Many love the stories of Chandler. I'm one of them, brought to him through the adaptations stumbled upon in my early days of true film diving, once Tommy Boy, Tombstone, Bad Boys, Swingers, Bottle Rocket and others stabilized themselves as "classics" to me, and I turned into the true history of film, which would continue as a journey of discovery to this day and beyond.
As I have touched on before, film noir made a huge mark on me early. As many around me fell in love with the French New Wave, rightfully so, I for some reason was engaged more by the high contrast, dramatic imagery, and intensity of noir. But from here I soon realized noir's sister, brother, cousin genre, perhaps you could try to call one a subset of the other. I would go with the cousin genre. Regardless, the detective story has a different main character usually, which means a different everything eventually in regards to the themes and the psychology of the stories. Not all, not every, but there is truth to this. Chandler himself explains this so so so well in his "The Simple Art of Murder" essay.
I love the detective story. I love Chandler's detective's journey. And to take a master of the genre, a master of the double cross, the discovery, the mystery, the clue and to hand that to a filmmaker who cares possibly less for "story" than any other filmmaker of his skill level and time (am I going too far in my description of Altman?). The man knows how to set up long shots, let the camera track at angles, slowly, lets the audience just observe humans being, communication through film in a different way, lets actors talk over each other, lets the tone and the taste and the moment rule the scene, rule the movie, rule the story as the story consents. And he crushes with this style. All over his work.
But here specifically when you hand him Chandler's The Long Goodbye, the mix, the balance, the elixir is so solid. Just let Gould do his thing. Well adapted, Leigh Brackett. Well done, Chandler and Altman, not that anyone's waiting on anyone to say that.
Be well. http://www.LionSuit.com (photo and words are original)
