The Long Goodbye Movie: Hard-Boiled to Neo-Noir
The film version of The Long Goodbye was made in 1973, 20 years after the book was written and about 15 years after film noir had begun to wane in popularity. How did
the director (Robert Altman) update or revise the conventions of hard-boiled writing and film noir to address a changing cultural context? Why do you think the
director wanted to return to this genre? What does this film (often categorized as “Neo-Noir” because of its distance from the original genre) reveal about how the
genre is changing?
Answer in a brief but thoughtful paragraph. Superficial observations (that the film is in color, that the fashion has changed) will not suffice.