Water and Power

Rating: Null/10 (19 October 2002)

What makes Chinatown so good? It begins with Robert Towne's screenplay, which resonates on many levels. The story is about water, "Where life begins", as wealthy businessman Noah Cross (John Huston) tells J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson), a private investigator with more moxie than polish. Who controls water has power. Water runs underground, its ebb and flow controlled by forces that we do not understand.
You can think of water as the unconscious, the id, capitalism, the government, the powers that be, insert your own symbolism and it works. It's the classic Noir cosmology: the hero is just a little man in the big city, and there are forces beyond his control that determine his destiny. "You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe me you don't", Noah Cross tells Gittes. The implications reverberate through the lives of all the characters.
The production design and cinematography are beautiful. The locations capture the look and feel of pre-WW II Los Angeles. Jerry Goldsmith's score moves from lush and romantic to sparse and dissonant at all the appropriate moments. Roman Polanski shows that a Pole can understand of the American Private Detective tradition as well as the German Billy Wilder. Nicholson has the guts to play a romantic lead with a bandage on his nose through half the movie. John Huston uses his small amount of screen time to create a frightening and memorable portrait of corrupted wealth. If there is a false note in the movie, it might be in the chemistry between Nicholson's Gittes and the beautiful but fragile Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway). While everyone quotes the last line of the movie, Dunaway has a great Noir line: "I don't get tough with anyone, Mr. Gittes. My lawyer does."
This movie deserves its reputation as a classic. You can revisit it many times, and still have fun exploring the labyrinths of Chinatown.