Daily Dialogue — November 4, 2014

EXT. VERANDA — MULWRAY HOME — NIGHT

Gittes stands on the veranda, smoking a cigarette, staring off into the night.

Evelyn comes out to the veranda, carrying a tray with whiskey and an ice bucket on it. She sets it down. Gittes turns.

GITTES: (watching her pour) Maid’s night off?
EVELYN: Why?
GITTES: (a little surprised, he laughs) What do you mean, ‘why?’ Nobody’s here, that’s all.
EVELYN: (handing Gittes his drink) I gave everybody the night off.
GITTES: Easy, it’s an innocent question.
EVELYN: No question from you is innocent, Mr. Gittes.
GITTES: (laughing) I guess not to you, Mrs. Mulwray. Frankly you really saved my a… my neck tonight.

They drink.

EVELYN: Tell me something. Does this usually happen to you, Mr. Gittes?
GITTES: What’s that, Mrs. Mulwray?
EVELYN: Well, I’m only judging on the basis of one afternoon and an evening, but if that’s how you go about your work, I’d say you’re lucky to get through a whole day.
GITTES: (pouring himself another drink) Actually this hasn’t happened to me in some time.
EVELYN: When was the last time?
GITTES: Why?
EVELYN: Just. I don’t know why. I’m asking.

Gittes touches his nose, winces a little.

GITTES: It was in Chinatown.
EVELYN: What were you doing there?
GITTES: (taking a long drink) Working for the District Attorney.
EVELYN: Doing what?

Gittes looks sharply at her. Then:

GITTES: As little as possible.
EVELYN: The District Attorney gives his men advice like that?
GITTES: They do in Chinatown.

She looks at him. Gittes stares off into the night.

Evelyn has poured herself another drink.

EVELYN: Bothers you to talk about it, doesn’t it?

Gittes gets up.

GITTES: No. I wonder… could I. Do you have any peroxide or something?

He touches his nose lightly.

EVELYN: Oh sure. C’mon.

She takes his hand and leads him back into the house.

INT. BATHROOM — MIRROR

Gittes pulls the plaster off his nose, stares at it in the mirror.

Evelyn takes some hydrogen peroxide and some cotton out of a medicine cabinet. Evelyn turns Gittes’ head toward her. She has him sit on the pullman tile adjacent to the sink.

EVELYN: Doctor did a nice job…

She begins to work on his nose with the peroxide. Then she sees his cheek, checks back in his hair.

EVELYN: Boy oh boy, you’re a mess.
GITTES: Yeah.
EVELYN: (working on him) So why does it bother you to talk about it… Chinatown…
GITTES: Bothers everybody who works there, but to me… It was…

Gittes shrugs.

EVELYN: Hold still. Why?
GITTES: You can’t always tell what’s going on there.
EVELYN: …No. Why was it.
GITTES: I thought I was keeping someone from being hurt and actually I ended up making sure they were hurt.
EVELYN: Could you do anything about it?

They’re very close now as she’s going over a mouse very near his eye.

GITTES: Yeah. Make sure I don’t find myself in Chinatown anymore. Wait a second.

He takes hold of her and pulls her even closer,

EVELYN: (momentarily freezing) What’s wrong?
GITTES: Your eye.
EVELYN: What about it?
GITTES: (staring intently) There’s something black in the green part of your eye.
EVELYN: (not moving) Oh that… It’s a flaw in the iris…
GITTES: …A flaw…
EVELYN: (she almost shivers) …Yes, sort of a birthmark…

Gittes kisses her lightly, gradually rises until he’s standing holding her. She hesitates, then wraps her arms around him.

— Chinatown (1974), written by Robert Towne

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Seduction. Today’s suggestion by Markham Cook.

Trivia: The Chinatown (1974) screenplay is now regarded as being one of the most perfect screenplays and is now a main teaching point in screen writing seminars and classes everywhere.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Markham: “What seems great and is crucial I think is that Robert Towne has given them something else to do — fix Jake’s nose — and there are still a pile of secrets between them. And they both know it. As they let down their guards Nicholson reveals a little bit about what happened in Chinatown, the ghost that haunts him and will eventually be his downfall.

I always loved her line about the flaw in her iris — and the way in the movie she stutters over the line. My guess is that Faye Dunaway played the line this way because the flaw — or birthmark — reminds her of her father. And it’s a great lesson of how inserting subtext (because that seems to be what Towne intended for those lines) can inform a performance, and how when the performance plays off the subtext the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Finally I think the lesson here is that a in a properly placed seduction scene is a great place backstory revelation. If done properly it hides the exposition — your character is revealing it for a reason: to gain trust.”

If you have a suggestion for this week’s theme, please head to comments. It’s good karma!