Chinatown

Directed by: Roman Polanski - 2 hours, 10 minutes - 1974 - USA - Color - Blu-ray - 2.35:1
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez, Diane Ladd, Burt Young

Jake Gittes runs a private detective agency in Los Angeles in the late 30s, mostly investigating cheating spouses and the like. When one of his jobs ends with the death of the man he’s investigating, resulting in bad press for Jake and his agency, he sets out to find out who set him up and what really happened. His search quickly leads him to bigger mysteries involving city politics, control of L.A.’s water supply, and land speculation. In the middle of all this is Evelyn Mulwray, the widow of the deceased who initially tries to steer Jake away from looking further, and whose secrets he’s trying to uncover.

Chinatown was the pet project of Robert Evans, the producer who had helped save Paramount Studios with a string of unexpected hits, including Rosemary’s Baby, Love Story, and The Godfather. The script was written by Robert Towne specifically for Jack Nicholson, and Polish director Polanski was brought in at Evans’s request to give the picture a European outsider’s perspective on an American story, and for the dark and cynical approach typical of Polanski’s films. This was especially noticeable in the bleakness of his early 70s films following the murder of his pregnant wife Sharon Tate by the Manson family in 1969. Chinatown is an appropriately brutal view of L.A., a sunlit neo-noir that somehow manages to merge a history of Southern California’s water supply with existential despair to make one of the greatest films of all time.

Trailer
IMDB page
Roger Ebert reviews (4/4 stars) - [Original Review] [Great Movies review]

VIDEOS

Seeing Chinatown as Greek Tragedy - by Filmscalpel (5:46)