(Obligatory links to Psycho from week 18 and week 1 for new people)
Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and even Roman Polanski as “Man With Knife” (when Roman Polanski took JJ Gittes’ nose-cherry, a little piece of me died inside). It raises a question, of course- how can a man like Polanski create an epic noir thriller like Chinatown considering that a mere seven years prior his tour de farce was Fearless Vampire Killers or: Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck? I admit that I was a little crestfallen when I saw that the latter but not later work was not on the AFI’s list. Truly, truly crestfallen.
Were it not for The Godfather, Part II, I’m certain this movie would have taken home more than one measly Academy Award. As it is, though, I still consider it a great example of the noir genre, although not as enjoyable as The Maltese Falcon. Maybe I’m just bogarting the Bogart, but Nicholson doesn’t seem to convey the je ne se quois of a private dick.
That is, Nicholson didn’t seem to convince me that he was trying to unravel a mystery, in that in his other memorable roles, he’s more of a mastermind, more in control of events around him. Perhaps I should rephrase that, and say “in the last three Nicholson movies I’ve seen” - those being Batman, The Shining, and A Few Good Men. He just doesn’t convince me that he’s not fully aware of what’s going on.
This is actually more of an anti-noir noir. IT follows the classic noir formula in the sense that our protagonist is thrown into a maze that he must extricate himself from. But unlike Nicholson’s character actually loses more control the more he uncovers until ultimately he ends up where he is useless and that which he was supposed to protect is dead…Chinatown. It is a masterful screenplay by Robert Towne and Roman Polanski (yes, he deserves a co-writing credit). John Huston is such a pure representation of evil like none other in film. The thematic parallel s ogf the rape of the land and the rape of the woman are beauttifully interwoven.
Just an amazing movie, the signature scene with Nicholsan and Dunaway (slapping her…my sister…my daughter) is just an amazing piece of drama, so beautifully paced and acted and so spot on.
Yeah, a top five- or ten film for me. Love the believability of the story, the photography and lighting, the seamless attention to period detail, and the central performances.
Actually, what sells Nicholson’s performance for me is that he plays Gittes as a bounder and a bit of a buffoon, an unsavory window-peeper barely tolerated by his former buddies in the police force, and initially far more interested in the color of Evelyn Mulwray’s money than the color of her eyes or, more to the point, any troubles she may have. Gittes, like one of Chandler or Hammett’s dicks, may in fact have a personal code of ethics, but it has been so deeply buried that it doesn’t even begin show until late in the film, and then only because he’s fallen for Evelyn. I find it hard to believe he would have gotten himself too worked up over the investigation if anyone else had come to him about it. More likely, he would have just played the client along, dragging his feet and running up his expenses as best he could, and dropping the whole thing as soon as it became too complicated to deal with.
On another note, a little detail that I just realized (tho’ I doubt I’m the first to do so): thinking over the whole scene with Polanski and the knife, it almost seems like he was channeling Elisha Cook, Jr. coming back from the grave to take revenge for all that abuse dished out on his character in The Maltese Falcon.
Lastly, I weep for the horribly blown opportunity of Nicholson’s attempted sequel, The Two Jakes.
Gotta back up Tretiak and El_Kabong. While this film emulates the hard-boiled school of writing championed by Chandler and Hammett, JJ is a far seedier, more amoral character. As soon as he begins to flash the traditional “personal code of ethics” that’s so important to this type of story, he loses everything. What a brilliant twist.
By the way, the ordering of this film in the AFI top 100 really, really ticks me off, because in a mere four weeks we will not only be looking at a better film, but the very film which made this one possible. That would be John Huston’s own The Maltese Falcon.
Chinatown wouldn’t be what it is without constant reference to the genre it recreates, and without specific reference to Falcon in the form of John Huston and (I must agree with El_Kabong) to Polanski’s version of Wilmer Cook.
No evidence, but I think this is one more example of the “because it’s newer and in color” deference that the AFI appears to have woven into its list. On the bright side, the older films that sit high on their list are truly some of the finest ever made.
Agreed…Chinatown ranks as one of my favorite movies. As El Kabong brilliantly put it, Nicholson gave the character some real humanistic qualities and made him almost the consumate real life detective. All business typically, doing jobs the cops would not touch. Giddes reminds me of Stuart M Kaminsky’s Toby Peters and thats why I seem to like him so much.
Plus I cannot stress the period and setting as a strong force behind the movie as well. The wealth and prospertity of Los Angeles at the time Chinatown was staged give it almost a Camelot like quality except Camelot has a lot of shady goings on to preserve its look.
Thats why I enjoyed LA Confidential so much as it worked in the same quality as Chinatown.
Plus there is no denying the chemistry between Dunaway and Nicholson. From the first meeting, though the talk is short and clipped, the way the characters work together REALLY seals the deal for me as ‘there is more here than a detective talking to a suspect’. Absolutely masterful
Oh, where to begin? This, too, is one of my all-time favorites. I like it almost as much as The Maltese Falcoln.
Even though it’s derivative, it’s one of the best written films ever made. Robert Towne really deserved his Oscar. Consider this line delivered by Jake to Evelyn:
Look. You sue me. Your husband dies. You drop the lawsuit like a hot potato. All of it quicker than the wind from a duck’s ass.
Or these, both delivered during the same scene:
Cross: I hope you don’t mind. I believe they [fish] should be served with the head.
Gittes: Fine. As long as you don’t serve the chicken that way.
And later:
Cross: 'Course I’m respectable. I’m old. Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.
One of my favorite touches occurs in a scene when Evelyn and Jake are talking in her Packard about the mysterious girl Hollis was photographed with. Exhausted, Evelyn slumps over and hits the horn button on the steering wheel with her forehead, causing the horn to honk.
Then, at the end of the film, as Evelyn is speeding away after shooting Noah Cross, Escobar’s partner fires shots at the car. The car slows to a stop in the distance with the horn blaring, and you know Evelyn is slumped over the wheel dead. That’s brilliant direction!
And let’s not forget Jerry Goldsmith’s score. I’m hard pressed to think of another that sets the mood so perfectly right from the start.
I’ll have to disagree here. I thought Faye Dunaway was stoned through the entire movie. It looked to me as though Nicholson was acting opposite a cardboard cutout. Maybe she was trying too hard to portray some hooded-eyed temptress, but it didn’t work for me.
Having said that, I too thought the film overall was brilliant.
Kamandi, I think Evelyn Mulray is both emotionally numb and fighting for self-control through the whole movie. We don’t really see her show her true emotions until the “my sister/my daughter” scene where the confession is beaten out of her. From there on out, she’s lost her reserve and is an emotional wreck.
The ending of this film is unremittingly unhappy – Evelyn is dead, her sister-daughter is in the custody of her evil, child-raping dad-granddad (wonderfully played by John Huston, who is chilling and remorseless)…great, absorbing film.
I understand that’s what she was trying to portray, it just didn’t work for me. I didn’t believe her. Especially in the “my sister/my daughter” scene. I thought it was dumb. I was able to become immersed in every other character, but every time Evelyn Mulray was on screen I said to myself “hey, it’s Faye Dunaway. What’s she doing there?” It was like watching Steven Seagal act.
I’m trying hard not to bash the film, because I think it’s otherwise superb. It’s one of my favorites. Jake Gittes getting his nostril slashed makes me cringe every time - not because it’s especially gory, but because it is a superbly well-done scene. I agree that John Huston is masterfully evil. The lighting and cinematography throughout is fantastic.
You definitely need to see more of his films from the 70s, since Nicholson’s flawed protagonist not completely in control of his surroundings is wholly consistent with his great performances in Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens, The Passenger and others far superior to the films you cited.
And you need to see some real noirs from the 40s. Most purists don’t count Bogart private dick films (Maltese, Big Sleep) as pure noirs, though they are great films. Noirs weren’t named such simply because of the stark lighting schemes; they were so named because most of them end quite badly for the protagonist, with mortality rates much higher than Chinatown–at least Gittes lives! Check out the films of Robert Siodmak in particular, though Raoul Walsh, Fritz Lang (American phase, naturally), and Phil Karlson also deliver the goods (not to mention classics like Double Indemnity or Out of the Past).
I personally love Chinatown and think it one of the great American films. I’ll take Huston’s performance here over any of the films he directed, the violent scenes are few but memorably brutal, and Gittes is one of the most believable gumshoes on record (smart and cocky, but not smart enough to avoid getting in way over his head). One small detail: when Nicholson flips through a wallet, we see a brief glimpse of a $2 bill, ubiquitous for the period. Now that’s attention to detail! And even though it got only one Oscar, it went to the most deserving, Towne.
And you need to see some real noirs from the 40s. Most purists don’t count Bogart private dick films (Maltese, Big Sleep) as pure noirs, though they are great films. Noirs weren’t named such simply because of the stark lighting schemes; they were so named because most of them end quite badly for the protagonist, with mortality rates much higher than Chinatown–at least Gittes lives! Check out the films of Robert Siodmak in particular, though Raoul Walsh, Fritz Lang (American phase, naturally), and Phil Karlson also deliver the goods (not to mention classics like Double Indemnity or Out of the Past).
You are right, I screwed that up. What I was thinking was Chinatown is an anti-detective genre like The Big Sleep, becasue of the way the protagonists makes things worse, gets more entangles, neds up “losing” in the end, etc. The classic detective movie is a detective who basically unravels a puzzle, being smarter (in a street sense) and more moral than those around him. Jake Gittes MAY be more moral, but he is definitely revealed to be more and more naive the more he uncovers.
I have seen the two classic noirs you mentioned, BTW.
Yeah, that definitely makes more sense. Most of the 40s noir protagonists were losers, loners, crooks or everyday Joes, not people you’d expect to have the answers like the detectives. Though certainly not the film to do so, Chinatown still does a great job of having us expect a reasonably clever and charismatic “hero” to solve the case–which he does, but at quite a cost.
I’m glad you’ve seen those two essentials (I figured you probably had); some of my other favorites are Scarlet Street, Force of Evil, The Big Combo and Criss Cross–all incredibly dark and pessimistic, but undeniably brilliant.
One of my favorite touches occurs in a scene when Evelyn and Jake are talking in her Packard about the mysterious girl Hollis was photographed with. Exhausted, Evelyn slumps over and hits the horn button on the steering wheel with her forehead, causing the horn to honk.
Then, at the end of the film, as Evelyn is speeding away after shooting Noah Cross, Escobar’s partner fires shots at the car. The car slows to a stop in the distance with the horn blaring, and you know Evelyn is slumped over the wheel dead. That’s brilliant direction!
And let’s not forget Jerry Goldsmith’s score. I’m hard pressed to think of another that sets the mood so perfectly right from the start. **
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Yes, labdad! I didn’t catch that until third viewing (and I never watch a movie 3x, except for this one. I also like your quotes; one of my favorites was when Huston’s character says “…given the right time and place, we are capable of doing anything; it’s just that most of us are lucky enough not to have to find that out.” And yes, the score gives the movie a great atmosphere.
J.J. Gittes, when visiting the orange grove, has his car disabled. Evelyn Mulray then pilots him in her car to the Mar Vista retirement home. Thereafter they go back to her place. After she receives a phone call, Mrs. Mulray departs after pleading that Jake stay behind. Jake, while she is in the shower, kicks out one of the tail lights of her car. In this scene a second car is shown next to hers. He then follows her in said car. Where does this vehicle come from? The damage to Jake’s car at the orange grove would have disabled it for at least a day. Further, Mrs. Mulray rescues him at the orange grove in the evening and the subsequent action (the fight with Mulvehill) is driven (sorry for the pun) by her vehicle. Where does this second car come from? Gittes then uses this same vehicle the following morning to drive to Ida Sessions’ home. Perhaps I’m missing something. Can someone clue me in?
I saw the thread title and thought, “There’s an SDMB Movie Club?” Then I clicked on it and saw it was from 2001.
I’ll leave the zombie movie jokes to others.
