Raymond Chandler's Oscar Bashing

With the Academy Awards airing on Sunday night, I’ve been sitting here scratching my head in an effort to come up with some brilliant piece of insight – or at least a witticism or two – before it’s suddenly Monday and this over-hyped hoopla of self-congratulation is a thing of the past.

And you know what? I got nothin’. Nary a keen new insight nor a bon mot of my own to be found (though I did just get to use bon mot in a sentence – I can now die happy).

So... Since I am momentarily at a loss for new insight, I thought I’d let some very old insight slip straight
from the mouth of a very good writer.

Raymond Chandler is an author I am particularly fond of; he wrote seven novels using the character of Philip Marlowe, and in so doing practically redefined the detective novel. He was a master of hard-boiled noir, and a creator of great mysteries. He was also a brilliant writer and stylist – an author who wasn’t simply banging out cheap stories on cheap paper, but a novelist and essayist who explored the disillusionment of the Depression and post-WWII years. He described the L.A. cityscape wonderfully: few other authors have described the city of Los Angeles with as much authority and authenticity as did Chandler. The man could write.

He was also a screenwriter, one who occasionally struggled in Hollywood; he was a pessimist, an alcoholic, a highly literate critic, and a man who was frequently depressed. Sufficed to say, when he wrote about movies and the Hollywood system, he didn’t always have good things to say. Below you will find links to two articles that he wrote for The Atlantic Monthly during the 1940s.

The first link will take you to a 1945 column that he wrote, one that describes the sensations associated with being a writer in Hollywood. The second link will take you to a 1948 column in which Chandler assesses the merits (and major drawbacks) of The Academy Awards. Both columns are eloquently written. Neither paints a particularly flattering portrait of the Hollywood system.

Here you go:

Link 1 – Chandler: Writers in Hollywood
Link 2 – Oscar Night in Hollywood