Chinatown
Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.
This is the classic Roman Polanski directed Jack Nicholson movie from 1974.
Set in Los Angeles in 1937 the (fairly complicated) plot involves infidelity, murder, possibly corrupt police and city officials all revolving around the citys water supply.
Jack Nicholson plays JJ ‘Jake’ Gittes a seemingly succesful private detective (he has two people on his payroll aswell as a secretary) who is hired by Evelyn Mulwray to follow her husband Hollis who she believes is having an affair.
After photographing Hollis Mulwray (who, importantly, is chief engineer of the LA water supply) in the arms of a young woman, Jake thinks his job is done.
However the photos appear the next day in the newspapers, a big scandal ensues, shortly after which Mr Mulwray is found dead and the “real” Mrs Mulwray (the ever gorgeous Faye Dunaway) appears in Jake’s office demanding some sort of explanation.
Gittes soon finds himself in a complex web of political, social and moral corruption.
Leading to some shocking revelations and a surprising ending – this is back in the days when Hollywood movies didn’t all have to end happily with nicely tied up resolutions and everyone happily sailing on an ark to Africa to start the world all over again. But I digress.
The great thing about this film for me is, at least initially when Jake is following Mr Mulwray, it shows the slow, dull and tedious work that is often involved in private detective work. Jake is seen watching Hollis from a cliff for what would appear to be a few hours for example, and this is shown by long shots of Jake sitting doing nothing, not the speeding up of a clock.
There is also some beautiful camera work, I especially liked the shot of the car side mirror as the car pulls out – the camera seemingly placed directly in front of the mirror but not reflected – this is before CGI could be used to remove it.
Perhaps only interesting for a film geek but I was impressed.
The cast are all excellent with an evil John Huston, Faye Dunaway in one of her better performances and a guest appearance by Roman Polanski – slicing up Jack Nicholsons nose.
One thing that intrigued me for years after first seeing this movie is, why is it called Chinatown? Chinatown gets mentioned a couple of times in the movie but there is only one, admittedly very important, scene set in Chinatown but I couldn’t never work out why the place was so important to the film.
This question was answered for me in an interview with Robert Towne, the writer, on the dvd extras.
He had been told by a cop before or while researching for the script that cops in (the real) Chinatown basically do as little as possible. This is because the Chinese there have their own way of sorting out their problems and it’s kind of best to stay out of the way.
Looking back at the film there are a couple of quotes that allude to this…
Evelyn Mulwray: What were you doing there?
Jake Gittes: Working for the District Attorney.
Evelyn Mulwray: Doing what?
Jake Gittes: As little as possible.
Evelyn Mulwray: The District Attorney gives his men advice like that?
Jake Gittes: They do in Chinatown.
I guess I missed that the first few times of watching it.
It does give more of an insight into the police behaviour and also why Jake is so keen to pursue this case when he smells something fishy, perhaps he’s trying to redeem himself for his past?
When I was around university age I was very interested in writing screenplays, and read some of the “how to” guides like Syd Field’s Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting
Still, my screenplay was rejected by the BBC and Channel 4 so what do I know.
Chinatown is one of the greatest film-noir, private eye, mystery movies of the 70s if not always and is highly recommended.
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