A little 'CHINATOWN' will do you...

Rating: 10/10 (30 April 2012)

Reference Sherlock Holmes about the drawbacks of getting emotionally involved with your clients and the efficacy of police interrogation techniques after watching 'CHINATOWN'...
There was this bespectacled, light-skinned little lady I knew in high school. She usually sat in the front of the class at Cass Tech. and kept to herself; never saying much. I have no doubt she collected her 'A's, got her diploma, and matriculated her way out into the real world and her rightful place in the social order. I would have to compare her to Rosa Parks in her demeanor and psychological disposition.
Imagine my surprise when I sat down next to her in the back of the Crosstown bus, and on route to our destinations she starts riffing about 'CHINATOWN'! Normally, when I meet strangers, acquaintances, and friends, I dominate the conversation with my rambling free association about my experiences and events, but not so in this case. The young lady communicated to me with an uncharacteristic animation and enthusiasm that I was certain had nothing to do with my personal charm, good looks or winning personality; or perhaps lack thereof. I spent most of our ride listening to her explain in great detail about this wonderful film involving a private eye who puts all the pieces together in a murder mystery and yet still ends up mishandling it all when he gets to Chinatown.
When I rang the bell to get off at my stop, I couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling that this little woman thought this film somehow gave her a kind of special insight into me and my own experience in Life. I was a pretty popular playwright back in high school with an extensive share of performance successes and debacles. All the while we were riding over to the East Side she kept urging me that I should see this film. Being, as I said, a quiet and unassuming person, she did not press the point much beyond that. I shrugged off what she said, and despite telling her that I would have to see the film when I got a chance; it would be years before I actually did see it. But these words she uttered rang through my mind like an unanswered telephone, "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
Finally, the opportunity presented itself at the Helen De Roy Auditorium on the campus of Wayne State University. I went with my sister and a good friend Nick Meyers. We sat in the darkened auditorium and when the film ended, didn't know quite what to say to each other or what to make of it. Nick had to go pick up his girl friend and my sister gave me a ride back into to Highland Park where I was working on a script for her to be aired on educational television.
I have said all of the above because I feel a special personal connection to 'CHINATOWN'. It is about many things; but primarily it is about how Money and Politics and the viewpoint of a severely disturbed tycoon affects the quality of relationships and environment in Southern California. That being said, this does not begin to describe the effect that 'CHINATOWN' can have on the viewer. I think these two quotes from the screenplay might better illustrate what I mean:
GITTES
I'll tell you the unwritten law, you dumb son
of a bitch, you gotta be rich to kill somebody,
anybody and get away with it. You think you got
that kind of dough, you think you got that kind
of class?
MULWRAY
In case you've forgotten, gentlemen, over five
hundred lives were lost when the Vander der Lip
Dam gave way. Core samples have shown that beneath
this bedrock is shale similar to the permeable
shale in the Vander der Lip disaster. It couldn't
withstand that kind of pressure there.
(referring to new overleaf)
Now you propose yet another dirt banked terminus
dam with slopes of two and one half to one, one
hundred twelve feet high and a twelve thousand acre
water surface. Well, it won't hold. I won't build it.
It's that simple. I am not making that kind of mistake
twice. Thank you, gentlemen.
There are three films I always felt could have been directed by a Satanist. They are 'THE EXORCIST', 'ROSEMARY'S BABY' and 'CHINATOWN'. Oddly enough, Roman Polanski has directed two of them. This is a comment on the darkness of the subject matter and is not meant as a pejorative statement.
Even in the beginning of 'CHINATOWN' one has the feeling that one is experiencing a sick, twisted point of view. Polanski excels at creating this general air of perversity and corruption as an indefinable something you can't quite put your finger on, but which you know is there. The other thing he excels at in this movie is that sustained sense of deja vu'; that growing dread and sense of the impression that '-it's happening again-'; such as I have only felt directing performances of one-act plays, demonstrating defensive tactics in the police academy as a police cadet or having a Zorba-like inspiration about teaching the Grid Technique in the classroom only to have it all fall apart in actual practice and application.
"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."