Chinatown

By 1974 Film Noir was basically a dead genre, a relic of the 1940’s when actors like Humphrey Bogart, George Raft and James Cagney dominated the box office with some of the best films of all time. Then something happened in the early 70’s to revitalize the tired old genre and help usher in a pseudo genre referred to as neo-noir but was really just a more modern version of a very retro style of film. Roman Polanski, who was making foreign films at the time and working through his own emotional fragility with the recent murder of his wife Sharon Tate at the hands of the Manson Family, needed a hit to pull him out of his emotional turmoil and bring him back to the states. Robert Towne envisioned a trilogy of films that would chronicle the history of Los Angelos through the elements, the first being water and land, then land and mineral rights,  and finally air. He dug his heels in and did a lot of research into real world shady dealings that changed the whole landscape of early LA into what it would ultimately become. Those dealings were then fictionalized and make up much of the rich tapestry and solid writing of a screenplay that ultimately confused people with its complexity. Director John Huston, acclaimed noir director and who plays a key role in this film, famously rejected directing it because he couldn’t understand the script. Polanski accepted the role but sent Towne back to the drawing board to fix many of the issues that made the script unwieldy. Ultimately what ended up on the screen was a hybrid of Towne’s script and ideas Polanski himself insisted needed to be added to better cement the film’s themes. This includes the final scene along with the film’s most iconic closing line: “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”

The film, itself, is sometimes criticized for not spelling out all of the mysteries in its plot. In fact this is one of the film’s biggest strengths. This is a mystery film but there is never a scene like you would find in an Agatha Christie novel where the detective gathers all the suspects into one room and walks them through the brilliantly deducted solution, pointing out everything they figured out step by step. In Chinatown Jake Gittes figures things out a little at a time and never feels the need to spell out what he has learned. We either pick it up as he does or we lose the narrative and fall behind. At least with home video there is the option to back the video up and rewatch it should you miss something; audiences in theaters back in 1974 would have had to be rivited to the screen, hanging on every word to make sense of everything going on. It rewards repeat viewings.

The year is 1937. A woman named “Evelyn Mulwray” hired P.I. Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) to trail her husband Hollis (Darrell Zwerling) to get physical proof of his infidelities. Jake photographs Hollis in the company of a young woman and somehow those photographs end up on the front page of the Los Angeles Times with a story exposing their supposed “love nest.” Shortly afterwards Jake is confronted by the real Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), threatening to sue him over the photographs used to discredit her husband who is the chief engineer at the LA Department of Water and Power. When Hollis turns up dead at the LA reservoir, Evelyn drops the suit and hires Jake to investigate the death under the assumption that it was a homicide. 

His investigation leads him through a complex scheme involving intentional droughts forcing land owners to sell their properties to developers for a discounted price, water rights, fraud and murder. Jake slowly pieces things together as he grows closer to his client. He suspects that Hollis was murdered when he uncovered the shady real estate dealings and this suspicion is strengthened when Jake uncovers that some of the land was bought by a person who had died a week before making the purchase. This reveals that the land acquisitions are being hidden by utilizing the residents of a retirement home as the faces of the purchasers, without their knowledge. Adding to the mystery is a missing girl that Noah Cross (John Huston), Evelyn’s father, is looking for. Evelyn apparently knows where she is at and Jake follows her one night only to see her embracing the missing girl. Confronting her about it he discovers something even more horrific than real estate fraud and murder. 

The third act reveal came as a complete shock to audiences in 1974 and has become synonymous  with the film Chinatown. Like the big reveal in The Crying Game it became impossible not to have this twist spoiled before going in to see it. “Who is the girl,” Jake yells, slapping Evelyn when she doesn’t answer. “She’s my sister,” she finally responds. When he doesn’t accept that answer and slaps her again she changes it to: “She’s my daughter.” Both answers are true and that realization horrifies Jake. In that moment he understands exactly why her father is trying to find the little girl. “Did he rape you,” he asks and the answer he gets back is non-committal. When Jack Nicholson was doing the press junket for Chinatownone reporter did some digging and discovered that Jack Nicholson himself was lied to by his family over who his real mother was. The woman he grew up believing was his sister was actually his mother and this was kept from him to protect her. The woman he thought was his mother was actually his grandmother. This reporter sprang this information on Jack Nicholson during a press junket for Chinatown, a film dealing with incestuous relationships. Of course this revelation devastated Jack and left him disturbed and very upset. 

Of course it shouldn’t be ignored that the ending revelation is made all the more creepy and disturbing thanks to some real world events that happened around the same time. In 1977, three years after the release of this film, director Roman Polanski was arrested and charged with drugging and raping a 13 year old girl. The consensus is that he was guilty of the crime but fled the country when a plea deal he had agreed to was on the verge of being rejected by the judge. In the nearly fifty years since this incident his accuser has called for the case to be dropped so that everyone can get on with their lives but as of this writing that has not happened. Polanski remains in exile in France where at this late date it is likely he will live out the rest of his life. Knowing this now paints a new color on the relationship between Noah and his daughter. 

Chinatown doesn’t have a traditional ending. Even before Polanski tacked on his own addition to the finale it wasn’t meant to end happily. This is a nihilistic and depressing ending that flies in the face of the conventional noir film. When those films were en vogue the Hays Code didn’t allow movies to depict law enforcement officers in any way other than noble servants of the public. An ending like Chinatown has would not only have been not allowed, it would have never been written in the first place. By having it here in a noir film set during a time when entertainment would have forbidden it is not an accident. Polanski would have been well aware of the genre tropes of the time. There would not have been corrupt officials and the bad guy would not have gotten away unpunished. Having the film end with Evelyn shot dead and her daughter, born of incest, taken away by the very man who did it, is dark and disturbing. It leaves Jake unsettled as he has once again been unable to protect a woman in his life. But as his old partner on the force says, “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”

This is often cited as one of the greatest written screenplays of all time. Indeed, the only Oscar it won out of its eleven nominations was for the script. While I cannot say it’s amongst the best of the best it is very good. This is the type of film you can just listen to and get the gist of things. The dialogue tells you most of what you need to know and just listening to it will tell you that Robert Towne has an ear for the way people speak and what they say even when they aren’t spelling it out to you. This film doesn’t feel a need to hold your hand and spoon feed you like an infant. It will require you to pay attention and piece some things together yourself. But it isn’t excessively dense, either. There is no obfuscation for the sake of confusing viewers. The answers are there, you just have to put some of it together on your own. Jake doesn’t do anything over-the-top either. Most of his investigation amounts to going places and observing things. The film never wavers from his point of view so we’re never really ahead of him, either. We learn as he learns. This keeps us interested in the mystery, even during the slower moments. 

This is a well executed mystery with a twist that is nearly impossible to not know about going into it. I envy anyone who watched it not knowing that third act twist. It’s got the right atmosphere for a 1940’s film noir movie while still being modern, at the time, and not beholden to the restrictions of 1940’s films. The music by Jerry Goldsmith is spot on and moody, setting just the right tone for noir. Jack Nicholson should have won his Oscar here but that would end up coming to him the following year for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He’s better here, though, in a performance that is far more nuanced and down to earth. The Academy favored him in the flashier role the following year and he was finally able to take home his first Oscar. He was so enamoured with this role that he was the primary reason a sequel finally got made thirteen years later, complete with Robert Towne penning the new script. That movie had its own troubled production and has its fans but just doesn’t live up to the original. With Jack Nicholson retired from acting and Robert Towne no longer alive it seems unlikely the third part of the trilogy will ever be made. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Robert Evans

Best Director: Roman Polanski

Best Actor: Jack Nicholson

Best Actress: Faye Dunaway

Best Original Screenplay: Robert Towne (won)

Best Art Direction: Richard Sylbert, W. Stewart Campbell and Ruby R. Levitt

Best Cinematography: John A. Alonzo

Best Costume Design: Anthea Sylbert

Best Film Editing: Sam O’ Steen

Best Original Dramatic Score: Jerry Goldsmith

Best Sound: Charles Grenzbach and Larry Jost

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Release Date: June 20, 1974

Running Time: 131 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Hillerman, Perry Lopez, Burt Young and John Huston

Directed By: Roman Polanski