Marlowe z zaświatów. "Długie pożegnanie" Roberta Altmana

Abstrakt

MARLOWE FROM THE BEYOND. THE LONG GOODBYE BY ROBERT ALTMAN

The author in this essay analyzes the movie The Long Goodbye by Robert Altman, emphasizing the strategies of adaptation used by the film director. The Long Goodbye is based on the last novel written by Raymond Chandler for whom the history of relationships between main characters was not only the base of the next criminal plot, but also the meditation upon the truth, betrayal, friendship, lonelinessas well as transience of human memory. Altman decided to change a lot of original facts, relations between characters and the punchline. He even drastically altered film scenery, moving the plot from the fifties to the counterculture period. As the result of that strategy, he was able to highlight the crucial theme of the Chandler’s novel – the feeling of the confusing new times and the approaching of aging and death. In the film version there were stressed the Marlowe’s communication difficulties, who could not establish contact with people living around him teenager girls, gangsters and police officers as well as understand and accept icons of modern fashion, technology and new culture patterns. The author described also Altman’s method of film acting, improvisation on the set, using music score and slow-motion effects.