So is it a Chandler homage, or an Altman homage?
Because for many of us the two are *not* the same thing,
especially where interpretations of "The Long Goodbye" are
concerned.
Seriously: if it owes a lot to Altman's "Long Goodbye," and I
see that in the initial episode, that'll be the last one that
I watch.
Not that I am the final arbiter of what sells in America
these days: never watched an episode of "Desperate
Housewives," or anything resembling reality TV once I've
figured out what it is.
All the Best-
Brian
----- Original Message -----
From: Frederick Zackel
To:
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 7:30 AM
Subject: RARA-AVIS: Raines Is Chandler
Homage
(I have this sniggering desire to throw gasoline
on the fire.)
25-JANUARY-07
Graham Yost, creator and executive producer of
the upcoming NBC drama
Raines, told SCI FI Wire that the series is
heavily influenced by the work
of classic noir novelist Raymond Chandler,
particularly The Long Goodbye.
"My love of Los Angeles does come from the fact
that I grew up in Toronto
and visited L.A. occasionally, but really got to
know it through Chandler,"
Yost said at the Television Critics Association
press tour in Pasadena,
Calif. "And, truly, doing Raines was my sort of
[chance] to actually write
something that had at least a flavor of Chandler
and has a character who is
self-aware about that. He loves Chandler, too,
and that's part of his
story."
In addition to Chandler's writings, Yost also
referenced various film
adaptations, especially Robert Altman's 1972 film
based on The Long Goodbye.
"What Altman did with Long Goodbye was to take
Chandler and put it in 1972,"
he said. "And it felt like a 1972 film, and yet
Elliott Gould still was this
classic hard-boiled detective. So it was still
noir, but it was 1972. And we
wanted to do that for 2006, 2007. And I hope
we've done it. We've learned
more and more about it as we went along."
Jeff Goldblum stars in the series as detective
Michael Raines, a homicide
investigator who begins seeing and hearing murder
victims as he's working on
their cases.
In a press conference, Goldblum said that he has
always been a fan of
Chandler's work and spoke with Yost about the
noir inspiration as soon as he
signed on to the project.
"Because of this, I watched The Long Goodbye
again," he said. "When we first
talked about it, [Graham] even said, 'You know,
what we want sort of maybe
in tone-we don't want to copy anything-but look
at Long Goodbye again. I
said, 'I've seen it many times.'"
Goldblum added that he found the character to be
one of the most interesting
he's every played.
"I had one of the best times I've ever had in my
whole life," he said.
"That's true. This cast, everybody is so great.
And meeting with Graham, he
was so great, and Frank, I wanted to work with
them. I loved the idea. I
loved the script and I loved that character. And
The Long Goodbye. ... We
find out that he pretends not to care and is
indifferent, but is wildly
romantic and vulnerable and cares deeply and is
idealistic, in fact. There
was something about this character like that that
I kind of fell in love
with."
Raines premieres March 15 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
-Cindy White
Happy Presidents' Day
Fred Zackel
Cocaine & Blue Eyes
Point Blank Press
Lisa del Gioconda (The Mona Lisa) has no
eyebrows.
Napoleon kept her in his bedroom.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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