--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Channing"
<filmtroll@...> wrote:
>
<<If Altman wants to invert the detective genre why
does he have to base it on the greatest of hard-boiled
detectives? That is my objection. He inverted teen comedy,
Agatha Christie mysteries, Popeye comics and War movies, but
none of those bother me nearly as much as inverting
Chandler.>>
Here's a spinning ball: perhaps when Chandler created Marlowe
the hardboiled detective was already mature enough as an
archetype that he could be treate humorously, ironically?
Marlowe gets hit on the head repeatedly, with heavy and
damaging objects, but gets up and inevitably finds the next
opportunity to get hit again... I would say that Marlowe
takes himself far less seriously than some of his fans take
him. My point is that with a sly and overtly humorous writer
like Chandler, you can't be a literalist. Maybe he meant
Marlowe to be taken seriously, maybe not. The probability
that he meant him at least as a partial parody is not zero.
Look at what Norbert Davis (a Black Mask writer admired by
Chandler) was doing; I suspect that the idea that the heroic
PI was something of a caricature was in the air. As a serious
character, the PI was already getting old. Think of the
hundreds and hundreds of PI stories published in the pulps --
even leaving aside the novels... Chandler was referencing all
of that in his machinations behind Marlowe.
Best,
mrt
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