Review of Chinatown

I watched Chinatown tonight for the sixth time. Every time it is as sensual and alluring as the first. Even though with repeated viewings Jake Gittes comes off as a a boob. How doesn't he make the connections between the murder, the water conspiracy, and Noah Cross? It all seems so obvious. This time I watched the film I really was taken with the character of Evelyn Mulwray. She is such a tragic character. Raped by her father, the prime suspect in the murder, and abused by Gittes who is her last ally. It's a great creation by Robert Towne. In the thirties women weren't given much and this film shows that in excellent detail. Her hair style, bobs. Her clothing have a Chinese influence. And she is always smoking. She doesn't reveal anything easily either. It is only after she sleeps with Gittes that she finally reveals that she has a daughter who is also her sister. And Gittes refuses to believe her. It is such a shame that Mrs. Mulwray suffers so much only to be brutally murdered with a gunshot to her face.

This time around Jake Gittes comes off as clueless, merely drifting from one clue to the next. Like he says about his years spent on the Chinatown beat; he gets closer, but never really knows what's going on. The whole film seems to depict his problem of figuring out what is going on. And when he does he makes mistake after mistake. Why does he call Noah Cross? Why doesn't he call Escobar and have him meet him at Mulwray's house? What is he trying to get? More money? It brings Cross to the girl and Evelyn. For all his style and polish, Gittes is the fall guy that eventually leads to Mrs. Mulwray's death and the triumph of Cross over not just his daughter, but all the farmers in the valley who are losing their land as well as the people of Los Angeles who are paying for water they will never get.

The film is practically flawless. I couldn't get over the Mise en Scene of Roman Polanski. The shots of Gittes in the office are so well done. And the looming pictures of FDR in the background are a constant reminder that the film is set in the throws of the Great Depression. Perhaps the best shots using the kind of framing Polanski uses are when Gittes and Mrs. Mulwray have just finished having sex and Gittes is revealing his memories of working in Chinatown for the District Attorney. In the conversation he reveals how he tried to do "as little as possible" while working for the DA. It all comes back to him when Mrs. Mulwray is killed in the end.

The last sequence of the film pulls everything together; Cross, the damn, the farmers, the incestuous daughter, and Gittes own stupidity as well as the domination of the rich over the poor. I've watched the ending many times in the course of watching the film in it's entirety and as a clip on youtube. It is always a suspenseful sequence and the last words of the film spoken by Gittes' associate are classic and imprinted on every viewers conscience "forget it Jake, it's Chinatown."