Chinatown

Made: 1974

Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez

Director: Roman Polanski

Screenwriter: Robert Towne

Cinematographer: John A. Alonzo

Producer: Robert Evans

"Sometimes it's best to let sleeping dogs lie."

            Chinatown, if anything, started what is referred to as the neo-noir movement. That is a hark back to the detective films of the 40's and 50's that dealt with flawed protagonists and heroes that sometimes had dark intentions. The movie itself just tells a great mystery, in a way that is intriguing and watchable over and over. The direction by Polanski is full of subtle touches, such as Jake's habit of putting watches under car tires, that help this movie retain its reputation of one of the best movies of all time. It's hailed as a classic, and actually lives up to its reputation, though it is somewhat of a "slow burner" of a story and requires patience from the viewer.

            This is Nicholson's best role, much more broad than the loose cannon of his other greatest 70' films One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Five Easy Pieces, and one of his defining characters. He plays a detective, Jake Gittes, that has Jack's usual reputation of being a badass, but here he is also a caring person. The movie marks him as an actor much like It's a Wonderful Life defined Jimmy Stewert. He gets involved in a case involving the Water Department of Los Angeles, back before it was so large of a city, and when the chief of the department is killed, he gets false leads as to who did it and, being a stubborn detective, he keeps digging and digging until he is caught in a very bad situation. The defining quote above is what Gittes tells a person at the first of the movie, and honestly maybe he should have taken his own advice.

            Faye Dunaway also stars as part of her string of three masterworks, the others being Network and Bonnie and Clyde, is great as the wife of the slain Water Department head. She brings a hidden, but also visible, vulnerability to her character with some kind of secret. John Huston, the great noir director, plays Noah Cross, and his performance creates one of cinema's great menacing villains. "What can you buy with more money?" "The future, Mr. Gittes". Ha, great stuff. Last in a small focused cast is Perry Lopez as Lou, Jake's old detective friend when they worked together in Chinatown. Something happened there that makes them enemies, but the movie never says. Director Roman Polanski has a small role as a thug that cuts Gittes' nose when he gets too close to a lead; another subtle touch that makes this film great, Jake walking around with a huge bandage on his nose for most of the film.

            The screenplay by Robert Towne is a deceiving one that takes many turns along the way. At each act break there is a new revelation, and what you thought the movie was "about" keeps changing and changing. By the thirty minute mark, what would be the big reveal in most films of this nature is already revealed, so one is left wondering what it’s all about. Once you know and realize what Chinatown is actually about, you will see why they had to sneak up on the subject; it is one of the most depraved and immoral stories ever passed off in a mainstream hollywood movie. Jake Gittes himself is a dead ringer for Sam Spade of The Maltese Falcon, but like I said with a lot more sensitivity and compassion for his clients. He believes in his job and thinks he makes an honest living, but if someone disagrees with him he just might punch him in the face.

            Roman Polanski is one of the most mysterious and misunderstood directors who has ever worked. Because of the subjects of many of his movies, he has been accused of being many things: Satanist, philanderer, lout, and much worse. It is a mystery of why people get so involved in the personal lives of some directors, or why his work as an artist would have anything to do with his personal life. To me, it's the equivalent of calling Alfred Hitchcock fat or saying Woody Allen has a strange married life (for more on Polanski's personal life check out the documentary Wanted and Desired from 2005). As a director, he is interested in subjects that most people would stay away from. Though he has had some commercial forays into movies (The Pianist, Chinatown) he was always uncompromising and always got his point across. He began in the 1960's with disturbing tales on repressed sexuality (Repulsion), psychotic human break downs in remote locations (Cul De Sac), demonic cults that live next door (Rosemary's Baby), and purposed masculinity complexes (Knife in the Water). Thorough his later years he still had the uncanny ability to balance subjects that no one else would touch on albeit in accessible ways (Tess, Macbeth, Frantic, The Tenant). His most recent films of the 2010's The Ghost Writer and Carnage still have the ability to move minds and destroy facades showing the evil and twisted purposes underneath. If his movies have an underlying theme, it is "your paranoid suspicions were correct."

            The turning point in Chinatown comes when Gittes talks with Cross about "the girl" in question. Who is this girl? Why does everyone want to know who she is and why do some already know? Well, even when the film is over, it is not the end of the intrigue. The movie's title comes from the fact that in Chinatown circa 1930, you don't always know what is going on. That is part of the ongoing mystery, and yes the movie is slow paced AND very dire, but it is not at all boring and remains entertain after ten plus viewings. I can't stress enough what a marvelous piece of work this is. Something about Chinatown is remarkably human. A deep dark mystery staked upon another and another and another. All I can say about the ending is, it fits the story: Brutal, touching, and unforgettable.