from the ones he played
> in MASH, California
> Split (granted, both Altman movies) and/or Getting
> Straight.
>
> "And in the final scene he goes where Marlowe never
> had the balls to go
> - but it is the perfect modern updating of the
> knight errant character.
> So much so that that scene would be emulated for
> years to come in other
> books and movies. Yes, it is shocking. And it is the
> most controversial
> of moments in this film for the Chandler fanatic."
>
> Gee, I thought it was giving him a cat.
>
> ". . . 'Marlowe would never do that!' they exclaim."
>
> I was one of those people. I was PISSED when I came
> out of the theater.
> I had just recently discovered Chandler through this
> book that had
> quickly become my favorite (ironically, I first read
> it with a movie
> tie-in cover) and this was not the Marlowe I had
> come to idolize.
>
> Later, I went back to it as an Altman film and
> decided it was good as
> that, even if it had little to do with Chandler.
> However, over the
> years I've come to see that their outlooks were not
> really that far
> apart. Both are fascinated by outsiders who do not
> fit, or no longer
> fit, in their worlds and how they deal with it.
>
> I need to pull it out and watch it again, too.
>
> Mark
>
>

 
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