Chinatown is a 1974 neo-noir mystery thriller that is based on a series of political conflicts involving ranchers and farmers in the Owens Valley of eastern California and the City of Los Angeles at the turn of the 20th century.
In the film, the Chief of the Los Angeles Water Department is killed as part of a political cover-up connected to a drought and water being secretly dumped into the ocean to force a referendum on a bond measure to build a dam that would give 1 man control of all the water in Los Angeles. Nominated for 11 Academy awards and winning Best Screenplay for Robert Towne, Chinatown is produced by Robert Evans, distributed by Paramount Pictures, and directed by Roman Polanski--his last film in the United States. The Cinematography is by John A. Alonzo, the editing is by Sam O’ Steen, and the music is by Jerry Goldsmith. The film stars Jack Nicholson as Private Detective Jake Gittes, Faye Dunaway as Evelyn Mulwray, John Huston as Noah Cross, Perry Lopez as Lou Escobar, Burt Young as Curly, and the director, Roman Polanski, in a small cameo. In this presentation, I will summarize Chinatown’s plot, explore the film’s major themes, and I will offer my overall thoughts on the film.Plot
Jake Gittes is a private investigator working out of Los Angeles and haunted by Chinatown where he once worked as a District Attorney but ended up leaving after someone he could have helped got hurt. Nowadays, he earns his living with a camera taking pictures of cheating spouses. One day a beautiful blonde named Evelyn Mulwray walks into his office. Her husband, who happens to be an official at the Water Department, may be having an affair--no big deal. Also, Jake can tell by the woman’s dress, handbag, and shoes that she has plenty of money to burn, unlike other clients that nickel and dime him to death.
Jake takes her money, gives her a contract, and follows her husband 1st to a dry riverbed and then some dry reservoirs in the valley--again, no big deal. Just when it looks like all hope is lost, eureka! They catch the man with a blonde: 1st, in a rowboat at Westlake Park; then, sitting together at a small table in a courtyard. The pictures make the front page of the paper and causes a scandal! Days later, Hollis Mulwray’s corpse is pulled out of a reservoir. Jake smells a fish!
Then the prostitute pretending to be Mrs. Mulwray turns up dead. The real Mrs. Mulwray knew about her husband’s affair but claims to know nothing of his mistress who is the last person to see him alive. The mistress disappears without a trace. Jake doesn’t believe that Evelyn Mulwray is telling him everything. Hollis Mulwray had found something in the dry riverbed and reservoirs that somebody didn’t want him to know, something that got him killed, something that is somehow connected with Hollis Mulwray, his mistress, and Evelyn’s father, Noah Cross!
Themes
Control
Hollis Mulwray and Noah Cross stand on opposite sides over the question of control; Hollis believes that the public should control the water but Noah Cross wants to control the water. Their disagreement is a metaphor for the film’s subplot: replace the water with Evelyn’s daughter; replace Hollis with Jake Gittes; and replace Noah Cross with his daughter Evelyn. Now, you have Jake (a private investigator) who, like Hollis, wants to expose the truth (or Evelyn’s daughter) and Evelyn who--like her father--wants to control the truth by keeping the scandalous circumstances about herself, her daughter, and her father private.
Perspective and Facts
A fisherman named Curly hires Jake Gittes to find out if his wife is cheating. When Jake gets the pictures to prove that she is cheating Curly is devastated. Later in the film, though, we see Curly’s wife with a black eye and realize that it isn’t him but his wife who is the victim . Evelyn Mulwray hires Jake to find out if her husband, Hollis Mulwray, is having an affair. Jake follows Mulwray and takes pictures of him with his mistress and the pictures end up making the front page of the paper. Later, the real Evelyn Mulwray tells Jake that the girl with her husband is actually her daughter and the woman who paid Jake to take the pictures was a prostitute. Then, Jake interviews Yellburton who had worked with Hollis Mulwray at the Water Department for years. According to Yellburton, Hollis Mulwray was not the type of man who would cheat on his wife. In Chinatown, nothing is what it seems.
Throughout the film, Jake bases his conclusions on appearances and incomplete information. For instance, when the fake Evelyn Mulwray walks into Jake’s office, tells him she’s Evelyn Mulwray, and pays him to find out if Hollis Mulwray is having an affair, Jake takes her case and her money on the strength that she looked like she had a lot of money. Jake then interprets every photograph of Hollis Mulwray and the girl as an affair because of what he is told to look for regardless of what Mulwray and the girl are actually doing in those pictures.
Water and Secrecy
Evelyn Mulwray is her daughter’s sister and mother at the same time, a paradox that holds the key to why Jake chose to leave Chinatown. Some secrets are so dark that the only way to address them is to do so indirectly.
The word water in this movie is a metaphor for both the truth and Evelyn’s daughter; and like water, Hollis Mulwray is a metaphor for Jake Gittes. Let me explain:
The breaking of the Van der Lip dam represents the truth coming out about Evelyn, her father, and their daughter’s complicated relationship. Evelyn wants to keep her daughter from knowing that her grandfather, Noah Cross, is also her father; Noah Cross, on the other hand, wants to keep the citizens of Los Angeles from knowing that the drought is man-made to force the farmers in the valley to sell their land cheap. Then there’s Hollis Mulwray who wants to know where the water is being diverted to and Jake Gittes who wants to know Evelyn’s secret concerning Hollis Mulwray’s mistress
In this film, the tragedy surrounding the Van der Lip dam project is also a metaphor for the backstory of Chinatown. Jake left the DAs office in Chinatown because of something that happened there that he could have prevented; Hollis Mulwray is against the new dam project because the previous dam that he and Cross built failed and killed 500 people; Hollis knew he could have prevented this from happening but didn’t take action. And like Jake who swears to never make the same mistake he made in Chinatown, Hollis vows not to build another dam on an unstable foundation again.
Wrap
Chinatown is 1 of those films that is so well written and acted that it holds you and doesn’t let you go until the last scene. Like I mentioned earlier, the film is loosely based on a series of conflicts over water rights between farmers and ranchers in eastern California and the city of Los Angeles at the turn of the 20th century. Noah Cross and Hollis Mulwray are both based on 2 public officials who dried up the valley by diverting all of its water to Los Angeles. The superintendent of the Water Company was William Mulholland whose last name incorporated the 1st and last name of Hollis Mulwray.
Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway exemplify the male and female lead in the genre. The dialogue is crisp and straight to the point. And John Huston’s performance as Noah Mulwray is as menacing as they come. Great film experience and definitely essential to your collection.
