I’ve seen it more times than you can imagine, or I can remember. Don’t keep me in suspense–who hired the phony Mrs. Mulwray?
It’s ambiguous. Either Evelyn or Noah. It isn’t clear.
And you’re sure it’s one of them or the other? What’s Evelyn’s motive? Remember, the phony Mrs. Mulwray was hired before Hollis got killed. What’s Noah’s motive?
Just thought I’d bump this a bit. Enquiring minds really want to know someone’s theory on this…
All in all, it seems the movie is simply full of plot holes.
As noirs by their murky nature are–but **The Second Stone **seemed to imply that he understood what Noah’s or Evelyn’s motive might be, which seems mysterious to me, especially since he so confidentally pins Mrs. Mulwray on one of them.
Such as The Big Sleep, where they actually had to contact Raymond Chandler, author of the book, to ask him who actually murdered one of the victims, and even he did not know!
There could be multiple motives: To keep track of Hollis to find out how much he knew about the land scheme by Noah. Evelyn to find him cheating. I don’t think anyone else has a motive. I lean toward Noah.
Darn, and I thought I was insightful for once.
But you got it independently of everyone else, so you are insightful. I noticed it in the first long speech he gave, and then I read it in reviews afterwards. (I’ll see Daniel Day-Lewis movies with no reviews first. And James Bond.)
Also you boosted sales of the DVD. I just bought it to look for this role.
I own a first draft copy of Towne’s script (Polanski rewrote it extensively, trimming out many subplots, to Towne’s dismay and anger), and it is a bit different than the final film. One question it answers is in regard to the hiring of Ida Sessions to portray Evelyn Mulwray. This was engineered by Cross (here named Julian instead of Noah). The reasoning behind this is still murky to me although I just re-read the script a few hours ago. This info is imparted to Gittes by Byron Samples, Ida’s boyfriend, and a co-worker of Hollis Mulwray. Cross then murdered Ida and threatened Byron to keep him silent. The murder of Mulwray by Julian Cross involved the water rights and so forth and not any knowledge he had of Cross’ paternity of Evelyn’s daughter.
Escobar (here named Andy instead of Lou) was an integral character in the entire storyline. As a teenager he worked in the fields for Cross and knew Evelyn well. In fact, Gittes suspects him of having an affair with Evelyn, and the reader is given red herring clues that all but say that Andy is the father of Evelyn’s daughter (originally named Maria, not Christina). Gittes finds out that Julian is Maria’s dad in a taut suspenseful (NOT) scene wherein. . . Andy tells him. So no slap, slap scene in this first pass.
Gittes tells Evelyn exactly what happened in Chinatown after they first sleep together (I can’t recall if he spells it out in the film). Duffy and Walsh wind up selling Gittes out to Cross’ thugs (after their families are threatened) and the climax of the film has Evelyn stalking Julian Cross on the beach and across farm fields with a pistol as Gittes and Escobar try to stop her. She winds up killing Cross.
The screenplay ends with Gittes standing on Mulwray Drive (a stand-in for Mulholland, in case there are posters who don’t know the real characters that sorta inspired the film), looking down into the lush valley, explaining in voice over that Evelyn served four years for killing Cross, then she and Maria left and he hasn’t seen them since. As the voice over carries, slow camera dissolves show the evolution of the valley until it is the recognizable present (1973).
Nothing to help answer the questions raised in this thread, but I thought there might be a few of you interested in knowing some of the evolution of the film.
Sir Rhosis
I may not fully understand the plot (though many thanks to posters here 
), but I still think it’s a great film.
I have a similar state of mild confusion / great admiration for:
2001 - A Space Odyssey
The Usual Suspects
Donnie Darko
How can I get my mitts on this document? Love to read it.
As to glee’s post, what part of 2001 do you find puzzling?
2001? I sort of confused about everything between the part with the PanAm space shuttle until the part about what is inside the obelisk.