Chinatown (film)

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Chinatown
Directed by Roman Polański
Produced by Robert Evans
Written by Robert Towne
Starring Jack Nicholson
Faye Dunaway
John Huston
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) June 20, 1974 (U.S.A.)
Running time 131 min.
Language English
Budget $6,000,000 US (est.)
IMDb profile

Chinatown is a 1974 film directed by Roman Polanski featuring many elements of the film noir genre, particularly a multi-layered story that is part mystery and part psychological drama. The movie won several high-profile awards, including an Academy Award in 1975 for Best Writing and Original Screenplay for Robert Towne.

Chinatown stars Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and John Huston and also features a cameo appearance by its director, Roman Polański. The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. A sequel, called The Two Jakes, was released in 1990, starring Jack Nicholson (who also directed it), with a screenplay written by Robert Towne.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A Los Angeles private investigator named Jake 'J.J' Gittes (Nicholson) is hired to spy on Hollis Mulwray, the chief engineer for the city's water department. The woman hiring Gittes claims to be Evelyn Mulwray, Hollis' wife. Mr. Mulwray spends most of his time investigating dry river beds. Mr. Mulwray also has a heated argument with an elderly man. Gittes finally catches Mulwray during an outing with a young blonde and photographs the pair in a kiss, which becomes a scandal in the press. Clues suggest a scandal in the city government: Despite a serious drought and an expensive proposal to build a new dam, the Water and Power department is dumping fresh water into the ocean at night.

On a tip, Gittes seeks out Mr. Mulwray at a dam but finds the police there instead, investigating Hollis Mulwray's death from drowning. When the police speak to Mrs. Mulwray about the death, they assume she hired Gittes, which Gittes corroborates. She thanks him and hires him to investigate what happened to her husband.

Director Roman Polanski (armed with a knife) cameos as a gangster who slits Nicholson's nose.
Director Roman Polanski (armed with a knife) cameos as a gangster who slits Nicholson's nose.

Later that night, while breaking into the dam's secured area, Gittes is confronted by water department security and a thug, who slices part of his nose for being a "very nosy fella." Gittes receives a call from Ida Sessions, the woman who was hired to pretend to be Mrs. Mulwray, who suggests that Gittes look at the obituary column. At the water department, Gittes notices photographs of the elderly man Mulwray quarreled with a few days before his death, Noah Cross (Huston). Cross, who is Evelyn Mulwray's father, used to own the water department as Mulwray's business partner. Cross ended his association with the department when the partners sold it to the city.

Cross hires Gittes to find the blond girl Mulwray had been seeing, saying that she might know what happened to him. Acting on a hint from Sessions, Gittes begins to unravel an intricate water scandal. Cross and his partners have been forcing farmers out of their land so they can buy it cheap, after which a newly-built (and controversial) dam and water system would start redirecting much of L.A.'s water supply to that land, dramatically increasing its value. Since Cross wants no record of such transactions, he has partnered with a retirement home community in such a way that, unbeknownst to them, many of the eldest residents within (one of whom is mentioned in the obituary column) would legally own the land.

Gittes follows Evelyn to a middle-class house and sees Mulwray's girlfriend crying. Evelyn claims this is her sister, who was crying because she had just learned about Hollis' death. Later that night, Sessions is murdered. Escobar points out that the coroner's report proves that salt water was found in Mulwray's lungs even though the body was found in a freshwater reservoir.

"Just find the girl," Noah Cross tells Jake Gittes at their first meeting when he offers to hire Gittes.
"Just find the girl," Noah Cross tells Jake Gittes at their first meeting when he offers to hire Gittes.

Gittes returns to Evelyn's mansion, where he discovers a pair of eyeglasses in a saltwater pond. Gittes confronts Evelyn, who reveals that the blonde girl is both her sister and her daughter; Evelyn's father had raped her when she was 15 years old. Gittes then chooses to help Evelyn escape. Evelyn remembers that the eyeglasses could not have been her husband's because they are bifocals. Gittes arranges for the two women to flee to Mexico and instructs Evelyn to meet him at her butler's address in Chinatown. Evelyn leaves, and Cross arrives under the pretext that Gittes has found the girl, however, Gittes confronts Cross with the accusation of murder and the glasses. One of Cross's men takes away the eyeglasses that are the only physical evidence. Cross forces Gittes to take him to the girl. When Gittes arrives at Evelyn's hiding place in Chinatown, the police are already there.

When Cross approaches the girl, Evelyn pushes him back shoots him in the arm and starts her car. The police arrest Gittes, and as Evelyn drives away, they open fire and Evelyn is shot and killed. Cross clutches Evelyn's shrieking daughter as a devastated Gittes is comforted by his associates, one of them saying, "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

The plot is based in part on real events that formed the California Water Wars, in which William Mulholland acted on behalf of Los Angeles interests to secure water rights in the Owens Valley.

[edit] Background and analysis

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Chinatown was the first part of a planned trilogy written by Robert Towne about J.J. Gittes and L.A. The second part, The Two Jakes, about the natural gas business in Los Angeles in the 1940s, was directed by Nicholson and released in 1990. However, this film's commercial and critical failure scuttled plans to make Cloverleaf, a film about the development of the area's freeway system (this plot actually became the basis of the live action/animation film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? also set in the 1940s).

Because Chinatown was planned as the first film in a trilogy, Nicholson turned down all detective roles he was offered so that the only detective he played would be Jake Gittes.[citation needed] Gittes was named after Nicholson's friend, producer Harry Gittes. The original script was over 180 pages. Roman Polanski eliminated Gittes' voiceover narration, which was written in the script, and filmed the movie so the audience discovered the clues at the same time Gittes did.

The title Chinatown is both a reference to the setting of the film's tragic ending as well as a symbolic reference to the demons from the past that haunt the characters' lives. The idea of past events haunting and influencing characters' actions is a common thread throughout the film. Every major character in the film is troubled by inner demons that seem to have a profound influence on the present events that Gittes is investigating. Examples of these demons include the breakup of Noah Cross' partnership with Mr. Mulwray, Jake's inability to save a woman he cared for when he was a detective in Chinatown, and Evelyn's troubled personal history. The opening scenes set this theme with the minor character Curly shown devastated by the revelation that his wife is having an affair, and by Jake advising the Evelyn Mulwray imposter, who insists on finding out about her "husband's" infidelity, that it is better to "let sleeping dogs lie." The fact that Jake offers this advice is an example of dramatic irony since it is Jake's inability to "let sleeping dogs lie" that partially leads to the film's tragic ending. The theme of the haunting of characters' pasts is punctuated in the film's final line when Jake's partner Walsh advises Gittes to "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown," suggesting that Gittes will be haunted by the memories of this case and that it would be in his best interest to bury his past.

Robert Towne intended the screenplay to have a happy ending. He and Polanski argued over it, with Polanski insisting on a tragic end. Towne was originally offered $125,000 to write a screenplay for The Great Gatsby (1974), but felt he couldn't better the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel and accepted $25,000 to write his own story, Chinatown, instead.

The characters Hollis Mulwray and Noah Cross are both references to the chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, William Mulholland (1855-1935) — the name Hollis Mulwray is partially an anagram for Mulholland. The name Noah is a reference to a flood — to suggest the conflict between good and evil in Mulholland. Mulholland was the designer and engineer for the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which brought water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles. The dam Cross and the city want to build — and which Mulwray opposes for reasons of engineering and safety — is a direct reference to the St. Francis Dam, which catastrophically failed in 1928, killing more than 600 people and ending Mulholland's career.

This was the last movie Roman Polanski filmed in the US. Polanski was outraged when producer Robert Evans ordered the film lab to give Chinatown a reddish look. Polanski demanded that the film be corrected. Polanski has a cameo role, portraying the hood who slits Jake's nose.

Phillip Lambro was originally hired to write the film's music score, but it was rejected at the last minute by producer Robert Evans, leaving Jerry Goldsmith only 10 days to write and record a new one. The haunting trumpet solos are by the Hollywood studio musician Uan Rasey.

[edit] Selected quotations

"Are you alone?" "Isn't everyone?" Gittes' response to Ida Sessions' telephone query, deliberately underplayed as a throwaway line, captures the tragic essence of Chinatown.
"Are you alone?" "Isn't everyone?" Gittes' response to Ida Sessions' telephone query, deliberately underplayed as a throwaway line, captures the tragic essence of Chinatown.
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From the first meeting between Jake and Mrs. Mulwray:

Jake, to Mrs Mulwray: "There's no point in getting tough with me. I'm just..."
Mrs. Mulwray to Jake: "I don't 'get tough' with anyone Mr. Gittes; my lawyer does."

The coroner, talking to Jake about Hollis Mulwray's death:

"It's the middle of a drought and the water commissioner drowns...only in L.A.,"

Russ Yelburton, observing Jake's bandaged nose:

"You've got to be more careful: that must really hurt."
"Only when I breathe."

Noah Cross on "respectability":

"Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough."

After Gittes bluffs his way past a policeman:

"So, tell me Gittes, how'd you get past the guard?"
"Well, to tell ya the truth, I lied a little."

Mrs. Mulwray, conversing with Jake in the restaurant:

"Look, Hollis seems to think you're an innocent man."
"Well, I've been accused of many things Mrs. Mulwray, but never that."

Excerpt from a phone conversation:

"Hello, Miss Sessions. I don't believe we've had the pleasure."
"Oh, yes we have. Are you alone?"
"Isn't everyone?"

Loach (Escobar's assistant) and Gittes:

"What's the matter with your nose, Gittes? Someone slam a bedroom window on it?"
"Nope. Your wife got excited. She crossed her legs a little too quick. You understand what I mean, pal?"

Chinese gardener:

"Bad for glass." (This is mangled -- near the end of the film, Jake discovers he's really saying "Bad for grass".)

Final line:

"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

[edit] Awards

[edit] Academy Awards - 1975

Wins:

Nominations:

[edit] Golden Globes - 1975

Wins:

Nominations

[edit] Other Awards

[edit] Bibliography

  • Easton, Michael (1998) Chinatown (B.F.I. Film Classics series). Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 0-85170-532-4.
  • Towne, Robert (1997). Chinatown and the Last Detail: 2 Screenplays. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-3401-7.
  • Tuska, Jon (1978). The Detective in Hollywood. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company. ISBN 0-385-12093-1.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:


Preceded by
The Exorcist		 Golden Globe for Best Picture - Drama
1975		 Succeeded by
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest


Films directed by Roman Polanski
Rower • Uśmiech zębiczny • Rozbijemy zabawę • Morderstwo • Dwaj ludzie z szafą • Lampa • Gdy spadają anioly (When Angels Fall) • Le Gros et le maigre • Ssaki • Nóż w wodzie • Les Plus belles escroqueries du monde • Repulsion • Cul-de-Sac • The Fearless Vampire Killers • Rosemary's Baby • Macbeth • What? • Chinatown • The Tenant • Tess • Pirates • Frantic • Bitter Moon • Death and the Maiden • The Ninth Gate • The Pianist • Oliver Twist • To each his cinema • Pompeii
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