| Overall Grade: |
A+ |
|
| Story: |
A+ |
|
|
| Acting: |
A+ |
|
|
| Direction: |
A+ |
|
|
| Visuals: |
A+ |
|
|
As perfect as a film can get.
by Yahoo! Movies User (movies profile)
May 27, 2007
6
of
7 people found this review helpful
Roman Polanski's "Chinatown" (1974) integrates moral despair with classic, and bankable, Hollywood elements--an atmospheric setting, a likable hero, a lady in distress, romance, suspense, and direct narrative and cinematic allusions to the Raymond Chandler crime movies of the forties. Though the film is set in Los Angeles of the thirties, the conspiracy it details is based on an actual fraud of 1905, in which wealthy Southern California businessmen and politicians staged a "drought" in order to ensure the public's acceptance of a controversial piece of water legislation, one that would help expand the city of Los Angeles and line their own pockets.
Robert Towne's Oscar-winning script is the story of private investigator. J. J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson), who is first used by the conspiracy in an effort to discredit an honest water commissioner. Gittes specializes in matrimonial work--spying and reporting on errant spouses--but his investigation will uncover a family sexual secret that surely tops his usual profession.
When the subject of Gittes' surveillance is killed, Gittes is confronted by his beautiful widow (Faye Dunaway), who, in the best Chandler tradition, is a poor liar. Gittes is a self-serving, narcissistic man, but he had at some date been expelled from the detective ranks of the police force, and he bears a particular dislike for bureaucratic functionaries. Naturally, he is intrigued by Mrs. Mulray (Dunaway), who first threatens to sue him and then promptly asks him to drop the investigation. Gittes' strength is also his weakness; his humane qualities--his independence and open mindedness--allow him to see what others do not, and ultimately his emotional attachment to Mrs. Mulray will serve to discredit his skillfully collected evidence.
Ironically, at one point the police threaten to arrest him on a charge of conspiracy. By the time he has gotten the goods on the man behind the plot, Noah Cross (John Huston), Gittes has so antagonized the police that they pointedly dismiss him as a hindrance.
"Chinatown" is an engrossing, fast paced film that is both a parody and a revival of the old Hollywood detective genre. It is also a complex picture. Anyone who leaves his seat, even for an instant, risks missing a new turn in the twisting story. As the complex plot unravels, we discover more and more about what is actually happening or what is apparently happening. Nothing is what it seems, which is, as we will learn, the reason for the film's name. Chinatown is the district where Jake Gittes started his career as a cop. It is a section of Los Angeles where bizarre things happen regularly. Cops who want to survive in this world learn that if in doubt, it is best to back off and do nothing. Throughout the film, "Chinatown" represents not only an ethnic zone which defies police penetration, but a state of mind; Chinatown is where Gittes arranges for Mrs. Mulray to go to evade her father and the police; it is a place of compromised strength where emotion conquers professional coolness and it is the place where Gittes mistakes ideals for possibilities.
As in the metaphor of "Jaws" (1975), "Chinatown" activates man's primal relationship with water as a weakness. In "Chinatown", water is used for recreation; it is also a weapon (The Water Commissioner is drowned in a pond, Gittes is almost swept under in a drainage gulley); but in the film's strongest indictment of capitalism, water--a primary element of nature--becomes a viable currency, to be hoarded, diverted and controlled for private interest. "Chinatown" uncovers a conspiracy where the public is least likely to suspect it, in an element that is both familiar and benign.
Much of the film's success is due to Robert Towne's screenplay. Originally, he wrote the script like a standard detective movie that he planned to direct himself. Then he saw some photographs of Los Angeles circa 1930 and became fascinated with the old-time looks of the city. At the same time, he did some research into L.A.'s early years and found that some municipal fathers had enriched themselves by acquiring land that was the source of the city's water supply. So "Chinatown" becomes a fictionalized account of corruption and greed in the Los Angeles of pre-World War II days. Interwoven with this story are two puzzles--the water-supply mystery and a family mystery.
A tremendous asset for the film is the haunting, romantic score by the great Jerry Goldsmith, one of the most influential film scores ever written. It's hard to imagine that Goldsmith actually composed this score in ten days. Producer Robert Evans was so dissatisfied with the film's original composer Phillip Lambro's score that he scrapped it and hired Goldsmith to write a new one on the eve of the film's scheduled release. In my opinion, this was Goldsmith's finest score in a stunning career that spanned six decades. [filmfactsman] |
My Public Profile 
