The Long Goodbye

Robert Altman - 1973
Altman's camera, on a steadycam or equivalent, is constantly moving. Starting shots with at most half a beat before creeping along, it pans slowly, usually left or right, sometimes up and down or in. It doesn't change the composition usually, just does this move, often counteracted by a reverse pan to keep the composition. The direction it does this track in seems organised; it would be interesting to list the whole thing. Individual sequences, that is, three or four shots, parts of scenes, operate seemingly in one direction. Then a change of mood will reverse it. Like a composer, Altman makes variations on this principle of constant moment for dynamic effect.
These smooth moves are often of long shots, but can be any. A distinctive Altman scene would be an individual overexposed coloured (blue) light in the background, with a dark foreground. Altman doesn't seem to light faces more than the background.
All these device are used to create a distance between the viewer and Marlowe. My initial impression with Altman is that he isn't looking for identification, quite the opposite. We have this distance by the camera movement, by spaces cut up that we can move away from Marlowe in it. We generally do have Marlowe's P.O.V., though there are a few exceptions.
The sound design again uses overlapping, and foley/ atmospheric stuff remarkably high in the mix. Perhaps the strongest element is the delivery of lines; offhand, often quiet mumbled. The so-called voiceover, which is diagetic, is a few quiet lines when we can't see his mouth.
I would argue this is not a criticism or a parody of the noir; it seems more like a pushing to the logical limits, with a love of what the genre can do. It's not like Bogart isn't lonely, a complete smart-ass, priggish. It would not be out of character for him to be as pathetic and annoyed as Marlowe is here, or to shoot like he does. It's just not taken that far in the classics. We here have a Marlowe who gets in a complete mess on a case the police had right all along, round and abouts. Elliot Gould's knitted brow, fought away by animals and the women opposite who just aren't interested (there's something of the generational dissaffection, also a touch of Pynchon, here).
Some things do fit in a little awkwardly here. The clear moment of ridicule with Schwarzenegger is baffling. In a way, this is a look at weirdness behind what the movies give us; this is self-conscios about how everyone is pretending they are in a film. Blaming social problems in the movies comes close to Blue Velvet; not a lot of sociological explanation, but is that in the very nature of a film that is, however it uses the tropes, totally and utterly a P.I. noir in every aspect?