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The Big Sleep

by David Thomson

Type
Studies
Subject
One FilmThe Big Sleep
Keywords
Howard Hawks, analysis, Raymond Chandler, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall
Publishing date
2020
Publisher
BFI Publishing
Collection
BFI Film Classics
Language
English
Size of a pocketbookRelative size of this bookSize of a large book
Relative size
Physical desc.
Paperback • 80 pages
5 ¼ x 7 ½ inches (13.5 x 19 cm)
ISBN
978-1-83902-159-6
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Book Presentation:
The Big Sleep: Marlowe and Vivian practising kissing; General Sternwood shivering in a hothouse full of orchids; a screenplay, co-written by Faulkner, famously mysterious and difficult to solve. Released in 1946, Howard Hawks' adaptation of Raymond Chandler reunited Bogart and Bacall and gave them two of their most famous roles. The mercurial but ever-manipulative Hawks dredged humour and happiness out of film noir. 'Give him a story about more murders than anyone can keep up with, or explain, ' David Thomson writes in his compelling study of the film, 'and somehow he made a paradise.'

When it was first shown to a military audience The Big Sleep was coldly received. So, as Thomson reveals, Hawks shot extra scenes, 'fun' scenes, to replace one in which the film's murders had been explained, and in so doing left the plot unresolved. Thomson argues that, if this was accidental, it also signalled a change in the nature of Hollywood cinema: 'The Big Sleep inaugurates a post-modern, camp, satirical view of movies being about other movies that extends to the New Wave and Pulp Fiction.'

See the publisher website: BFI Publishing

Previous edition

The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep (1997)

by David Thomson

Publisher: BFI Publishing
(previous edition)

Subject: One Film > The Big Sleep

See The Big Sleep (1946) on IMDB ...

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