Sterlin Harjo on The Long Goodbye
Sterlin Harjo on The Long Goodbye
The Reservation Dogs creator goes deep into Robert Altman's neo-noir classic featuring Elliot Gould as Raymond Chandler's iconic detective Philip Marlowe.
I was very excited to meet Sterlin Harjo, award-winning feature film director and who, along with Taika Waititi, is the brilliant creative force behind FX’s comedy-drama Reservation Dogs. I had heard much about him, especially as a major figure in turning the tide on the shocking absence/erasure of the Native American experience in over a century of film and television. In the course of a deeply enjoyable conversation about Robert Altman’s 1973 film The Long Goodbye, which ranged from neo-noir, to bizarre Oklahoma news headlines, to cinema under the influence of edibles, were the two recurring themes of creating cinematic tone, and the importance of place and community in life and art. What a class act! - T.J.
When trailblazing Native media maker Sterlin Harjo first experienced Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye one solitary day during the pandemic, he says it felt as if he was floating through the film. Floaty and dark, Altman’s 1973 film adaptation of the 1953 book by Raymond Chandler delivers a wry, wise-cracking Elliot Gould as detective Philip Marlowe and takes place in a Los Angeles reshaped by the cultural upheaval of the 1960s. Cueing off The Long Goodbye, Sterlin makes a case for treating background as foreground and for storytelling that emphasizes an ensemble over a single hero.
From his family’s famous spaghetti to the funeral parlor his auntie called home, we learn all about the people and the place that made Sterlin the filmmaker he is today. Plus, how Oklahoma Noir may well be the genre we didn’t know we were missing.
About the Film
Private investigator Philip Marlowe helps a friend out of a jam, but in doing so gets implicated in his wife's murder. 1973.
Director: Robert Altman
Writers: Screenplay by Leigh Brackett, adapted from the novel by Raymond Chandler
Primary Cast:
Elliot Gould (Philip Marlowe)
Nina van Pallandt (Eileen Wade)
Sterling Hayden (Roger Wade)
Cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond
Music by John Williams