Moral Darkness

Rating: 8/10 (20 March 2010)

"Chinatown" is one of the earliest examples of what came to be known as "neo-noir", the modern equivalent of the film noir genre of the forties and fifties. Other examples include Michael Winner's remake of "The Big Sleep", "Body Heat", "Gorky Park", "No Mercy", "Tequila Sunrise", "LA Confidential" and the more recent "Insomnia". Apart from "LA Confidential", made in the nineties about the fifties, all of those films had a contemporary setting, but "Chinatown" is a period piece. It is set in 1937 in Los Angeles, the city which was the setting for many of the most famous noirs, such as the original "Big Sleep".
As with a number of classic noirs, including "The Big Sleep" and "The Maltese Falcon", the hero, Jake Gittes, is a private investigator. A woman claiming to be Evelyn Mulwray, the wife of the chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, hires him to keep her husband, whom she suspects of adultery, under surveillance. Gittes, however, soon realises that he has been duped and that the woman was an impostor. Attempting to discover the reasons behind this deception, Gittes finds himself embroiled in a web of corruption. A shadowy group are scheming to use taxpayers money to divert water from the city to irrigate agricultural land in the San Fernando Valley. This group have been buying up land in the valley under false names, knowing that its value will increase dramatically once it enjoys the benefits of irrigation. This plot line was inspired by the disputes over land and water rights that became known as the "California Water Wars", and the character of Hollis Mulwray, Evelyn's husband, was partly based on William Mulholland, a key figure in those "wars", although in reality the "wars" took place during the 1910s and 20s rather than the 30s and Mulholland died in 1935.
Despite the title, the film has little to do with the Chinese-American quarter of Los Angeles beyond the fact that Gittes was once a police officer in Chinatown; his former colleague Lou Escobar, who is still a detective, plays an important role.
Director Roman Polanski and scriptwriter Robert Towne seem to have intended the film as a deliberate homage to film noir, but "homage to" does not necessarily mean the same as "pastiche of". It was made in colour rather than black-and white, which had fallen out of favour by 1974. Polanski, however, was at pains to ensure that his film was as visually distinctive as the traditional noir look, although very different from it.
The old films noirs, such as "The Big Sleep", were often dark and moody in tone, with many scenes taking place at night. "Chinatown", however, is the precise opposite. It is set during a hot, dry summer and shot in a harsh, glaring Southern California daylight, as pitiless as the villains of the story. The literal translation of "film noir" is, of course, "black film", but "dark film" often seems a more appropriate rendition, and in metaphorical if not literal terms there is as much darkness here as in any of the classic noirs; the plot takes in not merely financial corruption but also murder and incest. Some have seen the moral darkness which lies at the heart of this film as being rooted in the 1969 murder of the director's wife Sharon Tate by the Charles Manson gang. It must, however, be said that a similar darkness exists in some of Polanski's films from before 1969, such as "Repulsion" or "Rosemary's Baby".
Although Jack Nicholson was already a well-known actor following his appearances in films like "Easy Rider" and "Five Easy Pieces", "Chinatown" is sometimes regarded as the one which secured his reputation as a major star. His Gittes, the outwardly cynical, detached outsider who is inwardly driven by a strong desire to see justice done, is a classic noir hero of the type who once would have been played by Humphrey Bogart.
Faye Dunaway is also excellent as Evelyn, but the best performance comes from John Huston, better known as a director than as an actor. Huston plays Noah Cross, Evelyn's father and Hollis Mulwray's former partner who is one of the main villains. Cross says that says most people never have to acknowledge that, given the right circumstances, they are "capable of anything", and he himself is certainly capable of anything, even of the rape of his own daughter. Yet Huston makes him seem all the more sinister for being, outwardly, a charming and civilised man. Remarkably, although the film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, Huston was not among them for "Best Supporting Actor". (That was the year when three of the five nominations in that category went to the same film, "The Godfather Part II").
When they were first made, most of what we today regard as classic noirs were seen as little more than routine potboilers. (Huston's own "The Maltese Falcon" was something of an exception). By the mid-seventies, however, they were becoming more widely appreciated as finely crafted films, even as cinematic masterpieces, capable of making statements about society and about human nature. Polanski's homage falls within that tradition. It is well-directed, well-acted and with an intelligent and literate script. (Of those eleven nominations only one, that for Towne's "Best Original Screenplay", resulted in an actual award). With the possible exception of "L.A. Confidential", this is the best of the neo-noirs. 8/10