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XXXIII: Roman Polanski, Chinatown (1974)
One of those classics which I've never gotten around to somehow - which gives me pause for thought - and a film which used to get mentioned in the same breath (and as superior to) LA Confidential. Both are sprawling crime stories set across a corrupt Los Angeles, where no one is to be trusted, not the cops, not the authorities, not those you sleep with. Whereas the Ellroy adaptation boiled down to two three interrelating stories set across a decade, tied together loosely by Danny De Vito's muck-raking journalist, the action here is over a couple of days, and whilst the protagonist Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is in every scene, he isn't in every shot. (I suspect the film was rather more anamorphic than the transfer here; Gittes sometimes smoked from my left speaker rather than the left side of the screen.)
Gittes is employed to follow Hollis Mulwray, L.A. water department's chief engineer, by his wife Evelyn. When he uncovers an affair, Gittes discovers the woman claiming to be Evelyn was an imposter, and Mulwray apparently drowns. Gittes is first sued and then employed by the real Evelyn, and tracks both the corruption of the plans for supplying water to the city and Hollis's killer.
It's long at 130 minutes (2hr 5 on DVD), but is leisurely rather than laboured, as we follow Gittes around, knowing as much or as less than he does. He is the tarnished Arthurian knight of Hammett's Sam Spade or Chandler's Marlow, although a decade later. (Like the Continental Op he isn't entirely in charge of events - although the Op often set clashes going in order to see what was going to happen.) Each encounter is a perfect cameo - Polanksi's knife man and John Huston's affable but deadly Noah Cross (they're Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, of course), the officious keeper of records, the basically trusting but weary chief of police.
Of course, this is Nicholson before he was weighed down with Oscars and before he just did his Nicholson schtick - and it's easy to forget he was a handsome man before he went to seed. (Which is not to say he wasn't sexy - just he stopped being as good looking.)
The film has the 1970s ending - downbeat, justice not served but covered up, the question answered but the itch not scratched, and Gittes disappears out of shot, leaving behind the mess that needs tidying up.
Nicholson was to direct a sequel (The Two Jakes) from another Robert Towne script; I'll stick that on the list to watch.
One of those classics which I've never gotten around to somehow - which gives me pause for thought - and a film which used to get mentioned in the same breath (and as superior to) LA Confidential. Both are sprawling crime stories set across a corrupt Los Angeles, where no one is to be trusted, not the cops, not the authorities, not those you sleep with. Whereas the Ellroy adaptation boiled down to two three interrelating stories set across a decade, tied together loosely by Danny De Vito's muck-raking journalist, the action here is over a couple of days, and whilst the protagonist Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is in every scene, he isn't in every shot. (I suspect the film was rather more anamorphic than the transfer here; Gittes sometimes smoked from my left speaker rather than the left side of the screen.)
Gittes is employed to follow Hollis Mulwray, L.A. water department's chief engineer, by his wife Evelyn. When he uncovers an affair, Gittes discovers the woman claiming to be Evelyn was an imposter, and Mulwray apparently drowns. Gittes is first sued and then employed by the real Evelyn, and tracks both the corruption of the plans for supplying water to the city and Hollis's killer.
It's long at 130 minutes (2hr 5 on DVD), but is leisurely rather than laboured, as we follow Gittes around, knowing as much or as less than he does. He is the tarnished Arthurian knight of Hammett's Sam Spade or Chandler's Marlow, although a decade later. (Like the Continental Op he isn't entirely in charge of events - although the Op often set clashes going in order to see what was going to happen.) Each encounter is a perfect cameo - Polanksi's knife man and John Huston's affable but deadly Noah Cross (they're Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, of course), the officious keeper of records, the basically trusting but weary chief of police.
Of course, this is Nicholson before he was weighed down with Oscars and before he just did his Nicholson schtick - and it's easy to forget he was a handsome man before he went to seed. (Which is not to say he wasn't sexy - just he stopped being as good looking.)
The film has the 1970s ending - downbeat, justice not served but covered up, the question answered but the itch not scratched, and Gittes disappears out of shot, leaving behind the mess that needs tidying up.
Nicholson was to direct a sequel (The Two Jakes) from another Robert Towne script; I'll stick that on the list to watch.
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