Chinatown (1974) Film Review

Chinatown (1974) Director: Roman Polanski

“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”

★★★★★

In the great American tradition of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown takes us back to the hazy Los Angeles noir murder mysteries of yesteryear. It was released during the brief but extraordinary era of Robert Evans productions at Paramount, which also saw the release of other classic movies like The Godfather. Written by Robert Towne, Chinatown has often been called the greatest screenplay ever written. Towne later said it was inspired by a chapter in Carey McWilliams’ Southern California Country: An Island on the Land (1946) and a West magazine article on Raymond Chandler’s portrayal of Los Angeles. Perhaps the film represents, to some extent, Roman Polanski’s own personal reflections on the decay and decline of our civilization; notably, this was the first Hollywood film he made after the dark and tragic event that rocked his life five years prior when his 8 months pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was savagely murdered by the minions of Charles Manson. Three years later, Polanski himself would be charged with drugging and raping a minor leading him to flee the country where he remains to this day. Chinatown is a tragic movie about the inevitable triumph of evil. It suggests a hopeless futility to people’s good intentions; it bids farewell to a forgotten America prior to Watergate, Vietnam, the Sexual Revolution and myriad other cultural upheavals. A sequel to Chinatown called The Two Jakes was produced in 1990 directed by and starring Jack Nicholson but it failed to garner critical acclaim.

In Chinatown we are brought back to Los Angeles during the drought-ridden 1930s. The plot is based on the real water wars that pitted Los Angeles against the inland farmers, and which have persisted for more than a century. Jack Nicholson plays J. J. “Jake” Gittes, a sardonic private-eye who appears in every single scene of the movie. An unexpected request is brought to him by a woman claiming to be “Evelyn Mulwray.” She asks Gittes to tail her husband whom she suspects of being unfaithful. Her husband is Hollis Mulwray, the chief engineer at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. At the beginning of the film, we find Gittes attempting to persuade Mrs. Mulwray not to dig into her husband’s prospective affair –“it is better to let sleeping dogs lie.” He prefers to allow for the innocence of un-truth in a wholly corrupt world. Why dig up the truth after all? Nevertheless, Gittes is still forced into the muck. Gittes tails Mulwray and takes photos of him with another woman, and the photos are then featured on the front page of the newspaper the following morning. In response, Gittes is confronted by the real Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) and her lawyer serves him with legal documents. Gittes soon realizes that he has been set-up but before he can interrogate Hollis Mulwray, the lifeless corpse of Mr. Mulwray is fished out of the reservoir –Hollis Mulwray has been murdered! Gittes continues to investigate but he is attacked by a group of henchmen who warn him to stay away, this despite the fact that water is being recklessly dumped during a drought. Gittes’ nose is sliced by one of the henchmen, none other than Roman Polanski.

Gittes then visits Mrs. Mulwray’s father, Noah Cross (played by famed Hollywood director John Huston, author of the original screenplay for 1941’s The Maltese Falcon, whose daughter Anjelica Huston Polanski reportedly considered for the role of Mrs. Mulwray). He was once a business partner in league with the late Mr. Mulwray –that is, until Mr. Mulwray discovered a covert scheme to control the water supply in the Central Valley. Gittes surmises the whole plan: to parch the land in the Valley in order to reduce its price for purchase. After Mulwray has been found murdered, the land would then be purchased in a few secret deals at the behest of a group of elderly, senile people in a retirement home. When he pieces this whole plot together, Gittes is led on a wild ride of twists and suspicions, many of which point back to Mrs. Mulwray –is she trustworthy? Amidst her shadowy relationship with her father, we learn that he has repeatedly assaulted her and their unholy union has produced a “Daughter! –Sister! –Daughter!” Her name is Katherine, the woman who initially posed as Mrs. Mulwray. The ending sees Gittes return to Chinatown as he tails the Mulwrays, but he is arrested by the police, only for a shootout to occur between Mrs. Mulwray and her father wherein Mrs. Mulwray is killed. We end with the vanity of Gittes as he chooses to become his own hero, only to be swallowed up by the world of evil anyway. Chinatown ends on a pessimistic note which contemplates the audience’s frivolous faith in heroism. In the old days when Gittes worked the beat in Chinatown, he learned to do as little as possible, primarily by avoiding controversy and conflict, thereby saving his own skin. And this was more or less his advice at the beginning of the film –“it is better to let sleeping dogs lie.” Ignorance is preferable to the truth. At one point in the old days he tried to help a woman but she got “hurt,” and now (at the end of the film) this same bleak cycle has repeated itself in Chinatown. The savior complex in Gittes is futile. How should we address a society replete with widespread corruption? Ignore it? Act like a hero? Participate in it? Or just get by with the bare minimum? What is a police officer or investigator to do in a world of universal moral apathy? In the end, Gittes learns we are powerless to stop it -“forget it Jake it’s Chinatown.”

The ending of the film, originally crafted by Robert Towne, was intended to be a happy and redemptive one, but Roman Polanski refused to shoot it, so Polanski and Jack Nicholson wrote a new ending that is featured in the final version of the film.

Credits:

• Director: Roman Polanski
• Written by: Robert Towne
• Produced by: Robert Evans
• Starring:
  • Jack Nicholson…..J. J. “Jake” Gittes
  • Faye Dunaway…..Evelyn Cross-Mulwray
  • John Hillerman…..Russ Y
  • Perry Lopez…..Lieutenant Lou Escobar
  • Burt Young…..Curly
  • John Huston…..Noah Cross
• Cinematography: John A. Alonzo
• Edited by: Sam O’Steen
• Music by: Jerry Goldsmith
• Production Companies: Long Road Productions, Robert Evans Company
• Distribution Company: Paramount Pictures

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