neo-noir
Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United Statesroughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'', translates literally to English as "black film", indicating ...
mystery
Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters
*Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange''
Films
* ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film
* ''Mystery'' ( ...
film directed by
Roman Polanski
Raymond Roman Thierry Polański , group=lower-alpha, name=note_a ( né Liebling; 18 August 1933) is a French-Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, tw ...
from a screenplay by
Robert Towne
Robert Towne (born Robert Bertram Schwartz;'' Easy Riders, Raging Bulls'' by Peter Biskind page 30, 1999 Bloomsbury edition November 23, 1934) is an American screenwriter, producer, director and actor. He started with writing films for Roger ...
, starring
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. In many of his films, he played rebels against the social structure. He received numerous ...
and
Faye Dunaway
Dorothy Faye Dunaway (born January 14, 1941) is an American actress. She is the recipient of many accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a BAFTA Award. In 2011, the government of France mad ...
. The film was inspired by the California water wars, a series of disputes over southern California water at the beginning of the 20th century, by which Los Angeles interests secured water rights in the
Owens Valley
Owens Valley ( Numic: ''Payahǖǖnadǖ'', meaning "place of flowing water") is an arid valley of the Owens River in eastern California in the United States. It is located to the east of the Sierra Nevada, west of the White Mountains and Iny ...
. The
Robert Evans
Robert Evans (born Robert J. Shapera; June 29, 1930October 26, 2019) was an American film producer, studio executive, and actor, best known for his work on '' Rosemary's Baby'' (1968), ''Love Story'' (1970), ''The Godfather'' (1972), and ''Chi ...
production, released by Paramount Pictures, was the director's last film in the United States and features many elements of film noir, particularly a multi-layered story that is part mystery and part
psychological drama
Psychological drama or psychodrama is a sub-genre of drama that places emphasis on psychological elements. It often overlaps with other genres such as crime, fantasy, black comedy, and science fiction, and it is closely related with the psychologic ...
.Wasson, Sam. ''The Big Goodbye. Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood'', Flatiron Books, 2020.
In 1991, the film was selected by the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
for preservation in the United States
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...
as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" and it is frequently listed as one of the
greatest films of all time
This is a list of films considered the best in national and international surveys of critics and the public.
Some surveys focus on all films, while others focus on a particular genre or country. Voting systems differ, and some surveys suffer ...
. At the
47th Academy Awards
The 47th Academy Awards were presented Tuesday, April 8, 1975, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California, honoring the best films of 1974. The ceremonies were presided over by Bob Hope, Shirley MacLaine, Sammy Davis Jr. ...
, it was nominated for 11 Oscars, with Towne winning
Best Original Screenplay
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Beginning with the ...
Best Director Best Director is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards. It may refer to:
Film awards
* AACTA Award for Best Direction
* Academy Award for Best Director
* BA ...
The Two Jakes
''The Two Jakes'' is a 1990 American neo-noir mystery crime drama film and the sequel to the 1974 film ''Chinatown''. Directed by and starring Jack Nicholson, it also features Harvey Keitel, Meg Tilly, Madeleine Stowe, Richard Farnsworth, Fre ...
'', was released in 1990, again starring Nicholson, who also directed, with Robert Towne returning to write the screenplay. The film failed to match the acclaim of its predecessor.
Plot
In 1937, a woman identifying herself as Evelyn Mulwray hires private investigator Jake Gittes to trail her husband Hollis, whom she suspects of infidelity. Hollis Mulwray is chief engineer at the
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is the largest municipal utility in the United States with 8,100 megawatts of electric generating capacity (2021-2022) and delivering an average of 435 million gallons of water per day to more ...
, and Gittes hears him publicly refuse to build a new dam on safety grounds. Later, Gittes photographs Mulwray in the company of a young woman, and the pictures make their way into the next day's paper.
Back at his office, Gittes is confronted by the real Evelyn Mulwray, who threatens to sue him. Gittes concludes that the fake Evelyn was using him to discredit Mulwray. He goes to a reservoir to search for clues but instead finds his old police associate, Lieutenant Lou Escobar. Mulwray's body had been found in the reservoir, having apparently drowned.
Now working for Evelyn, Gittes investigates Mulwray's death as a homicide. He discovers that although there is supposedly a drought, huge quantities of water are being released from the reservoir every night. Gittes is warned off by Water Department Security Chief Claude Mulvihill and a henchman who slashes Gittes's left nostril. At his office, Gittes receives a call from Ida Sessions, who identifies herself as the fake Mrs. Mulwray. She refuses to disclose the name of the man who hired her, but tells Gittes to check that day's obituaries.
Gittes learns that Mulwray was once the business partner of Evelyn's wealthy father, Noah Cross. Over lunch at Cross's club, Cross offers to double Gittes's fee if he will search for Mulwray's missing mistress. At the hall of records, Gittes discovers that much of the Northwest Valley has recently changed ownership. He visits an orange grove in the valley but is attacked by angry landowners who believe him to be an agent of the Water Department, which they claim is sabotaging the water supply to force them out.
Gittes deduces that the Water Department is drying up the land so it can be bought cheaply, and that Mulwray was murdered when he uncovered the plan. He also discovers that some of the property in the valley was seemingly purchased by a recently deceased retirement home resident. Gittes and Evelyn bluff their way into the retirement home and confirm that other real-estate deals were surreptitiously transacted in the names of unknowing residents. Their visit is interrupted by the suspicious director, who has called Mulvihill.
After escaping Mulvihill and his thugs, Gittes and Evelyn hide at Evelyn's house and sleep together. During the night, Evelyn receives a phone call and must leave suddenly; she warns Gittes that her father is dangerous. Gittes follows Evelyn's car to a house where he sees Evelyn comforting Mulwray's mistress. He accuses Evelyn of holding the woman hostage, but she claims the woman is her sister, Katherine.
The next day, an anonymous call draws Gittes to Ida Sessions' apartment, where he finds her body. Lieutenant Escobar, who is waiting there, says the coroner found saltwater in Mulwray's lungs, indicating that he did not drown in the freshwater reservoir. Escobar suspects Evelyn murdered him and tells Gittes to produce her quickly. At the Mulwray mansion, Gittes finds Evelyn gone and the servants packing up the house. He discovers that the garden pond is saltwater and spots a pair of eyeglasses in it. He confronts Evelyn about Katherine, whom Evelyn now claims is her daughter. Gittes slaps Evelyn repeatedly and throws her across the room until she breaks down and reveals Katherine is both her sister and her daughter. She explains that her father raped her when she was 15 years old, whereupon she ran away to Mexico. She says that the eyeglasses are not Mulwray's, as he did not wear bifocals.
Gittes arranges for the women to flee back to Mexico and instructs Evelyn to meet him at her butler's home in Chinatown. He summons Cross to the Mulwray home to settle their deal. Cross admits his intention to incorporate the Northwest Valley into the City of Los Angeles, then irrigate and develop it. Gittes confirms that the bifocals he found are Cross's and accuses Cross of murdering Mulwray. Cross has Mulvihill take the bifocals from Gittes at gunpoint. Gittes is then forced to drive them to Chinatown, where Evelyn is waiting. The police are already there and detain Gittes. Cross advances on Katherine, identifying himself as her grandfather, and attempts to take her away from Evelyn. The police do not intervene. In order to escape Cross and get Katherine to safety, Evelyn shoots him in the arm and starts to drive away with Katherine. The police open fire, killing Evelyn. Cross clutches the hysterical Katherine and pulls her away. The police do not intervene. Escobar orders Gittes to be released. One of Gittes's associates leads him away from the scene, telling him: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
Cast
*
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. In many of his films, he played rebels against the social structure. He received numerous ...
as J. J. "Jake" Gittes
*
Faye Dunaway
Dorothy Faye Dunaway (born January 14, 1941) is an American actress. She is the recipient of many accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a BAFTA Award. In 2011, the government of France mad ...
as Evelyn Cross Mulwray
* John Huston as Noah Cross
* Perry Lopez as Lieutenant Lou Escobar
*
John Hillerman
John Benedict Hillerman (December 20, 1932 – November 9, 2017) was an American actor best known for his starring role as Jonathan Quayle Higgins III on the television series '' Magnum, P.I.'' that aired from 1980 to 1988. For his role as ...
as Russ Yelburton
*
Darrell Zwerling
Darrell Zwerling (September 9, 1928 – April 11, 2014) was an American character actor in film and television. His most famous role was Hollis Mulwray, the unfortunate Water Authority Commissioner (the husband of Faye Dunaway's character) in Rom ...
as Hollis I. Mulwray
* Diane Ladd as Ida Sessions
*
Roy Jenson
Roy Cameron Jenson, also known and credited as Roy Jensen, (February 9, 1927 – April 24, 2007) was a Canadian American football player, stuntman, and actor.
Early years
Born in Calgary, Alberta, Jenson moved to Los Angeles with his family as ...
as Claude Mulvihill
*
Roman Polanski
Raymond Roman Thierry Polański , group=lower-alpha, name=note_a ( né Liebling; 18 August 1933) is a French-Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, tw ...
as Man with Knife
* Dick Bakalyan as Detective Loach
*
Joe Mantell
Joseph Mantell (né Mantel; December 21, 1915 – September 29, 2010) was an American film and television actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as best friend Angie in the 1955 film '' Marty'', which ...
as Lawrence Walsh
*
Bruce Glover
Bruce Herbert Glover (born May 2, 1932) is an American character actor best known for his portrayal of the assassin Mr. Wint in the James Bond film '' Diamonds Are Forever''. He is the father of actor Crispin Glover.
Life and career
Glover wa ...
as Duffy
* Nandu Hinds as Sophie
* James O'Reare as Lawyer
* James Hong as Kahn, Evelyn's Butler
*
Beulah Quo
Beulah Quo (April 17, 1923 – October 23, 2002) was a Chinese-American actress and activist born in Stockton, California. The spelling of her last name changed from Kwoh to Quo because she was constantly asked if KWOH was a radio station. She s ...
as Maid
* Jerry Fujikawa as Gardener
* Belinda Palmer as Katherine Cross
* Roy Roberts as Mayor Bagby
*
Noble Willingham
Noble Henry Willingham, Jr. (August 31, 1931 – January 17, 2004) was an American television and film actor who appeared in more than thirty films and in many television shows, including a stint opposite Chuck Norris in ''Walker, Texas Ranger ...
as Councilman
*
Rance Howard
Rance Howard (born Harold Engle Beckenholdt; November 17, 1928 – November 25, 2017) was an American actor who starred in film and on television. He was the father of actor and filmmaker Ron Howard and actor Clint Howard, and grandfather of actr ...
as Irate Farmer
* George Justin as Barber
* Doc Erickson as Customer
*
Fritzi Burr
Fritzi Burr (May 31, 1924 – January 17, 2003) was an American character actress that was most notable for her roles as Miss Collins on the sitcom ''What's Happening!!'' and as various comedic foils to Fred Sanford on the sitcom ''Sanford and ...
as Mulwray's Secretary
* Charles Knapp as Mortician
* Claudio Martinez as Boy on Horseback
* Federico Roberto as Cross's Butler
* Allan Warnick as Clerk
*
Burt Young
Gerald Tommaso DeLouise (born April 30, 1940), known professionally as Burt Young, is an American actor, author and painter. He played Rocky Balboa's brother-in-law and best friend Paulie Pennino in the '' Rocky'' film series. He was nominated f ...
as Curly
* Elizabeth Harding as Curly's Wife
* John Rogers as Mr. Palmer
* Cecil Elliott as Emma Dill
Production
Background
In 1971, producer
Robert Evans
Robert Evans (born Robert J. Shapera; June 29, 1930October 26, 2019) was an American film producer, studio executive, and actor, best known for his work on '' Rosemary's Baby'' (1968), ''Love Story'' (1970), ''The Godfather'' (1972), and ''Chi ...
offered Towne $175,000 to write a screenplay for ''
The Great Gatsby
''The Great Gatsby'' is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby ...
'' (1974), but Towne felt he could not better the
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...
novel. Instead, Towne asked Evans for $25,000 to write his own story, ''Chinatown'', to which Evans agreed.* Thomson, David (2005). ''The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood''.
''Chinatown'' is set in 1937 and portrays the manipulation of a critical municipal resource—water—by a cadre of shadowy oligarchs. It was the first part of Towne's planned
trilogy
A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected and can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, and video games, and are less common in other art forms. Three-part wor ...
about the character J. J. Gittes, the foibles of the Los Angeles power structure, and the subjugation of public good by private greed. The second part, ''
The Two Jakes
''The Two Jakes'' is a 1990 American neo-noir mystery crime drama film and the sequel to the 1974 film ''Chinatown''. Directed by and starring Jack Nicholson, it also features Harvey Keitel, Meg Tilly, Madeleine Stowe, Richard Farnsworth, Fre ...
'', has Gittes caught up in another grab for a natural resource—oil—in the 1940s. It was directed by Jack Nicholson and released in 1990, but the second film's commercial and critical failure scuttled plans to make ''Gittes vs. Gittes'', about the third finite resource—land—in Los Angeles, circa 1968.
Origins
The character of Hollis Mulwray was inspired by and loosely based on Irish immigrant
William Mulholland
William Mulholland (September 11, 1855 – July 22, 1935) was an Irish American self-taught civil engineer who was responsible for building the infrastructure to provide a water supply that allowed Los Angeles to grow into the largest city in Ca ...
The Daily Beast
''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008.
It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...
'', February 28, 2016 Mulholland was the superintendent and chief engineer of the
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is the largest municipal utility in the United States with 8,100 megawatts of electric generating capacity (2021-2022) and delivering an average of 435 million gallons of water per day to more ...
, who oversaw the construction of the 230-mile (370-km) aqueduct that carries water from the
Owens Valley
Owens Valley ( Numic: ''Payahǖǖnadǖ'', meaning "place of flowing water") is an arid valley of the Owens River in eastern California in the United States. It is located to the east of the Sierra Nevada, west of the White Mountains and Iny ...
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'', July 7, 2011
Author Vincent Brook considers real-life Mulholland to be split, in the film, into "noble Water and Power chief Hollis Mulwray" and "mobster muscle Claude Mulvihill",Brook, Vincent. ''Land of Smoke and Mirrors: A Cultural History of Los Angeles''; Rutgers University Press; January 22, 2013; just as Land syndicate and Combination members, who "exploited their insider knowledge" on account of "personal greed", are "condensed into the singular, and singularly monstrous, Noah Cross".
In the film, Mulwray opposes the dam wanted by Noah Cross and the city of Los Angeles, for reasons of engineering and safety, arguing he would not repeat his previous mistake, when his dam broke resulting in hundreds of deaths. This alludes to the
St. Francis Dam
The St. Francis Dam was a concrete gravity dam located in San Francisquito Canyon in Los Angeles County, California, United States, built from 1924 to 1926 to serve Los Angeles's growing water needs. It catastrophically failed in 1928 due to a d ...
disaster of March 12, 1928, when the dam had been inspected by Mulholland on the day of its catastrophic failure."Transcript of Testimony and Verdict of the Coroner's Jury in the Inquest over Victims of St. Francis Dam Disaster", 615-616, Book 26902, box 13, folder 2; Richard Courtney Collection, Huntington Library, San Marino, California; Ostrom, Water & Politics The dam's failure inundated the
Santa Clara River Valley
The Santa Clara River Valley is a rural, mainly agricultural, valley in Ventura County, California that has been given the moniker Heritage Valley by the namesake tourism bureau. The valley includes the communities of Santa Paula, Fillmore, Piru ...
, including the town of
Santa Paula
Santa Paula ( Spanish for " St. Paula") is a city in Ventura County, California, United States. Situated amid the orchards of the Santa Clara River Valley, the city advertises itself to tourists as the "Citrus Capital of the World". Santa P ...
, with flood water, causing the deaths of at least 431 people. The event effectively ended Mulholland's career.* Reisner, Marc (1986). ''Cadillac Desert''.
Script
According to Robert Towne,both Carey McWilliams's ''Southern California Country: An Island on the Land'' (1946) and a ''West'' magazine article called " Raymond Chandler's L.A". inspired his original screenplay. In a letter to McWilliams, Towne wrote that ''Southern California Country'' "really changed my life. It taught me to look at the place where I was born, and convinced me to write about it".
Towne wrote the screenplay with
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. In many of his films, he played rebels against the social structure. He received numerous ...
in mind. He took the title (and the exchange "What did you do in Chinatown?" / "As little as possible") from a Hungarian vice cop who had worked in Los Angeles's Chinatown cnfusin of dialects and gangs. The vice cop throught that "police were better off in Chinatown doing nothing, because you could never tell what went on there" and whether what you did helping or furthered the exploitation of victims.
Polanski first learned of the script through Nicholson, as they had been searching for a suitable joint project, and the producer Robert Evans was excited as the thought that Polanski direction would create a darker, more cynical, and European vision of the United States. Polanski was initially reluctant to return to Los Angeles (it was only a few years since the murder of his pregnant wifeSharon Tate), but was persuaded on the strength of the script.
Towne wanted Cross to die and Evelyn Mulwray to survive, but the screenwriter and director argued over it, with Polanski insisting on a tragic end: "I knew that if ''Chinatown'' was to be special, not just another thriller where the good guys triumph in the final reel, Evelyn had to die"."Chinatown" . Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved August 22, 2012. They parted ways over this dispute and Polanski wrote the final scene a few days before it was shot.
The original script was more than 180 pages and included a narration by Gittes; Polanski cut and reordered the story so the audience and Gittes unraveled the mysteries at the same time.
Characters and casting
* J. J. Gittes was named after Nicholson's friend, producer Harry Gittes.
* Evelyn Mulwray is, according to Towne, intended to initially seem the classic "black widow" character typical of lead female characters in film noir, but is eventually revealed to be a tragic victim. Jane Fonda was strongly considered for the role, but Polanski insisted on Dunaway.
* Noah Cross: Towne said that Huston was, after Nicholson, the second-best-cast actor in the film and that he made the Cross character menacing, through his courtly performance.
* Polanski appears in a cameo as the gangster who cuts Gittes' nose. The effect was accomplished with a special knife which could have actually cut Nicholson's nose if Polanski had not held it correctly.
Filming
William A. Fraker accepted the cinematographer position from Polanski when Paramount agreed. He had worked with the studio previously on Polanski's '' Rosemary's Baby''. Robert Evans, never consulted about the decision, insisted that the offer be rescinded since he felt pairing Polanski and Fraker again would create a team with too much control over the project and complicate the production.
Between Fraker and the eventual choice John A. Alonzo, the two compromised on Stanley Cortez, but Polanski grew frustrated with Cortez’s slow process, old fashioned compositional sensibility, and unfamiliarity with the Panavision equipment. Alonzo was chosen for his fleetness and skill with natural light a few weeks into production. Ultimately, only a handful of scenes in the finished film, including the orange grove confrontation, were shot by Cortez.
In keeping with a technique Polanski attributes to Raymond Chandler, all of the events of the film are seen subjectively through the main character's eyes; for example, when Gittes is knocked unconscious, the film fades to black and fades in when he awakens. Gittes appears in every scene of the film. This subjectivity is the same construction as Francis Coppola's ''The Conversation'' in which the main character, Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) appears in every scene in the film. ''The Conversation'' began shooting eleven months prior to ''Chinatown''.
His favorite illustration of this was the "parable of the hair". Robert Evans had flown in Ara Gallant from New York to streak Dunaway's coiffure for the movie, and in the course of one of Polanski's more complicated lighting setups, an errant hair escaped. During a scene set inside the Brown Derby restaurant, Polanski tried to shoot past the loose strand in what would otherwise have been a perfect 1930s marcel: tight, blonde, and lacquered against her skull à la
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow (born Harlean Harlow Carpenter; March 3, 1911 – June 7, 1937) was an American actress. Known for her portrayal of "bad girl" characters, she was the leading sex symbol of the early 1930s and one of the defining figures of the ...
.
It took a summit meeting in Evans's Paramount office before Dunaway would return to work. Polanski fanned the incident in the press as a perfect example of American star hysterics, while Dunaway insisted her hair was not the point: "It was not the hair. It was the incessant cruelty that I felt, the constant sarcasm, the never-ending need to humiliate me".
Soundtrack
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith (February 10, 1929July 21, 2004) was an American composer and conductor known for his work in film and television scoring. He composed scores for five films in the ''Star Trek'' franchise and three in the ''Rambo'' franch ...
composed and recorded the film's score in ten days, after producer Robert Evans rejected Phillip Lambro's original effort at the last minute. It received an
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
nomination and remains widely praised, ranking ninth on the American Film Institute's list of the top 25 American film scores. Goldsmith's score, with "haunting" trumpet solos by Hollywood studio musician and MGM's first trumpet
ABC Records and features 12 tracks at a running time just over 30 minutes. It was later reissued on CD by the
Varèse Sarabande
Varèse Sarabande is an American record label, owned by Concord Music Group and distributed by Universal Music Group, which specializes in film scores and original cast recordings. It aims to reissue rare or unavailable albums, as well as newer r ...
label. Rasey related that Goldsmith "told imto play it sexy — but like it's not good sex!"
# "Love Theme from Chinatown (Main Title)"
# "Noah Cross"
# "Easy Living"
# "Jake and Evelyn"
# "I Can't Get Started"
# "The Last of Ida"
# "The Captive"
# "The Boy on a Horse"
# "The Way You Look Tonight"
# "The Wrong Clue"
# "J. J. Gittes"
# "Love Theme from Chinatown (End Title)"
Thom Andersen
Thom Andersen (born 1943 in Chicago) is an American filmmaker, film critic, and teacher best known for his works of experimental film, including his 1975 film '' Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer'' and the 2003 essay film '' Los Angeles Plays It ...
lays out the complex relationship between ''Chinatowns script and its historical background:
''Chinatown'' isn't a docudrama, it's a fiction. The water project it depicts isn't the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, engineered by
William Mulholland
William Mulholland (September 11, 1855 – July 22, 1935) was an Irish American self-taught civil engineer who was responsible for building the infrastructure to provide a water supply that allowed Los Angeles to grow into the largest city in Ca ...
before the First World War. ''Chinatown'' is set in 1937, not 1905. The Mulholland-like figure—"Hollis Mulwray"—isn't the chief architect of the project, but rather its strongest opponent, who must be discredited and murdered. Mulwray is against the "Alto Vallejo Dam" because it's unsafe, not because it's stealing water from somebody else.... But there are echoes of Mulholland's aqueduct project in ''Chinatown''.... Mulholland's project enriched its promoters through insider land deals in the San Fernando Valley, just like the dam project in ''Chinatown''. The disgruntled San Fernando Valley farmers of ''Chinatown'', forced to sell off their land at bargain prices because of an artificial drought, seem like stand-ins for the Owens Valley settlers whose homesteads turned to dust when Los Angeles took the water that irrigated them. The "Van Der Lip Dam" disaster, which Hollis Mulwray cites to explain his opposition to the proposed dam, is an obvious reference to the collapse of the Saint Francis Dam in 1928. Mulholland built this dam after completing the aqueduct and its failure was the greatest man-made disaster in the history of California. These echoes have led many viewers to regard ''Chinatown'', not only as docudrama, but as truth—the real secret history of how Los Angeles got its water. And it has become a ruling metaphor of the non-fictional critiques of Los Angeles development.
Reception
Box office
The film earned $29 million at the North American box office.
Critical response
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, ''Chinatown'' holds an approval rating of 99% based on 76 reviews, with an average rating of 9.40/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "As bruised and cynical as the decade that produced it, this noir classic benefits from Robert Towne's brilliant screenplay, director Roman Polanski's steady hand, and wonderful performances from Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway".
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
assigned the film a weighted average score of 92 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Roger Ebert added it to his "Great Movies" list, saying that Nicholson's performance was "key in keeping ''Chinatown'' from becoming just a genre crime picture", along with Towne's screenplay, concluding that the film "seems to settle easily beside the original noirs".
Although the film was widely acclaimed by prominent critics upon its release,
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...
of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' was not impressed with the screenplay as compared to the film's predecessors, saying: "Mr. Polanski and Mr. Towne have attempted nothing so witty and entertaining, being content instead to make a competently stylish, more or less thirties-ish movie that continually made me wish I were back seeing '' The Maltese Falcon'' or ''
The Big Sleep
''The Big Sleep'' (1939) is a hardboiled crime novel by American-British writer Raymond Chandler, the first to feature the detective Philip Marlowe. It has been adapted for film twice, in 1946 and again in 1978. The story is set in Los Angel ...
''", but noted Nicholson's performance, calling it the film's "major contribution to the genre".
Subsequent works
A sequel film, ''
The Two Jakes
''The Two Jakes'' is a 1990 American neo-noir mystery crime drama film and the sequel to the 1974 film ''Chinatown''. Directed by and starring Jack Nicholson, it also features Harvey Keitel, Meg Tilly, Madeleine Stowe, Richard Farnsworth, Fre ...
'', was released in 1990, again starring Nicholson, who also directed, with Robert Towne returning to write the screenplay. It was not met with the same financial or critical success as the first film.
A prequel television series by David Fincher and Towne for
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...
about Gittes starting his agency was reported to be in the works in November 2019.
A film about the making of ''Chinatown'', based on the non-fiction book ''The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood'', was reported in August 2020 to be in the works, with
Ben Affleck
Benjamin Géza Affleck (born August 15, 1972) is an American actor and filmmaker. His accolades include two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and a Volpi Cup.
Affleck began his career as a child when he starred in the PBS education ...
as director and writer.
Legacy
Towne's screenplay has become legendary among critics and filmmakers, often cited as one of the best examples of the craft, though Polanski decided on the fatal final scene. While it has been reported that Towne envisioned a happy ending, he has denied these claims and said simply that he initially found Polanski's ending to be excessively melodramatic. He explained in a 1997 interview: "The way I had seen it was that Evelyn would kill her father but end up in jail for it, unable to give the real reason why it happened. And the detective ack Nicholsoncouldn't talk about it either, so it was bleak in its own way". Towne retrospectively concluded that "Roman was right", later arguing that Polanski's stark and simple ending, due to the complexity of the events preceding it, was more fitting than his own, which he described as equally bleak but "too complicated and too literary".
''Chinatown'' brought more public awareness to the land dealings and disputes over water rights, which arose while drawing Los Angeles' water supply from the Owens Valley in the 1910s.
Awards and honors
Other awards
* 2010 – Best film of all time, ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''
* 2012 - In the
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery (United Kingdom), National Lot ...
's 2012 ''
Sight & Sound
''Sight and Sound'' (also spelled ''Sight & Sound'') is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute (BFI). It conducts the well-known, once-a-decade ''Sight and Sound'' Poll of the Greatest Films of All Time, ongoing ...
'' polls of the greatest films ever made, ''Chinatown'' was 78th among critics and 91st among directors.
* 2015 - The film ranked 12th on
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores
Part of the AFI 100 Years... series, AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores is a list of the top 25 film scores in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute in 2005.
John Williams has the most scores in the top 25, with three ...
mystery film
A mystery film is a genre of film that revolves around the solution of a problem or a crime. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of an issue by means of clues, i ...
– Ranked 2nd
See also
*
List of American films of 1974
A list of American films released in 1974.
'' The Godfather Part II'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Highest-grossing films (U.S.)
A–Z
Documentaries
See also
* 1974 in the United States
References
External links
1974 films ...
References
Bibliography
* Easton, Michael (1998) ''Chinatown'' (''B.F.I. Film Classics'' series). Los Angeles: University of California Press. .
* Thomson, David (2004). ''The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood''. New York, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. .
* Towne, Robert (1997). ''Chinatown and the Last Detail: 2 Screenplays''. New York: Grove Press. .
* Tuska, Jon (1978). ''The Detective in Hollywood''. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company. .
* Wasson, Sam (2020). ''The Big Goodbye. Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood'', Flatiron Books. .