"Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown"

Rating: 9/10 (27 October 2007)

Only fifteen or so years after the classic film noir cycle had run its course, and not really that long since film theorists began to universally recognise it as a genre, the film noir was back as a subject for stylish nostalgic homage. But Chinatown is no lazy bundle of clichés  it draws together everything that was great about film noir, and was put in the hands of one of the most talented directors and some of the greatest actors of the day.
Story-wise this is very much the archetypal film noir, reminiscent of The Maltese Falcon, The Big Heat, Kiss Me Deadly, Vertigo, Touch of Evil and many others, and with a plot equally as complex and skilfully woven as those classics. You have the political corruption, the cynical private eye hero and the femme fatale, not to mention the atmosphere of absolute despair, regret and the terrifying power of evil people. But Chinatown has much more than that  it was made in an era when cinema was shorn of many of its conventions and the burdens of censorship and is therefore more daring and more grown up. The characters are at once stylised references to film noir figures and at the same fully rounded and believable individuals. The dialogue is both memorable and realistic. Robert Towne's screenplay also had some invaluable modifications from director Roman Polanski, most notably a change to the ending, although I won't spoil that here.
Two things really stand out about Polanski's direction of Chinatown. First is his use of colour. The bulk of the film is composed in drab browns and greys, which evoke the era, as well as the theme of drought. Polanski had a great talent for being incredibly restrained when it came to colour, and really it's not so much about putting the right colours in, it's about keeping the wrong colours  the bold ones  out. He doesn't let so much as a brightly coloured button sneak into the shot, the exception to this being when he wants to draw attention to something or create a shift in mood. For example the blaring neon lights of the final sequence are a counterpoint to the rest of the film, and really help to ratchet up the power of the finale.
The second thing that stands out is Polanski's use of space. Just like Alfred Hitchcock could create suspense out of nothing, Polanski creates a sense of confinement out of nothing. A lot of Chinatown takes place outdoors and in wide open spaces, but by this point Polanski's skill and confidence was such that he didn't need cramped apartments or castles to create claustrophobic spaces. Here he creates the same feeling with shots through car windscreens, Venetian blinds or even just a few carefully chosen items in the foreground. Chinatown is bizarrely shot in scope ratio, but whereas normally the ratio is used to open out the shot widthways, in Polanski's hands it is almost as if it is compressing the image height-wise.
Also crucial to the mix is the spot-on casting. These were great roles for Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. This is perhaps Nicholson's career best  a deep, restrained performance in contrast to his comfort zone of playing energetic lunatics. The real masterstroke though was casting John Huston as Noah Cross. Obviously he was a major figure in classic film noir, but he also really gets his teeth into this role. It's also a nice touch to have someone who can make Jack Nicholson look small.
Chinatown comes from the beginning of the age in which cinema became more and more retrospective and nostalgic, but nostalgia rarely comes better than this. A lot of people, myself included, didn't like Chinatown upon first seeing it, but it tends to grow on people. It's a very impressive picture.