Classic 70s Movie: “Chinatown”
September is Classic 70s Movie month. Today’s guest post comes from Paul Graunke.
Movie Title: Chinatown
Year: 1974
Writer: Robert Towne (Oscar for best original screenplay)
Lead Actors: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
Director: Roman Polanski
Plot Summary: A private detective hired to expose an adulterer is swept up in a conspiracy of deceit, corruption and murder — and water.
Why I Think This Is A Classic 70s Movie: Scott continually encourages writers to read scripts as well as watch movies. The script for Chinatown is widely considered to be one of the best. It is frequently cited in books on screenwriting. And the film itself is ranked #2 on the AFI list of greatest mystery films. (Number 1 is “The Maltese Falcon”, directed by the man who plays the villain Noah Cross in “Chinatown”, John Huston.) And it is currently ranked #21 on the AFI list of the 100 greatest American films.
I think the script is a must-read, the film a must-watch.
My Favorite Moment In The Movie: A hard call, so many choices. I particularly like the scene where Jake Gittes dines with Noah Cross on Catalina Island. It’s an excellent and subtle example of the movie axiom to show, don’t just tell.
First, an important clue is planted when Cross picks up his glasses to inspect the fish being served. Then, a few beats later, Cross gets up to acknowledge the arrival of a mariachi band. At first glance it may seem that the band merely gives Cross an excuse to turn away so Gittes can’t see his troubled reaction to what Gittes is telling him.
But there’s more going on in that moment. Noah explains that the mariachi band is the “Sheriff’s gold posse…bunch of damn fools who $5,000 pay apiece to the sheriff’s reelection. I let ’em practice up out here”. A few beats later Gittes asks how he knows about the mystery girl (and about Gittes and everything else)? “I’ve still got a few teeth in my head, Mr. Gittes — and a few friends in town.”
Like the “few friends” playing in the mariachi band in the background. Noah Cross calls the tune in Los Angeles politics.
My Favorite Dialogue In The Movie: Gittes slaps the truth out of Evelyn Mulwray. It’s one of the great reveals in cinema.
GITTES: There’s no time to be shocked by the truth. The coroner’s report proves he had salt water in his lungs when he was killed. Take my word for it, alright. Now I want to know how it happened and I want to know why and I want to know before Escobar gets here because I don’t want to lose my license.
EVEYLN: I don’t know what you are talking about. This is the craziest, the most insane thing —
Gittes shakes her.
GITTES: Stop it! I’m going to make it easy for you. You were jealous. You had a fight. He fell. He hit his head. It was an accident. But his girl is a witness. So you had to shut her up. You don’t have the guts to harm her but you’ve got the money to keep her mouth shut. Yes or no?
EVEYLYN: No.
GITTES: Who is she? And don’t give me that crap about your sister. Because you don’t have a sister.
EVELYN: I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you the truth.
GITTES: Good. Now what’s her name?
EVELYN: Katherine.
GITTES: Katherine who?
EVELYN: She’s my daughter.
He slaps her.
GITTES: I said I want the truth!
EVELYN: She’s my sister.
He slaps her again.
EVELYN: She’s my daughter.
He slaps her again.
EVELYN: My sister, my daughter.
He slaps her
GITTES: I said I want the truth!
He slaps her again, throws her against a sofa.
EVELYN: She’s my sister and my daughter.
Khan [the servant] comes running down the stairs.
EVEYLN: Kahn, please go back. For God’s sake keep her upstairs. Go back.
Kahn goes back upstairs.
EVEYLN: My father and I… understand? Or is it too tough for you?
In an introduction to a published version of the shooting script, Towne wrote: “It almost takes the form of a mathematical equation: the more it means to a character, the more difficult it is to say… Fay Dunaway in Chinatown… has to have the admission of incest with her father literally beaten out of her. I believe her reluctance to speak about it makes it more credible and moving when she does do so. Drama without restraint is usually not very credible or very evident. Whether it’s something we’re ashamed of, or something we take pride in — as Cordelia in King Lear takes fierce pride in her lover for her father — we’re still drawn to those characters who keep their own counsel: some things are too sacred, or too profane, to be freely professed or confessed. More to the point — no restraint, no inhibitions, no guilt, no shame, no drama.”
Key Things You Should Look For When Watching This Movie:
Plot and subplot: Typically, mystery movies are played out in a context of conspiracies involving illegal drugs or illegal acts like extortion, loan sharking or prostitution. But in Chinatown the mystery of the murder of Hollis Mulwray is played out in the context of a conspiracy involving something legal and ordinary: water.
“The water scandal was the plot, essentially, and the subplot was the incest. That was the underbelly, and the two were intimately connected, literally and metaphorically: raping the future and raping the land. So it was a really good plot/subplot with a really strong connection.” — Robert Towne (2009 interview)
Los Angeles sits in a desert: “Either you bring the water to L.A. — or you bring L.A. to the water,” says Noah Cross. As chief engineer, Hollis Mulwray has brought the water to L.A. Then, ironically, he turns up drowned in that very water, in a reservoir he built. Who dunnit and why?
Point of View: From beginning to end, we see everything from Gittes perspective. We never discover a clue before he does. When he’s talking on the phone, the camera stays on Gittes; it never cuts away to the person on the other end. When he is knocked out in the fight in the orange grove the scene fades out… fades in when he regains consciousness.
Pacing: The first Act unfolds at a slower pace than would generally be tolerated in films made these days. Other than an amusing scuffle in city hall, there are no “Wham! Bam!” action scenes.
The Meet-Not-Cute: The relationship between Jake Gittes and Evelyn Mulwray is destined to get off to a bad start the first time they meet. But the action is contrived to make a bad situation worse by setting up a moment where Gittes tells a risque joke, unaware of her presence.
The Role of the Femme Fatale: Evelyn Mulwary is the stock female character in a noir film who threatens to lure the male protagonist to his doom. Either through seduction or, in the case of Evelyn Mulwray, through her plight. When Gittes (finally) realizes she’s a damsel in distress, he tries to rescue her. Which segues into…
The Not Happy Ending: When Evelyn asks Gittes why he doesn’t like to talk about his time working in Chinatown, Gittes says it was bad luck: “I was trying to keep someone from being hurt. I ended up making sure she was hurt.”
The writer, Robert Towne, wanted Gittes’ luck to turn for the good. He wanted Evelyn Mulwray to kill her villainous father, Noah Cross, and live. But the director, Roman Polanski, believed that Evelyn should die and that Cross should live, that there should be no happy Hollywood ending. And that’s the way the film ends.
In retrospect, Towne has allowed that Polanski’s creative call was probably the right one. The ending is certainly true to the cynical sensibility of the noir genre. I think it fair to note that the ending is also true to Polanski’s personal knowledge of just how real life can fall short of happy Hollywood endings. His parents were killed in the Holocaust. And his pregnant wife Sharon Tate had been killed five years earlier by members of the Charles Manson gang.
Narrative economy: Maximum mileage is made out of every scene in the sense that every beat, every character, every prop has a purpose, sometimes multiple purposes.
Conversely, there is minimum exposition on many issues. Even after we know who dunnit, some questions are left dangling, never fully answered. For me, the most intriguing instance occurs in the slapping scene. Here’s a replay with some additional dialogue:
He slaps her again, throws her against a sofa.
EVELYN: She’s my sister and my daughter.
Khan [the servant] comes running down the stairs.
EVEYLN: Kahn, please go back. For God’s sake keep her upstairs. Go back.
Kahn goes back upstairs.
EVEYLN: My father and I… understand? Or is it too tough for you?
Gittes absorbs the confession for a long beat.
GITTES: He raped you?
Evelyn, weeping, shakes her head.
Shakes her head? What is that supposed to mean? In the script, she continues:
EVELYN: He had a breakdown… the dam broke… my mother died… he became a little boy… I was fifteen… he’d ask me what to eat for breakfast, what clothes to wear! It happened… then I ran away…
That fragmentary dialogue was cut from the movie. What really happened between Evelyn and her father is left to our imagination.
As are other plot points. Like, what really happened to Gittes while he was working in Chinatown? Why did the pictures of Hollis Mulwray with the mystery girl become a manufactured scandal? Why were the folks at the retirement community used as proxies for the land grab in the valley? What was the purpose of wasting all that water in the middle of a drought?
Gittes never fully discovers the answers to those questions. So we can forget about knowing how all of the pieces of the puzzle fit together. Why?
Because, folks, it’s Chinatown.
Thanks, Paul! To show our gratitude for your guest post, here’s a dash of creative juju for you. Whoosh!
We already have a set of 80s Movies and 90s Movies. This month, we’re working on 70s Movies.
Thanks to all of you for your participation in this project, creating a resource for writers, movies we should all watch to help learn the craft of screenwriting!
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