THE MOVIES OF MY LIFE PHASE ONE: Chinatown (1974)

I have said on a number of occasions--a few I suspect were recorded and sent out into the podosphere--that the 70‘s was the last Great Era of Adult Filmmaking.  Before Jaws hit in 1976, the first film to get a nationwide day-and-date release, and Star Wars took everyone by surprise and convinced Hollywood that the money lay in appealing to the same part of our brain that gets excited over shiny things*, Mainstream Hollywood was interested in challenging its audience and opening dialogues.  Sure, there was always Escapist Fun Films, but they were released alongside those that were complex and deep and confronted things head on.  Not every movie was guaranteed to end neatly in a happy ending for our heroes--sometimes, they were lucky to live to the final shot.

Which brings us to this film, the latest Entrant on my List of Shame to be crossed off the list.  This is a movie where the hero strives to find out what exactly is going on, investigates government corruption, tries to help out a woman he sleeps with, tries to protect a girl from her predatory relative....and thoroughly and absolutely fails in everything, resulting in a police officer telling him the line of dialogue that I’ve parodied on many a podcast.  He gets to survive with his life--and nose--intact, and maybe with some knowledge that will help him out in the future.  There’s no triumph of Our Hero Over Evil, but that’s not the point of Chinatown (the title refers as much to a state of mind as to a physical place); it’s about having the solace of knowing you did Everything You Damn Well Could.

The thing that struck me in watching the film straight through is how much of this film takes place during the day.  Polanski seems to be interested a lot in playing with the conventions of the film noir, and that means loads of scenes in broad daylight--one of the most important plot points happens around the tidal pool in Evelyn’s (Faye Dunaway) backyard while Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hanging out.  There are only three real important scenes that take place at night and they usually involve Gittes in peril.  That’s not to say the film is bright; it seems to be shot in a perpetual haze, like we’re looking at old photographs.  And there’s a lot of Gittes just acting like a private eye, researching at the Hall of Records and interviewing folks and shadowing others.  Hell, Polanski seems to revel in this grunt work and treats the violence in a backhanded way.

It is hard to convey to younger generations what an amazing actor Jack Nicholson was, given that he, much like contemporaries Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro and Christopher Walken, somehow slid into the habit of Just Playing Jack in later films.  Jake Gittes is a real character who seems to have a life outside of this movie; I’m not surprised they worked hard for years to get a sequel off the ground.  I never saw Nicholson as anybody but his character for the two hour plus running time, and

this performance is a great example of why he is considered one of the greatest actors of his time.

I’m not sure, but I think this might have been the first time incest was talked about in a mainstream film.  The subject of sexual abuse is usually a trigger for me, and I was bracing myself for the revelation--but it didn’t set it off as it usually did.  There’s obviously some sort of post-shooting meddling (Nicholson’s line ‘He raped you’ is plainly ADR’d), and I wonder what Evans and Polanski’s true intentions for this revelation were; I get the feeling that Dunaway shaking her head at that moment is not her trying to disassociate herself from the memories she’s recounting, but her insisting that it wasn’t rape but a more insidious form of abuse.  I don’t know what to make of it and that actually is okay, because that form of ambiguity is sorely missing from the Mainstream Cinema of Today.

I’m grateful I finally got to see this film.  I do feel it’s an essential view for those of us who are interested in the transitory period between ‘Pure’ Noir and Neo Noir.  It is recommended.

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* No, I didn’t imply that George Lucas killed the intellect of Mainstream Cinema by putting out his tribute to Flash Gordon--I’m out and out saying it.  Without the massive success of Star Wars, studios would not have been convinced to bury all their money into what should have been B pictures.  And that’s what we’ve had mainly from the 80‘s on....simplistic morality plays that emphasize visceral sensation over challenging the viewer.

I know this view will get me attacked, even as I admit that a number of those simplistic morality plays are extremely effective and well done simplistic morality plays....come at me, bros.