Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Chandler's The Lady in the Lake

From: DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net
Date: 08 Nov 2007


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



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