Andrew McMurtryREVIEW: Chinatown (1974)
October 19th 2008 10:48
“Chinatown” is the classic Film Noir Movie. It has the lies, the deceit, the truth not completely discovered until the end. It has the PI sleuth in Jack Nicholson’s J. J. Gittes. It has the femme fatale in Faye Dunaway’s Evelyn Mulray. It has the setting of Los Angeles as a cesspool of crime, corruption and greed. And it has the twists and turns that reveal themselves to surprise the audience. “Chinatown” is the classic Film Noir Movie.
“Chinatown” is a brutal movie and, like other Film Noir films, is about the loss of power from the good and just to the evil of the world played by the rich and powerful, who are the corrupt. This is shown up until the very last scene of the movie. The movie's convoluted plot, with its twists and turns at every opportunity make for complicated viewing. You have to be on your guard and watching for every little clue to discover what is going on in the story. But the ending reveals the whole plot and makes all of the previous viewing make sense.
The harshness of world Chinatown inhabits is shown in one scene where director Roman Polanski makes a cameo appearance as a mobster. As Mr Gittes is snooping around at the dam where Evelyn Mulray’s husband had been murdered, he suddenly comes under fire. As he tries to make an escape, he is stopped and cornered by two mob members, one of which is Polanski. In possibly the most brutal scene of the film, Polanski’s character slices Gittes’ nostril with a knife. This just shows the criminality of the setting of the film.
An indicator of the Film Noir tradition is the setting. It has to be filmed in an affluent city and involve some sort of story for corruption to occur. “Chinatown”, is set in Los Angeles in the 1930’s as several props, such as the “men in pin-striped suits, four-door convertible touring cars, women with marcelled hair, and elegant slouches” (according to the New York Times), show. Another aspect of this film indicative of the Film Noir Genre is the sexy sax music in the opening to set the scene as a sexy crime drama.
“Chinatown” is a great Film Noir film. Its plot is a tangled web of successive revelations having to do with Los Angeles water reserves, land rights, fraud, and incestuous relations. While watching it, you have no idea what twist is coming next. It shows LA as a hotbed of crime and corruption with, as the ending shows us, no way to counter it.
This is a great film. The only problem is that it is confusing and you spen the movie going "Oh, that's what so-and-so meant when he said..." Despite this, it is a great experience and a harsh view of a world devoid of purity and run by the tactless and greedy mega-rich and powerful. This film would get a 3 out of 5 from me.
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