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Chinatown (1974 film)

Film directed by Roman Polański From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chinatown (1974 film)
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Chinatown is a 1974 American neo-noir mystery film shot in Panavision and color, directed by Roman Polanski and written by Robert Towne. It stars Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, with supporting performances from John Huston, John Hillerman, Perry Lopez, Burt Young, and Diane Ladd. The film's narrative, set in 1930s Los Angeles, is loosely inspired by the California water wars—early 20th-century conflicts over water rights that enabled Los Angeles to access resources from the Owens Valley.[4] Produced by Robert Evans and distributed by Paramount Pictures, Chinatown was Polanski's final film made in the United States and is considered a landmark of the film noir genre, blending mystery and psychological drama.[5]

Quick Facts Directed by, Written by ...
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Released on June 20, 1974, Chinatown received widespread critical acclaim for its direction, screenplay, cinematography, and performances—particularly those of Nicholson and Dunaway. Chinatown led the 47th Academy Awards with 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (Polanski), Best Actor (Nicholson), and Best Actress (Dunaway), with Towne winning for Best Original Screenplay.[6] At the 32nd Golden Globe Awards, the film received a leading 7 nominations, including Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama (Dunaway) and Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture (Huston), and won a leading 4 awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director and Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama (Nicholson).[7] It also received a leading 11 nominations at the 28th British Academy Film Awards, including BAFTA Award for Best Film, BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and won a leading 3 awards – Best Direction (Polanski) and Best Actor in a Leading Role (Nicholson).[8] In 2008, the American Film Institute ranked it #2 on its list of the top ten mystery films. In 1991, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[9][10] It is widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.[11][12][13]

A sequel, The Two Jakes, was released in 1990, with Nicholson reprising his role and directing. Towne returned as screenwriter, but the film received mixed reviews and failed to replicate the success of its predecessor.

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Plot

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In 1930s Los Angeles, a woman identifying herself as Evelyn Mulwray hires private investigator J. J. "Jake" Gittes to trail her husband, Hollis, the chief engineer at the Department of Water and Power. Gittes photographs Hollis in the company of a young woman and the pictures make their way into the Post-Record, exposing their apparent affair. Gittes is then confronted by the real Evelyn Mulwray, who threatens to sue him. He concludes that the imposter was using him to discredit Hollis.

Gittes crosses paths with his former colleague, LAPD Lieutenant Lou Escobar, when Hollis's corpse is found in a reservoir. Investigating further, he discovers that huge quantities of water are being released from the reservoir each night, despite the fact that the city is in the midst of a drought. Water Department Security Chief Claude Mulvihill warns him off, and he has his nose slashed by one of Mulvihill's henchmen.

Now working for Evelyn, Gittes investigates Hollis's death. He learns that Hollis was once the business partner of Evelyn's wealthy father, Noah Cross. Cross offers to double Gittes's fee if he finds Hollis's supposed mistress, who has disappeared. Gittes receives a call from Ida Sessions, the woman who posed as Evelyn. She refuses to say who hired her, but urges Gittes to check the Post-Record's obituary section.

Public records reveal that much of the Northwest Valley has recently changed ownership. Gittes recognizes one of the buyers' names from the obituary section; the obituary indicates that he had been dead for a week when the deal was closed. Gittes and Evelyn bluff their way into the retirement home where the buyer had lived and discover that many of the other residents are "buyers" too, although they have no knowledge of this fact. A suspicious staff member calls Mulvihill, but Gittes and Evelyn escape him and his thugs and hide at her mansion, where they sleep together. Later that night, Gittes follows Evelyn to a house where he sees her comforting the missing girl. When confronted, Evelyn claims the girl is her sister, Katherine.

A call from Escobar summons Gittes to Ida's apartment; she has been murdered. Escobar reveals that Hollis had saltwater in his lungs, indicating that he did not drown in the reservoir. He suspects Evelyn murdered him and tells Gittes to produce her quickly. At the Mulwray residence, Gittes retrieves a pair of eyeglasses from the saltwater garden pond.

Gittes confronts Evelyn about Katherine, whom she now claims is her daughter. With Escobar suspecting that Evelyn was her father's murderess, and with circumstances being that Escobar could revoke Gittes private investigator's license, Gittes, frustrated and desperate to maintain his professional existence now put at risk, loses composure and delivers a few consistent slaps upon Evelyn until, too much, she caves in and reveals that Katherine has dual sibling identity: both her sister and her daughter. The girl's father is Cross, who raped his daughter Evelyn when she was 15. Upon leaving the scene, she informs Gittes she has noticed that the glasses found had not belonged to Hollis.

Gittes arranges for the women to flee to Mexico and instructs Evelyn to meet him at her butler's home in Chinatown. He summons Cross to the Mulwray estate, having deduced that Cross dropped his glasses when he drowned Hollis in the pond. Cross reveals that he is behind both the water shortage and the land grab in the Northwest Valley. Once the land is his, he will obtain a contract from the city to build a reservoir there. He discredited and killed Hollis when the latter came close to uncovering the plan.

At gunpoint, Cross and Mulvihill force Gittes to take them to Chinatown, where the police are waiting. Escobar detains Gittes as Cross attempts to claim Katherine. Evelyn shoots Cross in the arm and tries to escape with Katherine, but the police open fire, killing her. Cross takes a distraught Katherine away, and Escobar orders Gittes released. As Gittes is accompanied away by his associates, one tells him, "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."[a]

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Cast

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Production

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Background

In 1971, producer Robert Evans offered Towne $175,000 to write a screenplay for The Great Gatsby (1974), but Towne felt he could not better the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. Instead, Towne asked Evans for $25,000 to write his own story, Chinatown, to which Evans agreed.[15][16][17] Towne had originally hoped to also direct Chinatown, but realized that by taking Evans' money, he would lose control of the project's future and his role as a director.[18]

Chinatown is set in 1937 and portrays the manipulation of a critical municipal resource—water—by a cadre of shadowy oligarchs. It was the first part of Towne's planned trilogy about the character J. J. Gittes, the foibles of the Los Angeles power structure, and the subjugation of public good by private greed.[19] The second part, The Two Jakes, has Gittes caught up in another grab for a natural resource—oil—in the 1940s. It was directed by Jack Nicholson and released in 1990, but the second film's commercial and critical failure scuttled plans to make Gittes vs. Gittes,[20] about the third finite resource—land—in Los Angeles, circa 1968.[19]

Origins

The character of Hollis Mulwray was inspired by and loosely based on Irish immigrant William Mulholland (1855–1935) according to Mulholland's granddaughter.[21][22][23] Mulholland was the superintendent and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, who oversaw the construction of the 230-mile (370-km) aqueduct that carries water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles.[22] Mulholland was considered by many to be the man who made Los Angeles possible by building the Los Angeles Aqueduct in the early 1900s.[24] The 233 mile long feat of engineering brought the water necessary for urban expansion from the Owens Valley to a Los Angeles whose growth was constrained by the limits of the Los Angeles River.[25] Mulholland credits Fred Eaton, then mayor of Los Angeles, with the idea to secure water for the city from the Owens Valley.[26]

Although the character of Hollis Mulwray was relatively minor in the film and he was killed in the early part of the movie, the events of Mulholland's life were portrayed through both the character of Mulwray and other figures in the movie. This portrayal, along with other changes to actual events that inspired Chinatown, such as the time frame which was some thirty years earlier than that of the movie, were some of the liberties with facts of Mulholland's life that the movie takes.[27]

Author Vincent Brook considers real-life Mulholland to be split, in the film, into "noble Water and Power chief Hollis Mulwray" and "mobster muscle Claude Mulvihill",[23] just as Land syndicate and Combination members, who "exploited their insider knowledge" on account of "personal greed", are "condensed into the singular, and singularly monstrous, Noah Cross".[23]

In the film, Mulwray opposes the dam wanted by Noah Cross and the city of Los Angeles, for reasons of engineering and safety, arguing he would not repeat his previous mistake, when his dam broke resulting in hundreds of deaths. This alludes to the St. Francis Dam disaster of March 12, 1928.[28] Unlike the character of Mulwray, who was concerned about the dam in Chinatown, Mulholland's role in the disaster diverged from the events in the film. Mulholland had inspected the St. Francis Dam after the dam keeper Tony Harnischfeger requested that Mulholland personally inspect the dam after Harnischfeger became concerned about the safety of the dam upon discovering cracks and brown water leaking from the base of the dam, which indicated to him the erosion of the dam's foundation.[29] Mulholland inspected the dam at around 10:30 in the morning, declaring that all was well with the structure.[29] Just before midnight that same evening, a massive failure of the dam occurred.[29] The dam's failure inundated the Santa Clara River Valley, including the town of Santa Paula, with flood water, causing the deaths of at least 431 people. The event effectively ended Mulholland's career.[30][31]

The plot of Chinatown is also drawn not just from the diversion of water from the Owens Valley via the aqueduct but also from another actual event. In the movie, water is being purposely released in order to drive the land owners out and create support for a dam through an artificial drought. The event that the movie refers to occurred in late 1903 and 1904 when underground water levels plummeted and water usage rose precipitously.[32] Rather than a deliberate release, Mulholland was able to figure out that because of faulty valves and gates in the water system, large quantities of water were being released in the overflow sewer system and then into the ocean.[32] Mulholland was able to stop the leaks.[33]

Script

According to Robert Towne, both Carey McWilliams's Southern California Country: An Island on the Land (1946) and a West magazine article called "Raymond Chandler's L.A." inspired his original screenplay.[34] In a letter to McWilliams, Towne wrote that Southern California Country "really changed my life. It taught me to look at the place where I was born, and convinced me to write about it".[35]

Towne wrote the screenplay with Jack Nicholson in mind.[15] He took the title (and the exchange "What did you do in Chinatown?" / "As little as possible") from a Hungarian vice cop, who had worked in Los Angeles's Chinatown, dealing with its confusion of dialects and gangs. The vice cop thought that "police were better off in Chinatown doing nothing, because you could never tell what went on there" and whether what a cop did helped or furthered the exploitation of victims.[15][36][37]

Polanski first learned of the script through Nicholson, as they had been searching for a suitable joint project, and the producer Robert Evans was excited at the thought that Polanski's direction would create a darker, more cynical, and European vision of the United States. Polanski was initially reluctant to return to Los Angeles (it was only a few years since the murder of his pregnant wife Sharon Tate), but was persuaded on the strength of the script.[15]

Towne wanted Cross to die and Evelyn Mulwray to survive, but the screenwriter and director argued over it, with Polanski insisting on a tragic end: "I knew that if Chinatown was to be special, not just another thriller where the good guys triumph in the final reel, Evelyn had to die".[38] They parted ways over this dispute and Polanski wrote the final scene a few days before it was shot.[15]

The original script was more than 180 pages and included a narration by Gittes; Polanski cut and reordered the story so the audience and Gittes unraveled the mysteries at the same time.

Characters and casting

  • J. J. Gittes was named after Nicholson's friend, producer Harry Gittes.
  • Evelyn Mulwray is, according to Towne, intended to initially seem the classic "black widow" character typical of lead female characters in film noir, but is eventually revealed to be a tragic victim. Jane Fonda was strongly considered for the role, but Polanski insisted on Dunaway.[15]
  • Noah Cross: Towne said that Huston was, after Nicholson, the second-best-cast actor in the film and that he made the Cross character menacing, through his courtly performance.[15]
  • Polanski appears in a cameo as the gangster who cuts Gittes' nose. The effect was accomplished with a special knife which could have actually cut Nicholson's nose if Polanski had not held it correctly.
  • In 1974, after making Chinatown and while filming The Fortune, Nicholson was informed by Time magazine researchers that his "sister" was actually his mother, similarly to the revelation made in the film regarding Evelyn and Katherine.[39]

Filming

Principal photography took place from October 1973 to January 1974.[40] William A. Fraker accepted the cinematographer position from Polanski when Paramount agreed. He had worked with the studio previously on Polanski's Rosemary's Baby. Robert Evans, never consulted about the decision, insisted that the offer be rescinded since he felt pairing Polanski and Fraker again would create a team with too much control over the project and complicate the production.[41]

Between Fraker and the eventual choice John A. Alonzo, the two compromised on Stanley Cortez, but Polanski grew frustrated with Cortez's slow process, old fashioned compositional sensibility, and unfamiliarity with the Panavision equipment. Alonzo had worked on documentaries and shot film for National Geographic and for Jacques Cousteau.[42] Alonzo was chosen for his fleetness and skill with natural light a few weeks into production. Alonzo understood that Polanski wanted realism in his lighting; "He wants the soft red tile to look soft red."[43] Ultimately, only a handful of scenes in the finished film, including the orange grove confrontation, were shot by Cortez.[5] Because Polanski's English was poor, Alonzo and Polanski would communicate in Italian, which Alonzo would then translate for the crew.[44] Polanski was rigorous in his framing and use of Alonzo's vision, making the actors strictly adhere to blocking to accommodate the camera and lighting.[45]

In keeping with a technique Polanski attributes to Raymond Chandler, all of the events of the film are seen subjectively through the main character's eyes; for example, when Gittes is knocked unconscious, the film fades to black and fades in when he awakens. Gittes appears in every scene of the film.[15] This subjectivity is the same construction used in Francis Coppola's The Conversation in which the main character, Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), appears in every scene in the film. The Conversation began shooting eleven months prior to Chinatown.

Soundtrack

Quick Facts Film score by Jerry Goldsmith, Released ...

Jerry Goldsmith composed and recorded the film's score in ten days, after producer Robert Evans rejected Phillip Lambro's original effort at the last minute. It received an Academy Award nomination and remains widely praised,[46][47][48] ranking ninth on the American Film Institute's list of the top 25 American film scores.[49] Goldsmith's score, with "haunting" trumpet solos by Hollywood studio musician and MGM's first trumpet Uan Rasey, was released through ABC Records and features 12 tracks at a running time just over 30 minutes. It was later reissued on CD by the Varèse Sarabande label. Rasey related that Goldsmith "told [him] to play it sexy — but like it's not good sex!"[47]

  1. "Love Theme from Chinatown (Main Title)"
  2. "Noah Cross"
  3. "Easy Living" (Rainger, Robin)
  4. "Jake and Evelyn"
  5. "I Can't Get Started" (Duke, Gershwin)
  6. "The Last of Ida"
  7. "The Captive"
  8. "The Boy on a Horse"
  9. "The Way You Look Tonight" (Kern, Fields)
  10. "The Wrong Clue"
  11. "J. J. Gittes"
  12. "Love Theme from Chinatown (End Title)"
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Historical background

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In his 2004 film essay and documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself, film scholar Thom Andersen lays out the complex relationship between Chinatown's script and its historical background:

Chinatown isn't a docudrama, it's a fiction. The water project it depicts isn't the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, engineered by William Mulholland before the First World War. Chinatown is set in 1937, not 1905. The Mulholland-like figure—"Hollis Mulwray"—isn't the chief architect of the project, but rather its strongest opponent, who must be discredited and murdered. Mulwray is against the "Alto Vallejo Dam" because it's unsafe, not because it's stealing water from somebody else... But there are echoes of Mulholland's aqueduct project in Chinatown... Mulholland's project enriched its promoters through insider land deals in the San Fernando Valley, just like the dam project in Chinatown. The disgruntled San Fernando Valley farmers of Chinatown, forced to sell off their land at bargain prices because of an artificial drought, seem like stand-ins for the Owens Valley settlers whose homesteads turned to dust when Los Angeles took the water that irrigated them. The "Van Der Lip Dam" disaster, which Hollis Mulwray cites to explain his opposition to the proposed dam, is an obvious reference to the collapse of the Saint Francis Dam in 1928. Mulholland built this dam after completing the aqueduct and its failure was the greatest man-made disaster in the history of California. These echoes have led many viewers to regard Chinatown, not only as docudrama, but as truth—the real secret history of how Los Angeles got its water. And it has become a ruling metaphor of the non-fictional critiques of Los Angeles development.[50]

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Analysis and interpretation

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In a 1975 issue of Film Quarterly, scholar Wayne D. McGinnis drew parallels between Chinatown and Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. He argued that both works share a "wasteland motif," wherein a central figure—Noah Cross in Chinatown and Oedipus in Oedipus Rex—exploits a plague or crisis to gain power, ultimately becoming the source of deeper societal corruption. According to McGinnis, both narratives reflect the moral decay of their respective eras: ancient Athens during a time of post-heroic intellectual upheaval, and the United States during the Watergate era.

McGinnis further suggested that director Roman Polanski symbolically divides the character of Oedipus into two figures in Chinatown. Jake Gittes, the film’s protagonist, embodies the morally conscious "good" Oedipus, a seeker of truth who gradually uncovers a network of corruption. He contended that Gittes' pursuit of rational investigation blinds him to emotional and moral complexities, invoking literary theorists Cleanth Brooks and Robert B. Heilman to describe Gittes as "the Oedipus whose success [...] has tended to blind [him] to possibilities which pure reason fails to see."

McGinnis concluded that both works elicit pity for their protagonists, noting that “there is finally pity for the doomed, ignorant Gittes, just as there is pity for the blind Oedipus in Sophocles,” but that Gittes' understanding, like that of Oedipus, arrives too late to change the outcome.[10]

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Reception

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Box office

Chinatown was released in the United States on June 21, 1974, by Paramount Pictures. The film grossed approximately $29.2 million domestically, with an additional $28,149 earned in international markets, resulting in a worldwide total of $29.23 million.[51]

Adjusted for inflation, Chinatown's domestic gross is estimated to be approximately $146 million in 2022 dollars.[52]

Critical response

Chinatown received widespread critical acclaim for its screenplay, direction, and performances, and is often regarded as one of the greatest films of the 20th century.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 98% approval rating based on 147 reviews, with an average score of 9.40/10. The site's consensus reads: "As bruised and cynical as the decade that produced it, this noir classic benefits from Robert Towne's brilliant screenplay, director Roman Polanski's steady hand, and wonderful performances from Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway."[53] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 92 out of 100, indicating "universal acclaim."[54]

Roger Ebert included Chinatown in his “Great Movies” list, noting that Nicholson's performance was instrumental in lifting the film beyond a standard crime thriller, and concluding that it “seems to settle easily beside the original noirs.”[55] James Berardinelli of ReelViews praised the film as “unquestionably one of the best films to emerge from the 1970s,” highlighting its complex characters and narrative.[56]

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian described the film as a “superlative neo-noir,” stating that Chinatown “now looks like a classic in a direct line of succession to earlier pictures” and has “weathered the years with a real touch of class.”[57] Rob Fraser of Empire echoed the sentiment, calling it “the best private eye movie ever made” and “a never-bettered noir masterpiece.”[58]

Ryan Brown, writing for Pantheon of Film, characterized it as “a masterpiece drenched in murky reservoir water,” lauding its bleak tone and thematic depth. He noted that the film “flips an entire genre on its head in masterful fashion.”[59] Cineluxe emphasized the film’s striking visual and narrative cohesion, describing it as “a razor-sharp, tightly paced film that remains just as unnerving and engrossing today.”[60]

Common Sense Media noted the film’s mature themes and disturbing content, advising that it’s “best suited for older teens and adults,” but also commended it as “a landmark of American cinema” with “powerful storytelling.”[61] That Old Picture Show called it “a staggering, disturbing, brilliant film” with “layered performances and a script that doesn't just evoke the noir tradition—it rewrites it.”[62]

While the film was praised by most major critics, Vincent Canby of The New York Times offered a more reserved view, suggesting that the filmmakers “have attempted nothing so witty and entertaining,” and expressing a preference for earlier noir classics. However, he acknowledged Nicholson’s performance as the film’s “major contribution to the genre.”[63]

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Accolades

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More information Award, Category ...

Other honors

American Film Institute recognition

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Subsequent works

A sequel titled The Two Jakes was released in 1990, with Jack Nicholson reprising his role as Jake Gittes and also serving as director. Robert Towne returned as screenwriter. Unlike its predecessor, the film received mixed reviews and was a commercial disappointment.

In November 2019, a prequel television series was reported to be in development at Netflix, with David Fincher and Robert Towne attached to the project. The series is expected to explore the early career of Jake Gittes and the founding of his detective agency.[79]

In August 2020, it was reported that a feature film chronicling the making of Chinatown was in development. The film is based on Sam Wasson’s non-fiction book The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood, with Ben Affleck attached as writer and director.[80]

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Legacy

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Chinatown is widely regarded as one of the most influential films of the 20th century, particularly noted for its screenplay by Robert Towne, which has been frequently cited as one of the greatest ever written.[19][81][82] The script is renowned for its narrative structure, character development, and integration of personal and political themes. Despite Towne’s significant contribution, the film’s final scene was changed by director Roman Polanski, who insisted on a more pessimistic ending. Towne had originally conceived an alternative conclusion in which Evelyn kills her father and is imprisoned, unable to reveal the truth, while Jake Gittes remains silent. Polanski, however, opted for a starker ending, in which Evelyn is killed and her daughter is taken by Noah Cross. Towne initially objected, describing Polanski’s version as overly melodramatic, but later acknowledged its effectiveness, stating, "Roman was right."[83][84]

The film’s closing line—"Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown."—has since become one of the most iconic lines in American cinema and is frequently referenced in popular culture as a symbol of fatalism and moral ambiguity. Chinatown has been credited with revitalizing the film noir genre, blending classical noir elements with 1970s sensibilities and themes of political corruption, institutional failure, and trauma. Its visual style, characterized by subdued colors, natural lighting, and restrained cinematography, has been influential in both academic film studies and contemporary filmmaking.[85]

The film also drew public attention to historical events involving the California water wars, particularly the controversial diversion of water from the Owens Valley to supply Los Angeles in the early 20th century.[86] The fictional narrative was inspired in part by these real-life events, and scholars have noted the film’s commentary on land speculation, environmental exploitation, and civic corruption. More recent analyses have framed Chinatown as a broader critique of patriarchal control and capital-driven urban development, with contemporary critics drawing parallels between its themes and ongoing socio-political issues.[87]

On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the film has continued to receive critical reappraisal. Outlets such as BBC Culture, Screen Rant, and the Los Angeles Review of Books have reaffirmed its cultural and cinematic relevance, emphasizing its enduring legacy in shaping modern noir and political thrillers.[88][89][90]

See also

Notes

  1. The film title and the oft-quoted line "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown," almost certainly refer to "Old Chinatown", or at least the popular perception thereof.[14] Old Chinatown was gradually demolished, starting in 1933, to allow for construction of Union Station, with the grand opening of "New Chinatown" in 1938.

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