IVIV Doc/Marlowe

[Robin Landseadel]

On Aug 22, 2009, at 10:43 AM, Doug Millison wrote:

> Maybe the burden should be on readers who choose to argue Marlowe as  
> somehow rising above the common prejudices of his era?

"Farewell My Lovely" is a great example, one well worth noting in the  
wake of the Henry Gates brouhaha. In the 1940's L.A. of "Farewell"  
Black folks now live in what used to be a White neighborhood. Moose  
Malloy treats the new residents like garbage, the cops feel the same  
way too. Marlowe treats them like human beings with certain  
limitations. He's miles above his contemporaries and Chandler depicts  
racial tensions in L.A. with something that looks like a pretty clear- 
headed view. However it's a lot like Nick the Greek's explanation of  
African-American excellence in sports—certain kinds of truth can be  
also be read as prejudice.

But Chandler's depictions of women is not even that copacetic. Look at  
the way he treats Linda Loring in "The Long Goodbye." Maybe by  
depicting Marlowe as relentless in his treatment of Mrs. Loring  
Chandler is knowingly demonstrating a flaw in Marlowe's character,  
something to do with what a little too much Gin can do to a guy's  
manners. But Marlowe also gets to say things some guys wish they had  
the moxie to say to their own wives but would rather not have to deal  
with the consequences of such open hostility. That happens a number of  
"sober" times with Mrs. Wade. We are talking about the fifties, after  
all. We were all expected to act differently back then.

One of the things that Chandler is aware of is just how out of sync  
with the times Marlowe is, how he's something of an anachronism in the  
brave new world of TV and all those other new diversions in the L.A.  
of the fifties. That's something that Altman gets right. Remember that  
Marlowe lived upstairs in an apartment over Laurel Canyon in "The Long  
Goodbye." No self-respecting stoner in L.A. in the early seventies  
could pass that up and Altman takes full advantage of the  
possibilities of that mise en scène.