Don't know why I can't resist getting pulled back into this
argument, but Jim wrote:
"As for my speaking for Chandler, I speak only for myself
when I give my opinion of Altman's THE LONG GOODBYE."
Would that it were so. On numerous occasions you have
strongly implied, if not outright said, that no true Chandler
fan could like the movie and/or that no one who likes the
movie could possibly be a true fan of Chandler.
Jim again:
"However, Altman speaks for himself when he describes Marlowe
as a loser, while Chandler speaks for himself whe he
describes him as 'the best man in his world and a good enough
man for any world' and and later as 'the hero . . .
everything.'
"These are incompatible visions of the character, and the
vision that Altman put on the screen was his vision, not
Chandler's."
Chandler also wrote of Marlowe (in Raymond Chandler
speaking):
"If being in revolt against a corrupt society consitutes
being immature, then Philip Marlowe is extremely immature. If
seeing dirt where there is dirt constitutes an inadequate
social adjustment, then Philip Marlowe has inadequate social
adjustment. Of course Marlowe is a failure and he knows it.
He's a failure because he hasn't any money. A man who without
any physical handicaps cannot make a decent living is always
a failure and usually a moral failure. But a lot of very good
men have been failures because their particular talents did
not suit their time and place."
Loser, failure, hardly seem incompatible to me. In fact, my
thesaurus lists them both as synonyms for "unsuccesful
person."
Mark
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 08 Nov 2007 EST