Hmm. I think Coppola’s “clucking” as opposed to Polanski’s demonizing makes Godfather a more ambiguous movie, and Chinatown a shallower one.
And I can still see “the education of Jake Gittes” as simply out-noiring noir; the exaggeration seems entirely an exaggeration of noir and not of life. It’s hard for me to see Chinatown as anything but an unquestionably brilliant postmodern bauble.
What does the little Hassidim have to do with Chinatown?
Highligh it!
Possibly stupid question time: why was the movie called “Chinatown” anyway? I haven’t seen it in years, but I recall at the time wondering why the hell it was titled something that had, IIRC, nothing to do with the plot and was only mentioned a couple of times.
Possibly stupid question time: why was the movie called “Chinatown” anyway? I haven’t seen it in years, but I recall at the time wondering why the hell it was titled something that had, IIRC, nothing to do with the plot and was only mentioned a couple of times.
That’s odd. As I recall it, they used the phrase “It’s Chinatown” so much that it began driving me slightly mad.
“Forget it, Jake; It’s Chinatown.”
“Well, that’s what happens… in Chinatown.”
“I’m going to get some bubblegum… in Chinatown.”
I think Chinatown is used as a symbol for helplessness.
Jake and Escobar used to be on the police force together in Chinatown, where Jake did “as little as possible.” The implication seems to be that no matter how hard you tried to make a difference in Chinatown, you couldn’t, and thus were reduced to doing as little as possible.
Until Jake got involved in the Mulwray case, he also seemed to be doing as little as possible, making a decent living as a marital affairs private investigator. He then gets involved up to his teeth, and despite his best efforts, he can’t make any difference.
It’s telling that the film ends in Chinatown, and Jake’s last line is “as little as possible,” muttered under his breath. And, of course, the last line in the film is: “Forget it, Jake; it’s Chinatown.”
My .02
lissener!
I wasn’t ignoring your last emails, but they were bounced back to me, saying your account was over quota.
Labdad is right.
I studied this script and film in a screenwriting class. There are so many layers to the story I don’t even know where to begin.
Notice how even though he knows Dunaway is dead (etc, etc) he just walks away…you can’t do anything now, it’s just like Chinatown…
Read the script. It’s easier to follow than the movie version. ( I don’t know why)
CAn we venture as far as to say that it is superior to “The Big Sleep,” kittykat?
lissener: the ambiguity of secretly admiring the gangster while ostensibly condemning him is hardly original with the Godfather, though. It’s pretty much a standard part of the gangster formula since the Warner Brothers days.
“The Wasps” was pretty much on the same theme. In fact, Aristophanes would baisically choose whatever axe he had to grind at the time and give it his trademark polish.
Oh - different Birds! Sorry.
Hey you! Stop that gyring and gimbling in my thread!
It’s not brillig yet!
The “Forget it, Jake, It’s Chinatown” line suggests a metaphor for a world of nebulous morality, a gray zone, as it were , where the innocent ( like Evelyn and her daughter) are victimized and the evil ( like Noah Cross) flourish. Such an existential statement is hardly surprising coming from someone like Polanski who lived through the Holocaust ( his mother died in the camps) and whose wife and child suffered gruesome deaths at the hands of Manson and his crew.
I believe the script is used in film schools as the ideal way to write a screenplay.
Nitpick: Not the hands of Manson. Manson ordered the occupants of the house to be killed, but was not there himself.
I first rented Chinatown, thinking it was Big Trouble in Little China. …that was a mistake
Great movie, no doubt. But he is still a predatory pedophile. The girl was 13 and he drugged her first. No excuse for that.
And Always Remember…
Salt Water, Bad for Glass…
How does this have any bearing on his merits as an artist, or the merits of his work?