HE'S GOT A GIRL, I GOT A CAT

Gun to head, forced to choose between Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974) or Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973), I would definitely hesitate before making my final decision.

BANG!  

(Too late. I'm dead).

Okay, so now I'm in the afterlife I can take my time making a decision here ...  

Altman's The Long Goodbye is definitely the more shaggy, unkempt counterpart to Chinatown's slick Californian cinematic richness but it offers just as much in its evocation of a city that disguises dark secrets behind its pretty but superficial facade. One is set in the 30's, the other in the 70's but both have murder and water feature prominently in their stories whether it's in a garden pond, down an industrial sluice or in the raging sea itself.

That elemental dichotomy between the desert and the water and all the madness in between seems to set the tone for both films equally, although the use of water specifically in Chinatown is far more politically overt than The Long Goodbye which uses water in a more symbolic way, often to wash away the torment and sins of the characters.

For me, there's just something irresistible about the sonnambulistic Marlowe (Elliot Gould) wandering through the streets of 1970's Los Angeles, looking like an unmade bed. J.J Gittes (Jack Nicholson), on the other hand, is more dapper and purposeful in leading his enquires and yet both men find themselves led astray by their underlying well intentioned nature, especially by those who know how to manipulate them, namely women or femme fatales.

Spoiler alert. Although Marlowe resolves his case emotionally and psychologically on his own terms, Gittes is left with an open wound as what he uncovers is far more expansive politically in its broad criminal implications than the more intimate tale of The long Goodbye which is far more to do with loyalty, friendship and betrayal.

The fact that Leigh Brackett (screenwriter of Howard Hawk's 1946 classic movie "The Big Sleep") wrote this 1970's update of Chandler's novel adds yet another meta layer to The Long Goodbye's somewhat post-modern approach to reimagining Marlowe for a new generation of movie goers. Both she (Brackett) and Altman had the idea that this would be "Rip Van Marlowe" waking from a thirty year coma into the 1970's, an anachronism wandering between different incarnations of the city of Los Angeles. It totally works in my opinion and makes Marlowe seem like the last bastion of morality in a city that's decaying fast. His devotion to his cat seems positively chivalrous in this instance.

Another "character" that deserves a special mention in The Long Goodbye is the music. John Williams's score is ingenious, repeating the same title music over and over again but in different genres adjusted to the interiors/exteriors of the scenes throughout the story. Some of the many iterations of The Long Goodbye theme include it being played through a supermarket tannoy, by a Mexican Mariachi band and even a doorbell. It's quite a feat to pull off and the composer does it brilliantly, displaying his full compendium of genre styles to suit the repetition of his main theme.

Though I must say it's hard to imagine a greater, more evocative score in the history of film than Jerry Goldsmith's Chinatown. From the initial ethereal glissando of harp strings which sound like claret red theatre curtains being softly drawn back, to the pensive strings of what sounds like heat haze the sultry trumpet of (Uan Rasey) then arrives, acting like a cooling Gin Rickey cocktail in a desert. You can even hear the icecubes melting in the glass if you listen carefully.

This is the dilemma in having to be forced to choose between these two magnificent films. Both movies have their own unique approach in creating the very essence of what cinema is all about - namely evocation of time and place using atmosphere through sound, music and image.

Both do this in spades ... Sam Spade.

Although I love hanging out with Jack Nicholson and friends in Chinatown with its orange groves, incest and lazy insidious corruption, I just can't help but overly relate to Elliot's Philip Marlowe in the Long Goodbye as he appeals to the eternal layabout in me, with him forever getting round to things in his own unique and intuitively shambolic way.

When he finally resolves the case in Tijuana and the Mexican guitar version of The Long Goodbye theme kicks in, I'm then pretty certain this movie just edges Chinatown for me.  

Marlowe might not find his cat in the end, but at least he saves his soul and, in turn, Los Angeles from complete moral degradation. In the wake of Manson, the city needed its heroes more than ever and Rip Van Marlowe was just the hero it needed in 1973.

Maybe we need a Marlowe for 2022? ;-)