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.
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