Review of Chinatown (Screenplay and Film)

This is the first film I studied seriously. I watched in a Freshman Literature course. I really enjoyed watching it the first time. After I lived in Shanghai and taught English I returned to the film and made a concerted study to understand the film. Even though it doesn't have anything to do with Chinatown as a neighborhood or physical place, the setting of it as foreign and unknown is brought out in the exposition of the film. Jack Nicholson makes countless references to Chinatown as being unknowable. He says he used to work the Chinatown beat as an employee of the DA and didn't know what was going on. It's a metaphor for the entire film. The incestuous daughter, the water drainage and land sale conspiracy are all revealed slowly and Gittes doesn't know what he is involved in until it is too late.

The scene where Gittes and Faye Dunaway have just had sex and are engaging in pillow talk struck me as a foreshadow of the end of the film. Dunaway coaxes Gittes into telling her why he left the Chinatown beat and why is so reluctant to talk about it. In a great shot of Gittes and Mrs. Mulwray lying on a bed with just there heands shown talking back and forth Gittes finally reveals that he tried to help someone and ended up hurting them. Similar circumstances happen to Mrs. Mulwary at the end of the film. She is trying to escape her father who raped her and wants possession of their daughter. It ends that she is fatally shot as she is driving away to Mexico. It is a sad, disconcerting ending that leaves Gittes in a stupor. He is unable to respond. It is only his partners who take him away.

I think the whole film is great. The restaurant scene with Gittes and Mulwray lacks drama, but it still builds the story. As a screenwriting myself I should pay heed to Towne's use of small details to build up to crucial plot points and even more dramatic act breaks as well as the climax and the ending. The first act ends when Hollis Mulwray is found drown to death. Then the second act begins. The conflict is clearer shown; who killed Hollis Mulwray and why? The second act progresses along a sequence of plot points that build up to the revealing of Mrs. Mulwray's incestuous daughter. The resolution begins when Gittes is trying to get Evelyn to Mexico with Curly's boat. It ends when Mrs. Mulwray is killed trying to escape. Some of the plot points I found most interesting were when Gittes is confronted by Mulvihill and Polanski. The scene where his nose is cut builds tension in a violent way. It sends a warning that Gittes shouldn't be poking around where he's not welcome. It is a precursor to the scene at the Rest home where there is another confrontation and the film really picks up steam heading to it's violent resolution.

I liked this sequence from the rest home to Chinatown very much. The music comes in at just the right time and adds an emotional punch that is dormant from the other scenes. The Jerry Goldsmith soundtack is so memorable, so sad, and so 1930's. I play it over and over again. There a lot of period piece items; the costumes, the courthouse, the conflicts over land during the Great Depression, farmers struggling to make ends meet, and, perhaps most visible were the large pictures of FDR. There is one in the courthouse and there is one in Gittes' office. All of the objects create an excellent ambiance of being in the 30's. Even Faye Dunaway's hair is a 30's piece with it's bobs.

The writing is top notch. Towne won the best original screenplay Oscar for Chinatown. Deservedly so. What I don't understand is why there isn't a book about him? I've read a view books about other filmmakers. Previously in the this blog I've talked about Paul Schrader who has book about him called Schrader on Schrader. Yet there isn't anything like this about Towne. I'd be very interested to read biography and discussion of his life as a writer. Too bad! All I've got is some articles and youtube videos. Somebody should give credit where credit is due.

The screenplay has some notable omissions about what is included in the film. Then ending is decidedly different. Cross is sympathetic to Mrs. Mulwary. In the film that doesn't happen. Also at the end of the film there are five gunshots. In the screenplay there are two. And the final, lethal shot is blamed on a uniformed policeman, not as the film alludes to with the final shot coming from a detective. Gittes also gets mad at the uniform police officer. In the film he doesn't get mad. He just stares at the dead body. And in the screenplay the classic line at the end of the film doesn't get much treatment in the screenplay. It is merely written in like in a novel. In the film it is a a very calculated delivery of the famous "It's Chinatown, Jake" line. These are just some little things. Otherwise the film stays accurate in it's adaptation of the screenplay.

Review of Mean Streets by Scorsese

This film has resonance for me. I saw it years ago when I was persuing a law degree. I had given up on wiritng, but I guess I still clung to some dream of being a writer or filmmaker. So, years later I'm writing a blog about Mean Streets and studying Martin Scorsess for a screenwriting degree. How things change! How they work themselves out! On to the film.

The film was great. It reminds me of some the Dogme95 films that I watched a few years ago. Unknown actors, unsteady camera shots, and totally believable scripts. The script was great. It blends Italian- American experience in with gangster movies and is a clear precurso to Scrosese's other films. Of course he has other films which I haven't scene. I have made it a goal to watch his less studied films and to watch his more studied films like Goodfellas and Casino. I've seen both several times and was awe struck each time I watched the film. Perhaps as a screenwriting student I'll be less overwhelmed then as a "passive" viewer.

The film is very realist. You can see the influence of the neo-realist movement on Scrosese in this film. The fighting, the arguements, the action which follows from scene to scene are derivative of the Italian neo-realist tradition. I was particularly taken with the fighting scenes. There is such passion in them. It's as if they are fighting for their lives. The bar scenes reminded of the many times I'd been in a bar during my undergraduate years. And the scenes with the African- American dancer pushed the envelope for the time. How could he love a black woman? I guess now it pretty acceptable. Not back then, though. Scorsese was one of the first director to put race in front of people's eyes. Before, and at the time of the film, race was a taboo topic. Now there are several black film directors. And tolerance for different race couples is at an all time high.

This was a cheap film, but it comes off as a very slick, well shot film. There aren't any errors. There isn't anything wrong with the film. It is a startlingly good debut film from Scorsese. One that put him on the map. Made him an auteur. Perhaps not as moving as Taxi Driver it was to be commended anyway. The narrative is great. The photography is commendable. And the acting is totally real. It's a start along the way to films that are more epic like Casino and more nuanced like Goodfellas. I think those films are the culmination of Scorsese's work. I thought he should have won more awards then he did for those films. Anyway I'll have a good time watching Scorsese films as well as writing about them and learning how to shoot films from them. Ciao!

Review of The Man with the Golden Arm by Preminger

I'm writing a screenplay about the resurgence of heroin on the streets of America, particularly in the Northeast. I'm combining the personal with the political to produce a screenplay that deals with the ongoing epidemic and the response to it. The screenplay is based around my home city of Binghamton, NY and the 81 North corridor that includes Syracuse and Scranton. Yet the heroin epidemic is not limited to those places. It is, perhaps, even more severe in places in Massachusetts and Vermont. The news coverage has been comprehensive and police are better equipped to deal with the problem. But, the drug keeps coming into the US and so far the problem has not been fully addressed. So, my screenplay is depiction of the drama that has played out here and taken the lives of two of my friends and one of my old teammates from teener league baseball. I felt their stories needed to be told. This epidemic needs to be halted.

The film The Man with the Golden Arm deals with the struggles with addiction that the character of Frankie deals with. As the film opens he has just returned from a clinic where he has received treatment and is now clean. Frankie comes back to his wife who is disabled and that foreshadows is remission to heroin and a gambler's life. Contrary to what I thought the "golden arm" doesn't have anything to do with heroin. It refers to Frankie's talent as a card shark.

I was most concerned with the depictions of addiction that beset Frankie. When he relapses for the first time I cringed watching him walk into the heroin dealer's place to get a fix. The music is rousing and when the lampshade is pulled down, you know that Frankie has given in to his addiction. It is a sad, bitter scene. It isn't until he meets up with Kim Novak at her apartment that Frankie is freed from heroin. In a great scene, albeit tragic, Sinatra goes through the struggles of withdrawal and comes out alive only to be accused of murder. The story climaxes when Frankie's wife is revealed to be a phony and the murderer of the heroin dealer. The film ends with Sinatra and Novak walking out of the urban area presumably to a better fate then what was previously in store for them if they remained in ghetto.

I had seen this film at MOMA's exhibition about Jazz in film when I was living in NYC. It was just as powerful then the first time I saw it as when I viewed on VOD on my home computer. It also narratively illustrates the heroin epidemic of the 40s and 50s. Sinatra is an urbanite jazz muscisian who is struggling to survive in the city and talks of moving out, but he just can't kick his habit of gambling and using heroin. This was indicative of the culture that surround heroin in the 40s and 50s when users were artistic types who lived in cities.

This film has a rather upbeat ending. The woman who was trapping Sinatra gets arrested and Frankie is free to leave with Novak and start a new life. It shows that addiction can be overcome. There is a way out of places like the one Frankie and Novak lived in and made a meager living..

This was a great film Perhaps the classic film about heroin addiction. It made Sinatra a bonnafied star and it was also Novak's break which led to Vertigo. It's too bad Novak couldn't find any roles later on her career. I thought she put in a great performance in this film. I"m sure I'll come across this film again.