With Kansas City Altman proved he could do period. And with
The Player he proved he could do noir. But with Long Goodbye
he did neither.
I admire Altman's creativity and willingness to experiment,
but on Long Goodbye I feel he missed the point. I also feel
Gould was mis-cast and I disliked various changes to the plot
of the book. And I hated how Gould was such a chump that he
loses every argument, even one with a cat.
I am aware that the critical consensus is that The Long
Goodbye is a great film, I disagree and I'm in the minority.
But even if it's a
"classic" film it's a bad interpretation of Raymond
Chandler.
And I suggest that with films like Popeye, OC and Stiggs, and
Pret a Porter that Altman missed his target by a long shot
and that it's not beyond the realm of possibility that he
could've missed on Long Goodbye as well.
--Chan
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 12 Nov 2007 EST