The_Big_Sleep

The Big Sleep: Novel or Movie' Architects forever changed the urban landscape when they began building skyscrapers. After only a short while they turned away from the burdensome load-bearing walls and opted for a thin, geometric steel skeleton. The skeleton allowed more glass and embellishments; businesses could have huge windows to display their wares on bustling city streets. Raymond Chandler creates a strong skeleton of figurative language in his novel, The Big Sleep. Howard Hawks piles the importance of his movie on his famous duo, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Which is finer' Stories and skyscrapers are the same. Details run throughout Chandler's text. They come in the form of slap-you-in-the-face similes, lively images and repeated metonyms. The figurative language unifies the book. With every turn of the page we are blasted with sly similes. Chandler can pack five or more on a page and still maintain the super-cool voice of his narrator, Marlowe. Agnes' silver nails move rather than she. But Chandler's most crafty play is in Chapter Twenty-six. He uses figurative language to make his characters predators or prey. Marlowe first "[hangs] there motionless, like a lazy fish in water", then he moves "like a cat on a mantel" (Chandler 171, 172). Marlowe is stalking the office while Canino speaks to Jones in a "purring voice;" Jones has a "bird-like voice" (175, 171). Later, Marlowe addresses Jones's body and says "You died like a poisoned rat, Harry, but you're no rat to me" (178). Harry Jones wasn't Marlowe's prey. The dynamic of the chapter is set up through imagery and metaphor. I love Chandler's figurative language and I love his narrator. Marlowe is the reason that this language is possible. Marlowe isn't going to shuffle around topics; he goes straight to the point and is determined to drag you along. That is why he uses such language &emdash; to pull us in and let us understand. We hear you Marlowe. We are getting every point. We can better understand his character if we know what he is thinking about. The details offer us insider information. We see what little things he notices -- the little things that add up. I miss the knight in the movie. Hawks deprives us of Chandler's first details. Chandler's Marlowe tells us about his suit, shirt, handkerchief, shoes, and even his "black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them" (3). He gives us a detailed description; Chandler wanted us to picture "everything the well-dressed private detective should be" (3). But the most lasting image that Chandler creates in the first page is that of the knight almost attempting to release the maiden. The stained glass window seemed to really make an impression on Marlowe "if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him" (4). This both makes an impression on me, and tells me that Marlowe must be an active guy &emdash; he can't sit around and wait for things to happen. We don't get to see the image of the knight in the window, nor do we get to see Chandler's knight-like character of Marlowe. (In the novel he is too busy righting wrongs to have time to love a maiden. He can only try to save them.) I really missed the details in the movie. I wanted to see Agnes's silver nails and hear Canino purr. But they didn't. Agnes becomes just a fake bookstore broad, and Canino disappears. Brody kills Jones. The knight becomes a few squares of glass. Marlowe doesn't feel a struggle. The novel's appeal is in its language. Unfortunately, the art of language leaves the story and the foundation becomes the actors in Hawks' Big Sleep. The Big Sleep is hailed as a noir success. Leonard Maltin calls it "so incredibly entertaining." This movie is actually part of the video selection at the neighborhood Blockbuster store (which has a limited selection), so it must be a famous movie. I like to think that only a good movie would still be watched after fifty-three years. But, everything good about the book is missing or distorted (plot, characters, details). The plot is too convoluted to make a movie (Hawks never resolves who killed the Sternwood's driver), but Hawks' Big Sleep is still a success and, well, a good movie. Why' They changed it. They altered the plot and the characters to make a movie. Tim Dirks points out that the movie was originally released without the extra Bogart and Bacall scenes, that Hawks added "some of the toughest, most sexually-electric, innuendo-filled dialogue in film history." One The Big Sleep is appropriate for the audience of books, the other for the audience of movies. I prefer the book, but I can see how someone enchanted by the silver screen would be enchanted by this movie. The greatest reason being the foundation of the film: Bogart and Bacall. The added scenes, Marlowe's altered character and the plot changes prove that the movie was altered to create a great romance between Marlowe/Bogart and Vivian/Bacall. The most entertaining alteration was that of Marlowe's character. The differences are easy to recognize. The scene with Marlowe and Sternwood is almost exactly like that in the book (minus the details). The scene with Marlowe and Vivian is also like that of the book: unfriendly. We get to glimpse Bogart's Marlowe after this. First, Marlowe goes to the library and tells the beautiful, young, blonde librarian that he "collects blondes in bottles." He makes his way to Geiger's bookstore and flips up his hat brim, puts on sunglasses and acts like a geek to talk to Agnes. He then crosses the street and participates in some "sexually electric" behavior with the clerk (Dirks). In the novel she just describes Geiger, then Marlowe thanks her and leaves as it starts to rain. The reader barely notices the scene. In the movie she looks Marlowe up and down as she describes Geiger and when it starts to rain, she shuts the store and "takes down her hair" &emdash; they'd rather "get wet" in the store than out in the rain. One of Marlowe's best lines of the movie is as he leaves her and says, "So long, pal." Not only is he quite the lady's man in the movie, he's also a comedian. The string of women doesn't end here. He goes on to have a female taxi driver who finds him irresistible: "If you can use me again sometime, call this number...night's better, I work during the day." (Did women work in the 40's &emdash; especially as taxi drivers') The cigarette girls at Eddie Mar's bar get giggly around Marlowe. And finally (aside from Vivian falling in love with him and Carmen constantly telling him that he is "cute"), a gorgeous woman happens to be working in the coffee shop just so that she can smile at Marlowe. Why do women want this less-than-hunky, less-than-tall guy' He's Humphrey Bogart. So, if Marlowe's new sense of humor doesn't add comic relief to the movie, his interactions with women do. The way Marlowe seems to attract women everywhere he goes is a change from Chandler's character. I think that Chandler's Marlowe is suave enough to intrigue women, but he is "cool" enough to not care. In the movie he cares. He urges Vivian on. A lot of their dialogue is very witty (especially that maintained from the book). Brackett, Faulkner and Furthman add dialogue that is incredibly suggestive. As I said, Vivian and Marlowe's first meeting is kept almost exactly as it was written in the book, except we don't see that Marlowe is inspecting Vivian's legs so we think they actually dislike one another. The insults and flippant comments must be flirtatious play &emdash; in the novel they seem sincere. Later Marlowe brings Carmen home from Geiger's and unlike the book, Vivian helps &emdash; this way they get to exchange more witty dialogue. The attraction grows...Vivian goes to his office to tell him about the bribe for Carmen's pictures, instead of a scene ending on "Oh, go to hell, Marlowe;" Bogart and Bacall get to act 'cute' playing with the police (Chandler 61). Perhaps the most altered part of this scene is when Marlowe says, "I think I'm beginning to like another of the Sternwoods." Slightly different. Sickeningly sweet. And forming the greatest breadth between the novel and the movie is the "notorious nightclub scene" between Vivian and Marlowe (Dirks). Vivian informs him that her rating "depends on who's in the saddle." Then Marlowe kisses Vivian on the ride home Eddie Mars'. (Well, I think it'd be more accurate to say that Bogart kissed Bacall, but we'll just believe what Hawks wants us to.) Despite all of Marlowe and Vivian's changes, the greatest discrepancy between the book and movie is the end. Marlowe and Vivian profess their love for each other. After Marlowe has killed of the last the bad guys with the help of his "angel," he calls the police. They decide to tell Sternwood about Reagan and to send Carmen off for a "cure." This little bit of dialogue ends the movie: Vivian: You've forgotten one thing, me. Marlowe: What's wrong with you' Vivian: Nothing you can't fix. The sirens approach and the scene fades out, the lovers gaze longingly and hopefully into one another's eyes. Happily ever after. In contrast, Chandler has Marlowe think about death, "the big sleep." The movie is a fairy tale, a happy ending heaped atop the giant load-bearing actors. The novel consists of minute details, running through, holding it together. The details and the beauty of the language of the book hold the novel higher: easier and more completely above the movie like the steel frame allows for refinement in architecture. The steel frame building can boast &emdash; it stands taller and more elegantly. Each serves its purpose well; the steel frame buildings just do so with more flair.