Chinatown

Rating:
Summary: Watergate & the Holocaust
Review: Sure its about incest and the rapacity of LA but without Polanski's eyewitness to the Holocaust and a country in the midst of political, social and moral crisis, there wouldn't be, "Chinatown."

The music for the opening credits couldn't be more perfect, capturing the big band sound of the thirties but hinting at a deep and painful weariness that goes to the heart of the film. This is a film of beautiful surfaces where evil suddenly appears and shocks like maggots swarming the pit of the perfect peach.

Jack Nicholson makes J.J. Gittes sleazy, angry and desperate whose quest for truth is both foolish and noble. Fay Dunaway displays a fragile strength and desperate pain as Evelyn Mulray that she doles out beautifully over the course of the film. John Huston uses his oily warmth to great creepy effect.

And then there is the screenplay; beautifully constructed, wonderfully original with dialog that is both memorable and natural. Is there a better original screenplay in Hollywood history?

Finally what is a mystery to me is how this film which is so sad and hopeless manages to feel so inspiring. Is it that in its richness like all great works of art is the stuff of life?

Rating:
Summary: I cut my nose shaving
Review: Not since Otto Preminger's LAURA had filmgoers the pleasure of watching a classic film noir, until Polanski's CHINATOWN. The plot and characters are complex but chillingly believeable. I can't find anything wrong with this film. It is well-paced for a fairly long movie. The lighting, cinematography, setting, costumes... everything is as should be. The performances by John Huston and Faye Dunaway are eerie and tragic, respectively. Then of course there's Nicholson. Mad Jack was already firmly established on the Hollywood map having already won acclaim for EASY RIDER, THE LAST DETAIL, and FIVE EASY PIECES. This film however fixed him permanently in the constellation of Hollywood stars. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST would soon follow. In any event, his portrayal of an aloof, world-weary gumshoe who stumbles in over his head into an intrigue involving crooked politicians and the money-slobbering wealthy still holds up 30 years later. This is an incredible film.

Rating:
Summary: THIS IS WHAT FILM IS SUPPOSED TO BE
Review: The mid-1970s saw a spate of "government conspiracy" films, all with liberal themes that emanated from Watergate. None of them were about Kennedy stealing the 1960 election. Hmm.
"Chinatown" (1974) may be the best screenplay ever written. A historical look at 1930s Los Angeles, it actually condensed events from the 1900s with events that, uh, never happened but made for good drama. Written by L.A. native Robert Towne, directed by Roman Polanski, produced by Evans and starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunnaway and famed director John Huston, it told the story of how Los Angeles became a metropolis. In Towne's version, Huston "owns" the L.A. Department of Water & Power with a character based on actual L.A. City engineer William Mulholland. Mulholland had orchestrated the political deal which built the aqueduct that brought water from the Owens Valley into the L.A. Basin, allowing millions of Southern Californians to keep their lawns green to this day.
The Mulholland character is "sacrificed" at the altar of greed, embodied by Huston, who secretly buys the San Fernando Valley, knowing that once the water deal is set, it will be incorporated into the city, making him a gazillionaire. It is rather cynical, although nobody suggests the L.A. "city fathers" were boy scouts. The same old theme is that capitalism and American political power are corrupt. To make sure the audience is convinced the corruption is beyond redemption, Huston is in the end found out be an insatiable, incestual monster. He plays the role so well it brings up minds-eye imagery of his real daughter, Angelica. The film is utterly beyond any criticism, regardless of political colorization. For decades, film students and screenwriters have studied it. It spawned an artistic quest to lace the screen with symbols, metaphors, backstory, and twists.
"Chinatown" seems to be the apex of the American film period, the mid-1970s. The period from 1960 to 1979 is unparalleled, but the backstory of the people who created these classics is a telling tale of why the genre leans to the Left. In the 1960s, film schools became popular. Four schools emerged, and have held their place as the place to learn the craft. In Los Angeles there was the USC School of Cinema-Television. Their first big alumnus was "Star Wars" director George Lucas. UCLA combined their film school with their drama program, so as to bring actors, writers, directors and producers together. Coppola went to UCLA along with a future rock star named Jim Morrison, who would form The Doors with another UCLA film alumnus, keyboardist Ray Manzarek.

STEVEN TRAVERS
AUTHOR OF "BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN"
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Rating:
Summary: A Master Screenplay, A Perfect Film
Review: Many writers consider Robert Towne's screenplay for 'Chinatown' as the perfect screenplay. It is, and is also in fact the example of how important good writing is in the art of cinema. It is perfection and in the hands of Roman Polanski it became a film masterpiece. But it all goes back to the writing. Robert Towne has taken the true story of how Los Angeles stole water to grow and wound around it the fictional story of Jake Gittes, Evelyn Mulwray, and Noah Cross and made them major participants in an ugly little tale of lust and greed. Towne's screenplay is layered like a decaying Dahlia with twisting mysteries and taught suspense. There is not a loose end in sight and a few well placed red herrings are added to the mix to delight any fan of this type of story.
The attention to detail from vintage cars, sets, real L.A. streets and alleys to the excellent score by Jerry Goldsmith and the golden cinematography of John A. Alonzo contribute to all the aspects of this classic of the post 60's film noir.
Faye Dunaway as Evelyn Mulwray is at the top of her game creating a neurotic exotic hothouse flower that carries death within the heart of her dark and dirty secret. Lacquered and veiled in the most perfect black widow getup of the genre she is superbly brittle and vulnerable at the same time. She is fascinating to watch as she slowly unravels along with the mystery until she is naked in the horror of what her past and present prison is. This is a great performance by a great artist.
As Evelyn's father Noah Cross, John Huston is the debauched cancerous center of evil and greed captured within the crumbling casing of a seemingly charming old man. He too gives the performance of a lifetime and his soliloquy on what a man is capable of is chilling.
The center of this masterwork is Jack Nicholson who became a star with this, the best of his early work. His J. J. Gittes is hardboiled and ruthless in getting to the bottom of why he is being used to take the fall for a murder. He embodies the soul of Bogart and the heart of a romantic fighting to stay tuff in a rotten world. He is drawn with such skill that he seems not to be acting but simply existing the real world of L.A. in the late 1930's.
"Chinatown" is seminal in its place in film history. It bridged and old and forgotten genre with a new Hollywood in its post studio infancy and laid the groundwork for later films of equal ambition such as "Mullholland Falls" and "L.A. Confidential".
This is one of the best film ever made and a must have for any serious film collector.

Rating:
Summary: This is the Best Movie Ever Made
Review: This movie has to be seen again and again to be fully appreciated. But if you think of Raymond Chandler novels, the classic film "Double Indemnity," Greek tragedy, and a haunting musical score, you are conjuring up some of the elements of "Chinatown."

Jack Nicholson is superb as private detective Jake Gittes. While Nicholson is so great an actor that, like Bogart, he seems to be playing himself in every role, this part was made for him. From his first line, about venetian blinds, to the end of the film, Nicholson conveys the portrait of a man caught up in a larger, incomprehensible web of amorality andmystery that is the essence of film noir.

Faye Dunaway is excellent in her role as Evelyn Mulwray, of whom to give a description would be to spoil part of the plot. Her gestures and lines are acting at its finest.

John Huston is a towering figure of evil in this film; and the dialogue between him and Nicholson, filmed at the time when Jack was beginning his long relationship with Huston's daughter (and fine actress in her own right) Angelica, is a masterpiece and fraught with double entendre.

I could go on and on. But suffice it to say that this is a movie worth purchasing and watching again and again. It will not cheer you up; but it may make you wiser.

Rating:
Summary: Great film. Rotten transfer.
Review: This is one of the all time great mysteries, perhaps the most superb of all the neo-noir films. Personally, I have never liked the ending (where is Bogie when you need him?), but nevertheless, it is brilliantly written, brilliantly acted, and brilliantly directed. The original is visually gorgeous - but you might as well buy the VHS version. This DVD is really awful. The focus is fuzzy. It looks like someone took an aging, washed-out copy, upped the color saturation, and called it remastered. The skin tones are almost too bright, but the colors while still faded, are too dark and murky. I still remember the subtle use of color from when I first saw the film, the beautiful pinks and blues and yellows playing against the cool neutrals. The rich darks giving gorgeous contrast. And I remember the perfect LA light. Only the brightest sunlit scenes come even close to the way it should look. This is a Hollywood masterpiece, and deserved great love and care in its restoration. It didn't get them.

Rating:
Summary: A knockout, a masterpiece, one of the greatest, a classic
Review: First of all, it is hard not to just rave about how great this movie is. Discussions of its finer points aside, you are really missing something if you don't go out and see this movie. It is not a martial arts movie. It is a flawless, polished gem of a film- a rare treasure of unequaled technical mastery, unrivaled performances by both Nicholson and Dunaway, and screenwriting excellece of course too.
Chinatown is arguably the greatest movie ever made. But to understand this, and thus to understand why you really should watch it, it is perhaps useful to understand where it fits. Chinatown is certainly not the most "important" film, as it is essentially a rehashing of the film noir genre, but it terms of absolute and unequivocal success as BOTH a work of art and entertainment, Chinatown is without rival. Critics may have written much more about other movies of the period, and certainly for instance "Taxi Driver" is more of a cultural monument, but nothing can touch the staggering richness of this film. It still hits me like a locomotive every time I see it.

Rating:
Summary: DVD Definitely Worth Buying
Review: I bought the DVD at Amazon.com as part of an upgrade to my old VHS collection.

As most know, this is one of the best movies ever made starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and with John Huston. It had some bad luck in that it came out the same year as Godfather II - so it won just a single Oscar. It is an entertaining detective story set in Los Angeles circa 1937. The plot centers on the LA city department of water and power while the movie derives its name from the chaos encountered by LA detectives in Chinatown, and the Nicholson character if a former detective. The present movie has a certain amount of chaos and evil - even if subtle - hence the connection to Chinatown.

The movie is written by Robert Towne, who got $25,000. for the script, and directed by Roman Polanski, who also has a cameo appearance as a knife wielding security man working for the Huston character in the film - who cuts the nose of the Nicholson character. It was produced by Robert Evans at Paramount. This is a classic and outstanding Hollywood film and is excellent even after multiple viewings years later. The actors and the plot mesh like a hand and glove. The sets and period autos and clothes are all excellent, as is the music.

I am reviewing the movie to comment on the DVD. I had previously owned the VHS version. The DVD is of high quality with excellent color and essentially flawless pictures. The extras are outstanding and I was extremely happy with the purchase.

In addition to the normal trailer that one finds on most DVDs, there are interviews with Towne, Polasnski, and Evans who give their thoughts on the development of the movie, the production, the writing, and some of the scenes. Polaski guides us through what he thinks are memorable scenes while Townes tells us about his inspiration for certain lines and conversations.

Simply an outstanding DVD.


Rating:
Summary: Perfect
Review: In only several minutes of screen time John Huston is one of the best movie villains of all time. "I don't blame myself." He is unforgettable delivering that line. Roman Polanski, Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and Robert Towne have never done better work than this. Polanski and Towne could have softened the film's final revelation, but when Faye Dunaway forlornly shakes her head "no" they leave us nowhere to morally hide. Intelligent, complex, beautifull, this is a wonderfull, wonderfull film. It could never be made today, and that's a shame.

Rating:
Summary: Throwback to an Older Style of Filmmaking
Review: Jack Nicholson is totally captivating in his role as a private detective who specializes in tracking down stray spouses. But his latest case leads him to uncover greed and corruption that involve men in the highest levels of government, along with the wife and daughter (Faye Dunaway) of two such men, who also struggles to keep her terrible secret from coming to light.

Chinatown does such a fantastic job of capturing the mood and feel of the pre-World War II era that it actually seems like the film had to have been made back then. You may think it's a bit slow in the beginning, but rest assured that every little detail is significant to the story, which ultimately builds to an unforgettable climax. This critically acclaimed film is deserving of every accolade that has been bestowed upon it.

PS - for a great double feature, watch Chinatown and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest back to back !