In Deep Focus: The Long Goodbye

In Deep Focus is a series where Hyperreal contributors go in depth about their favorite scenes or select moments in movies.

Let's consider what it means to begin a film with a character waking up. Films are so often compared to dreams, and all films, no matter how "realistic" they might present themselves to be, require you to give in to the world of the film. To imagine that this fantasy, this fiction, is reality, at least for a couple hours at a time. Personally, I try to close my eyes right before a movie starts in order to put myself in the mindset of actually watching a movie. Even if I'm at home where the screen is smaller and my surroundings are full of distractions just waiting for me to notice them. It's a ritual to put myself in the movie's world. It's a ritual to enter the dream of the movie.

The Long Goodbye begins with Elliot Gould's Phillip Marlowe waking up to a cat cajoling him for food. Director Robert Altman, when co-writing the script, thought of this version of Marlowe as a Rip Van Winkle figure, a hardboiled goon with a heart of gold who'd hibernated through the decades (you could even say he'd had a Big Sleep) and woke up in the '70s bemused and out of step with the world around him. This Marlowe doesn't have the self-loathing, self-assurance of Humphrey Bogart's portrayal—he's a schmuck, waking up in a dirty apartment room with the walls covered in match scratches. His movements are familiar, but not smooth, subconscious without being practiced. He's got the easy grace of a drunk who knows how to totter toward the bathroom sink to vomit without hitting the living room tables, but he's missing the joy.

As he wanders through his apartment toward the kitchen the camera picks up various objects; a trophy here, a painting there, but none of it feels lived in. If you've seen this movie enough times, you can pick out those specific objects that seem to actually carry weight in Marlowe's life, those little pieces that reflect a time he feels nostalgia for, but they're buried under the expanse of tchotchkes and trash. He doesn't really own anything, doesn't really live in this place, even if he actually does.

That feeling only gets re-emphasized when he ends up in the kitchen. He's out of cat food, so he tries to whip something together himself. He uses a cheese slicer to spoon out… cottage cheese? Butter? Into what seems to be a pie tin, cracks some raw eggs in it, and adds salt. There's some work put into it, but it's not sincere. This Marlowe's too bruised to be sincere. It's all a joke; he's either in on it, making it, or the butt of it. Might as well try the second one and gesture toward the first one—he'll end up the third one by the end.

When he heads to the store, he agrees to pick up brownie mix for his perpetually naked neighbors, but it doesn't feel like chivalry or even sexual desire that drives him to agree. It's just a private joke between Marlowe and himself. Why not? Anything can be funny if you're not taking it seriously.

The camera seems to mirror Gould's semi-self-conscious swagger, its languid camera movements and medium shot focus offering you just a glimpse of Marlowe and his world without pushing you to get involved. "Don't worry," it seems to be saying. "We're all relaxed here." Softly, in the background, John Williams' first version of the title song plays like a piano player in a smoky bar, just quiet enough that people can still talk without straining. You're entering Marlowe's world like you're entering a dream, but there's another figure pushing his way into this world. Our view of Marlowe is interrupted by cuts to another man driving away from Malibu Colony as Williams' score shifts into a croaky, clankier version of the score with lyrics to match. Even if you haven't seen the film before, you can feel, from the editing to the score, that this man is connected to Marlowe and that he brings with him a harsher, more detailed world than the dreamy, wistful place that Gould's character lives in.

Marlowe can't get the right cat food at the store, but it's all the same inside the can, right? At least, according to a store clerk. When he gets back, Marlowe tries to swap the two, spooning out that non-Coury brand cat food into the old can he pulled out of the trash with that same cheese slicer, re-applying the lid, and putting on a show for his cat that it's the same old slop that it's always been. The cat doesn't fall for it, and why would it? The world's changed, and you can't throw a familiar brand over this new shit you have to eat. The cat bails on Marlowe, and maybe it had the right idea, considering how everyone else in the movie ends up.

The ever-present score, the cat, his inability to deliver on what seems like a simple task… these are the things that are going to haunt Marlowe for the next two hours. The movie laid bare in a single scene. The first time I saw this movie, it felt like a two hour setup to the meanest punchline I'd ever heard—I should've paid more attention to the rhythm of that joke in the opening scene. Marlowe's the cat and the cat is Marlowe. (He's even called Mr. Katz by the end of the film just in case you didn't get it.) You can't change what's been done, can't even change what's done next. All you can really do is get your claws in when you have the opportunity and bail on a bad situation. Maybe Marlowe should've gone back to bed when he had the chance.