no reason to sleep (The Big Sleep (DVD))

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Product:	The Big Sleep (DVD)
Date:	22/11/03 (54 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brillaint, romantic film noir

Disadvantages: Not a one

First off let me say The Big Sleep looks magnificent in all its DVD glory. The picture is crisp and all those annoying crackling sounds we can remember from the VHS version have gone. So set it up on a big TV, turn off the lights, close the curtains and you?re as close as you?re ever gonna get to seeing it in the cinema without the effort of getting to one (though the effort is certainly worth it). OK, the packaging is kinda ordinary and there are no extras to speak off. But who cares? So many DVDs come with tedious (some odious) straight from US TV plugs that regurgitate all the usual nonsense and are generally nothing better than extended commercials.
Anyway, a film this good doesn?t need extras to make it appealing. At a general RRP of about a tenner the price isn?t gonna put you off either.

But that?s not the point is it. The point is the Big Sleep itself. Let me say right off that I love this film. It is my favourite film alongside the great Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. Everything about it is brilliant. I won?t go into story and plot here, because if you haven?t seen it then why ruin it for you? And if you?ve watched it then there?s no need to whatsoever. The film crackles. It isn?t hard to tell that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were married when they made this film. The dynamics between them is electric and electrifying, filling the screen with a kind of erotic tension. And the film?s a PG. But just watch the horse riding scene; which is a brilliant piece of writing (by either Jules Furthman or Leigh Brackett because it wasn?t a part of William Faulkner?s original script that they were brought in to ?sex? up) because it?s as dirty or as innocent as you want it to be. It?s filled with such knowing innuendo that you wonder how on earth the scene ever got past the censors. I mean, they?re speaking of each other as horse and the repeated use of the word ?riding? doesn?t leave too much to the imagination. These two want to
get outta the mystery they?re in and? well? you can guess that.

But it?s not just Bogart and Bacall that crackle. It?s Bogart and everyone. From Dororthy Malone?s amorous bookstore clerk to Bacall?s nymphomaniac younger sister. The film is filled with women who seem to find Bogart irrestible ? I can understand this and I?m a heterosexual male. This is part of the style of the film. It?s so knowing and seems to be laughing at the censors. Then again the script was written by one great novelist (Faulkner), one fantastic screenwriter (Furthman) and Leigh Bracket could write a mean story too. I mean, the dead man who kicks off the plot (as he kicks off (pops) his clogs) is clearly meant to be gay and living with a violent younger man. Homosexuality was as taboo then as was child abuse. People didn?t want it on screen and yet there it is.

But how does the film compete with the book? To me this doesn?t matter. They are completely different texts. The film is not as dark as the book, not as pessimistic, but this is as much to do with the need to accommodate the romance between Bogart and Bacall (though noticeably the romance was less important and the story darker in the original Faulkner version of the screenplay). Both the book and the film are exceptionally witty and sexually charged texts. The dialogue in the film is magnificent; it doesn?t try hard to be funny, or profound, or sophisticated. It simply is. You don?t ever feel the need to laugh out loud; it?s a film noir for god?s sake. But the dialogue is unmistakably brilliant and in the mouths of the cast it?s perfect. It fits the feel of the film exactly.

And the actors? From ailing oil millionaires to blackmailing punks, every character is played to perfect, every actor suited to their roles. And the music? Magnificent! The cinematography is great too ? it?s lush, and especially the parts in Geiger?s house seem exotic.

More to the point it was a Howard Ha
wks film. Hawks is often overlooked in cinematic history, he is passed over in favour of John Ford or John Huston and yet he was a consummate director and every bit as skilful as Ford and Huston ? if not better. He didn?t have the flair of Orson Welles or the stature of John Ford; what he did have was a deceptively easy style of filmmaking that allows you to forget that you are watching a film. He lets the camera flow and keeps a discrete distance. He obviously cares about character and giving his actors room to move and explore their roles. He brings this to The Big Sleep and the film is all the richer for it.

Is there a problem with the film though? The story is notorious for its plot holes. Who killed Own Taylor? Who knows? Hawks famously rang Chandler to ask and Chandler who, angry at not being given the opportunity to adapt his own novel, told him he neither new nor cared and that Hawks could work it out for himself. Hawks didn?t and we never find out. But it?s of absolutely no importance whatsoever. The story moves so quickly and in many ways is second to the Romance of Bogart and Bacall; and the Romance of the film itself. As far as I?m concerned there are no problems with The Big Sleep whatsoever.

Ultimately The Big Sleep is the epitome of sophisticated film noir. It has the tension, the sense of perversity and corruption that one associates with film noir. It also has the romanticism that is so often ignored and obscured in so many noir thrillers, though it is so clearly there ? it has to be, because there is a doom about film noir, even in The Big Sleep, though there is a happy ending.

But don?t read me writing about The Big Sleep. Watch it!

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