“The Big Sleep” in the darkness of Los Angeles

Selection Tortuous, inexhaustible and moving, Howard Hawks' film paved the way for the character of the “private” in cinema, a moral figure in a corrupt world. Tonight at 8:55 p.m. on Arte.

“The Big Sleep” is the first film to reunite Bogart and Bacall and it is also the beginning of their love story. It is also the most famous adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel, which forever gave the “private” the face of Humphrey Bogart. “The Big Sleep” has the reputation of being a fairly incomprehensible film, which is greatly exaggerated. It is true that, for his first novel, Chandler had collected several of his short stories, which posed some continuity problems. Thus, neither Hawks nor Chandler knew who had settled the score with the Sternwoods' chauffeur. But in the end, what does it matter?

Howard Hawks is as much a poet as a “hardboiled” author, adapting the vision of a dark world (the film takes place almost entirely at night), where corpses, shameful secrets, pornographic photos and gambling debts circulate. This universe overheated by vices, sex and money is like the greenhouse where old General Sternwood survives in the middle of“orchids with flesh resembling that of men, their scent recalls the sweetish scent of corruption.”

Marlowe's Moral

In this cesspool, there is Marlowe (Bogart) who, the complete opposite of a cynic, is a man of honor, even if this notion seems particularly worn out in this year 1945. “He speaks like a man of his time, writes Chandler, that is, with a caustic humor, a keen sense of the ridiculous, a deep disgust for the artificial and a great contempt for pettiness.” In this description, we can perfectly recognize Bogart, as tough as he is sensitive and intelligent. He is never impressed by a weapon but is upset by a little man who chooses death rather than betray the woman he loves, even if she is not really worth it.

It is this sense of honor that he also recognizes in Vivian Sternwood (Lauren Bacall), ready to sacrifice herself by debasing herself to protect her sister. The preservation of moral dignity, which is rarely that of the cops or justice, is the fight that Marlowe leads against the “big sleep”, this lethargy caused by the poisoned air of corruption.

◗ Monday, September 16 at 8:55 p.m. on Arte. American detective film by Howard Hawks (1946). With Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall. 1h54.