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| Chinatown |
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 (10/10)
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Runtime: 131 |
| Public Rating: 9.26 (23 votes) |
Director: Roman Polanski |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Mystery |
Year: 1974 |
| Writer(s): Robert Towne |
| Distributor: Paramount Studios |
| Reviewed by: Vadim Rizov |
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Although Chinatown is generally awarded classic status, it's also one of those classics which people who know nothing about film history really like, like its contemporary, The Godfather. But Polanski understands, unlike Coppola, that you don't have to be consistently pessimistic to be serious, and that while perfect evocations are good, taking your camera into well-lit locations is even better. In short, the earlier film is an absorbing but dour film, while the later work perfectly blends a variety of dramatic and comic hooks. Chinatown avoids the self-importance of Coppola's terrific but not-all-that masterstroke.
Prolific script doctor and uneven director Robert Towne had the second big triumph of his career with this film, following the previous year's The Last Detail, which also starred Jack Nicholson, who'd directed 1971's Drive, He Said, which Towne had polished. Previously Towne had written some Corman films and polished, among other things, Bonnie And Clyde. Nobody could have predicted the complexity of this film from a man with that pedigree. Although it makes sense when you're watching it, you realize later that all sorts of things about the film's central mystery are confusing you - things that are, really, totally irrelevent. The film was also the triumphant debut of Bob Evans as producer, having just left as head of Paramount.
Trivia aside: Chinatown is neo-noir, the introduction of the idea that sleazy LA private eyes and widescreen color cinematography aren't necessarilly antithetical (unless you're Curtis Hanson). Jack Nicholson, starring as Jake Gittes, reminds us that before he had a concrete persona, he could also act. Gittes is asked by Evelyn Mulwray to investigate the infidelity of her husband...only she isn't Evelyn Mulwray. The real Evelyn (Faye Dunaway, appropriately bitchy) doesn't find out about the investigation until the newspapers headline the story. Quickly enough, both Jake and Evelyn are enmeshed in a giant conspiracy that has something to do with water.
Chinatown's message isn't particularly deep: Everyone is corrupt and out to screw you. It's a gloomy but hardly original thought. But the film is a masterpiece because nothing is wrong with it: the cast is uniformly stellar (including veteran bit player James Hong, of many many stereotyped Asian parts, and also director of the porno Scandalous Behavior), the cinematography of the terrific John A. Alonzo, whose career veered from movies of this quality all the way down to 1994's Clifford, starring Charles Grodin and Martin Short. In fact, everyone involved with this film has had a bumpy career except for Nicholson; director Polanski would flee the country 3 years later, just after hitting the commercial jackpot. That's irrelevent, anyway: the film's mise-en-scene is perfect, the pacing is masterful, the comic relief is judicious, and the result is a smart and wonderfully etertaining film with a not-so-original message brilliantly delivered. As you can see, it's tough to write a review without getting bogged down in "Where-are-they-now" type sentences. All that proves is that this brilliant and original film speaks for itself.
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