United States, 1974
Directed by Roman Polanski
With Jack Nicholson (J. J. Gittes), Faye Dunaway (Evelyn Mulwray), John Houston (Noah Cross), Darrell Zwerling (Hollis Mulwray), Belinda Palmer (Katherine), Perry Lopez (Escobar)

The titles are an obvious throwback to the period where the genres of crime stories, gangster films, and film noirs were emerging as defining and popular productions of the American cinema, new features capturing the public imagination, churning out stars, widening the range of the movies in terms of suspense, technical creativity, bold characterization. And quite simply they are a pleasant reminder of what a film could look like in 1937, the year the narrative takes place.
“Chinatown” has a tongue-in-cheek approach to these beloved and respected genres. Director Roman Polanski would not hesitate to move before the camera in a memorable cameo as a thug, harming the lead character in a such a way that private detective J. J. Gittes is forced to wear a cumbersome and slightly ridiculous bandage on his nose during most of the film: the combative, cocksure, and clever hero is denied the unscathed and unassailable figure that countless detectives (private or from a police department), Hollywood like to display – even if a fistfight has occurred, band-aids and wounds did not linger that long. It also a funny reminder of who is in charge in a film, holding the power of direction and screenplay to bring characters and audience into sometimes uncharted territories.
Manipulation carried out behind the camera can lead to thrills, or disbelief: what is delightfully surprising here is to put the manipulators before the camera and using their wits and bodies to manipulate the other characters with the goriest, grimmest consequences. It is not just Polanski wielding a knife in what is by far the bloodiest and scariest scene of his film: a great idea has been to cast as the chief villain John Huston, whose career is partly, and rightly, associated with the genre Polanski is handling now, the film turning into an appalling schemer and vicious master of the world, Noah Cross, the filmmaker who shot unforgettable noirs, “The Maltese Falcon” (1941, featuring an unabashedly manly hero, the very kind who could not having been pictured with a band-aid below his keen eyes all the time) and “The Asphalt Jungle” (1950, a film that includes a famous line, claiming that “After all, crime is only a left-handed form of the human endeavor”, which gets chilling echoes here when Houston’s character bluntly explains his bad behaviors by noticing that no one dares accept that they have dark corners in their soul and that they could anything).
The irony is biting in retrospect: “Water, water, water”, Gittes laments as his two associates report that the guy they tail is only visiting riversides, beaches, canals, which may be unavoidable since Hollis Mulwray is the chief engineer of the Los Angeles city’s water department. But Gittes is paid by the engineer’s wife to prove he cheats on her. He eventually finds a connection with a pretty young lady, taking photos that prove the wife was right but that unexpectedly hit the front page of papers, causing quite a fuss. Trouble is, the wife was not the wife: Evelyn Mulwray readily appears to sue the private detective who realizes he has been framed by the other lady and other folks.
The trouble gets bigger when the dead body of Hollis Mulwray is found – in the sea. And Gittes starts to gather he is on to a big scandal when, going back to places the dead feverishly explored before, he is nearly drowned by a flood sweeping a canal that was supposed to be out of service. Water, water, and more water flows behind the mystery of the fake Mrs. Mulwray and the death of the real Mr. Mulwray.
The way Gittes pokes his nose, which may be damaged but far less than his guts and wits, around both the water department and the family life of the dead is also edged with witty lines and funny moments: this noir seduces not only because of the plot’s complicated and troubling elements and the characters but also of its humor, with actor Jack Nicholson’s performance fully embracing the most raucous and reckless side of his hard-hitting and stubborn detective, wonderfully interacting with other other actors playing the foils in his quest for truth, starting with the police detective in charge of Mulwray’s death, Escobar, and including Mulwray’s deputy in the water department, or the thugs working for Noah Cross, or the domesticity of the Mulwray’s estate (of course, wit and dark humor are not lacking in the noir genre but Nicholson’s performance truly stands out).
The plot is quite effective: slowly one layer of revelations leads to uncover another one, even more puzzling and shocking, relying not only on the intelligence and luck of the private detective but the drip-drip nature of the conversations he has with Evelyn Mulwray – the lady who was first an enemy morphs into a partner at first reluctant, then more committed, and then fully in love with him. This is the expected noir romance with a seemingly troubled, perhaps dangerous blonde and it is not easy to manage: Gittes always feels he does not get all he needs to know, but then succeeds in getting more and more clues, by manipulation or by chance, till a final confrontation when Evelyn Mulwray tells the truth on the personal side of the crime story, including that other blonde, Katherine, who was pictured with her late husband but is actually even closer to her (at this stage, the political side of the story has already been largely dug up).
This is 1974: the evil side of people Noah Cross evokes can prove to be far more disgusting and outrageous, and explicitly so, than in the 1930s, and “Chinatown” can unveil bluntly such a big taboo as incest. The same 1974 year belongs also to an era of growing discontent and distrust among the public for government and businesses, a pervasive dark mood the American cinema, also influenced by the 1960s counterculture and the urge to revisit critically history and representations (think of the films by Robert Altman or Arthur Penn), duly reflects with stories based on plots and treason, with a whiff of paranoia and anger (thinks of films by Francis Coppola or Sidney Pollack). “Chinatown” fits in this new mold, with an elaborate and documented plot tackling the corrupt links between private money and political bodies and addressing a complex but vital issue for Los Angeles and the wider California, the management of water resources, with a thoughtful attention to the potential losers of the scheme, farmers struggling to survive, decent but angry folks who seem to come straight from a John Steinbeck novel.
This makes this Roman Polanski film a serious and sobering one, but “Chinatown” is in fact even grimmer: while revisiting the rules and the mood as other movies did then, it would do away with the expected happy ending. Shot in an appropriate nightly and tragic atmosphere the last scene offers no getaway to Evelyn Mulwray, no comfort to Gittes, no punishment to Noah Cross, no hope to Katherine, no possible way out of corruption for a state in need of water. Irony, humor, suspense, romance look irrelevant out of the blue, as shattered as car glasses hit by bullets.
The film is remarkably fluid and compelling, with a great reconstruction of the 1930s Los Angeles and a terrific jazzy soundtrack, displaying a wonderful cinematography and great shot compositions. This is a throwback to an old kind of stories and storytelling that is absolutely worthy of the best films of the genres it refers to. Beyond all the quirks and distinct features it presents, it is a sheer cinematic delight, a movie made out of pleasure as much as as vibrant tribute, the amazing feat of a foreign-born and highly talented young director delivering a film with the flair and the allure of the best of the old Hollywood.