Long Farewell (film, 1973)

A private detective from Los Angeles , Philip Marlowe , waking up in the middle of the night in his bachelor apartment under the roof of an apartment building, goes to the store for cat food ^[2] . On the way, he encounters an old friend, Terry Lennox, who asks for a good reward to give him a ride to the Mexican border. Returning from a trip to his home in the morning, Marlowe is under arrest on charges of involvement in the murder of Lennox's wife. Three days later he was released: Lennox committed suicide in Mexico and the murder of his wife was closed. Knowing Terry well, the detective refuses to believe the friend’s suicide ...

As one of Augustine's henchmen, Arnold Schwarzenegger appears in the frame, he is not indicated in the credits.

Initially, when making the film, the producers took as a model the classic adaptation of the Chandler novel, Deep Sleep , starring Humphrey Bogart , staged in 1946 by Howard Hawks, based on a screenplay by Lee Brackett . It was she who was ordered the script of the “Long Farewell” with the condition that the action will be transferred to modern America. In the director’s chair, the producers saw Hawks, and in the title role, veterans Lee Marvin or Robert Mitchem .

When Hawks refused to act as a director, the producers sent the script to the then-fashionable Peter Bogdanovich , who handed it to Robert Altman. He agreed to undertake the production, provided that Marlowe played Elliott Gould, with whom they worked together on the cult comedy " Military Field Hospital " (1971). However, this actor, after a nervous breakdown and divorce from Barbra Streisand, has not been removed anywhere for two years. He was approved for the main role only after being examined by a psychiatrist.

The famous baseball player Jim Boughton was taken on the role of Terry Lennox. In the role of Eileen was a Danish singer from the duo Nina & Frederik . Sterling Hayden, known for starring in the classic noir Noels of the Asphalt Jungle and Murder , was supposed to play the writer Roger Wade. Due to addiction to alcohol and drug addiction, Sterling could not learn his role. On the set, he improvised a lot, the voice acting was superimposed later in the studio. Ultimately, Altman was pleased with the acting work of Hayden.

When writing the script, Lee Brackett decided to rework those places in the novel that she thought were screen-printed. The result is very far from the literary source, and the action is transferred from the forties to the seventies. Instead of the figure of the father-in-law of Lennox, the film appeared a storyline associated with the eccentric gangster Augustine. The final with the murder, decided by Altman as a homage to the “ Third Man ” ^[3] , is completely absent in the book ^[4] . The suicide of the writer and the incident with a bottle of Coca-Cola (referring to the same scene in the “ High Heat ” by Fritz Lang ) were invented by the director himself ^[5] .

Altman wanted to show Marlow as a loser who embodies the values ​​of a bygone era. He called the main character “ Rip van Marlow ”: as if the hero of the forties films woke up from a lingering sleep in modern California, where no one has long worn ties and suits of “Bogart” cut ^[6] , no one walks all day with a cigarette in his mouth, no one He doesn’t drive around in vintage convertibles, where everyone is concerned about fitness and a healthy lifestyle ^[7] . In this sense, he resembles a doorkeeper who spends all day portraying celebrities of the forties ^[8] , although, besides Marlow, few understand who exactly.

"Long Farewell" belongs to the clip of Altman's naturalistic films of the early 1970s, in which he revises the basics of classic Hollywood genres. In this case, the film noir became the object of critical attention of the director. The mythical figure of the invincible private detective Marlowe, who once inspired the Americans with confidence in the inevitable victory of the law on crime, was blown away in the depressing conditions of the 1970s (the Vietnam War , political scandals ) to the level of a discouraged rudiment of a past era ^[9] :

This private detective is so private that he seems to be talking to himself all the time, constantly commenting on his actions, as if trying to convince himself of his own existence - despite the almost complete indifference of the world to everything that he says and does ^[9] .

- The New York Times

The filmmakers emphasize the fragility of everything that until recently seemed unshakable, including friendship and marriage ^[9] . Marlowe retains the inherent nobility in books, but it is not in demand in modern conditions ^[10] . A juicy, colorful “picture” created by cameraman Gigmond deliberately contrasts and argues with the grim cinematography of classic noir. As in other Altman’s early films, the camera often freezes for a long time on mirror surfaces. The scene of the writer’s explanation with his wife is given through the reflection in the glass, where Marlow’s movement along the beach is also visible. This gives the image the effect of unsteady uncertainty ^[3] .

Having been released for limited release in Los Angeles and a number of other major US cities, the film “Long Farewell” was hostile to the press ^[11] . TIME magazine wrote that this is a slap in the face to all lovers of Philip Marlowe and the “black” genre: “it is curious to observe how Altman is poaching over that level of skill to which he still has to grow and grow” ^[12] . Robin Wood found Altman more similar to Antonioni’s films than Hawks ^[3] . The premiere of the film in New York was canceled at the last moment. After revising the advertising strategy, the film returned to cinemas and was received more positively. Vincent Canby in The New York Times noted the originality of the plan and the high level of camera skill ^[13] . The results of the box office, however, were more than modest.

Roger Ebert subsequently included “Long Farewell” to his list of great films of the 20th century ^[14] , and the Time Out movie guide ranked him among the best films of the 1970s ^[10] . Of the reviews collected on the Rotten Tomatoes website, 96% are positive ^[15] . According to Dave Kehr , this inventive, full of humor film that casts doubt on the heroism of Detective Marlowe is firmly knit together, and this scenario architectonics sets him apart from other Altman's works ^[16] .

• Chinatown
• " Night moves "

• The Long Farewell to the Internet Movie Database  
• Long farewell on the allmovie website