Robert Altman once remarked to Dick Cavett, “no one has ever made a good movie.” About forty years have passed since that irreverent comment, and now I believe I can amend his statement slightly, for in those forty years, at least three ‘good’ movies have been made. They are McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Nashville, and The Long Goodbye.
    The word ‘Genius’ is thrown around without much discrimination in modern times, so I try to save it for those who really stand apart from the rest. Altman most definitely deserves this distinction. In his case, by the rest, I mean all the films ever produced. I predict that in three hundred years, our descendents will still be discussing nuances of Altman’s collective work while that of Steven Spielberg and James Cameron will have been cast aside as only relevant to their generational zeitgeist. Indeed, Altman’s sheer ingenuity gives his films a timeless quality. It is probably possible to receive a new message from the above films after watching them forty times each.
      The Long Goodbye was stubbornly unappreciated upon its release. Time Magazine’s Jack Cocks idiotically stated, “Altman’s lazy, haphazard putdown is without affection or understanding … it is a curious spectacle to see Altman mocking a level of achievement to which, at his best, he could only aspire.” In fact, the reverse is true.  Elliot Gould’s portrayal of the legendary Philip Marlowe is without parallel in the private eye genre; just a year later in 1974, Roman Polanski would make a huge splash with the release of Chinatown. That splash has kept on splashing while The Long Goodbye has fallen back in relative obscurity – I think this phenomenon has more to do with an epic low point in general human history from 1980 – 2011 than has do with the actual merit of the respective films.
    Gould’s Phillip Marlowe is a far superior character to Jack Nicholson’s Jack Gittes. Indeed, whilst Gittes cloaks his lack of morality in a wrath of wit, Marlowe evidences his surplus of morality in his above-the-fray attitude. Moreover, Marlowe can be above the fray, and yet still make moral judgments on the fray.
    And, in the same way that Marlowe trounces Gittes as a character, Altman trounces Polanski as director. One only needs to view the final scene of each film in order to understand that whilst Polanski denies humans the right to agency, Altman allows humans that right. Gittes walks away from Lou Escobar like cynical coward, and Marlowe shoots Terry Lennox like a moral paladin.