Classic noir

Rating: 9/10 (28 February 2016)

"Are you alone, Mr Gittes?" an anonymous caller asks Nicholson's private eye in Polanski's "Chinatown".
His response: "Isn't everybody?"
I don't blame him for being lonely.
You see, the cliché in film noir was to create a character totally at ease in the sleazy world he lives and operates in. This can be boring and exasperating when handled badly; it feels like the movie has left you by the wayside. In Chinatown, Robert Towne and Jack Nicholson broke this rule: Nicholson's Jake Gittes is not comfortable in this world. Even before being thrust into the web of deceit and corruption he seems uncomfortable. He clearly pities the cuckolded spouses he sees day to day. He's tired of lying.
When Gittes begins to unravel the plot it is frequently surprising the lengths he goes to, at great personal risk, to see the bad guys punished. He is smart enough to know that no one will believe him; as Faye Dunaway's femme fatale tells him, "he owns the police!". Gittes is drowning in a sea of moral turpitude, looking for something good to hang onto, some sign that all is not lost.
The horribly shocking ending, it has to be said, does not provide him with this, but the performances of Nicholson, Huston and Dunaway make this world much more believable to us.
"Chinatown" is a film noir without film noir; it rewrites the rules, illustrating them and elevating the genre.