Title: `CHINATOWN' REMAINS A FILM NOIR BENCHMARK

Date: 9/21/1997; Publication: The Record (Bergen County, NJ); Author: LAURENCE CHOLLET, Staff Writer

The Record (Bergen County, NJ)

09-21-1997

`CHINATOWN' REMAINS A FILM NOIR BENCHMARK
By LAURENCE CHOLLET, Staff Writer
Date: 09-21-1997, Sunday
Section: YOUR TIME
Edition: All Editions -- Sunday

"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

Those words spoken by a character named Walsh in the film
"Chinatown" invariably come to my mind whenever another movie -- set in
Thirties, Forties, or Fifties Los Angeles -- deals with cops, corruption,
and forbidden sex.

Roman Polanski's classic, written by Robert Towne and starring Jack
Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, was a one-of-a-kind film when it came out in
1974. It is now considered a benchmark in filmmaking. Recently, "L.A.
Confidential" won the "Chinatown" prize.

"The best storytelling since `Chinatown'"
said David Thompson in Esquire, echoing comments of other critics such
as John Powers in Vogue and Roger Ebert.

"L.A. Confidential" is not the only film that is compared to
"Chinatown." Other recent films -- "Mulholland Falls," "Devil with a Blue
Dress" -- have similar themes.

Polanski's film followed the exploits of a Los Angeles private eye
named J.J. Gittes (Nicholson) who sets out on a divorce case, winds up
involved with a client Evelyn Mulwray (Dunaway), and ends up in a
nightmare where innocent people are killed.

That tragedy is summed up tersely by Gittes' partner, Walsh, in the
last line: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

Those words meant a lot. "Chinatown" was a place, as Gittes
explains in the movie, where you don't always know what's going on.

By the movie's end, it's become a metaphor for a system that
thrives and prospers on crimes, fostering a mechanism for hiding those
crimes, protecting the guilty, and punishing the innocent.

"There are some crimes for which you get punished, and there are
some crimes that our society isn't equipped to punish, and so we reward
the criminals," Towne once said, talking about "Chinatown."

Towne based his script on a sordid chapter in Los Angeles history
called the "Owens Valley Affair."

The city fathers found themselves facing a drought by 1904,
declared an emergency, cited the public good, and then stole the water
(by aqueduct) from the Owens Valley 250 miles away.

The theft killed Owens Valley, ensured the future development of
Los Angeles, and made millions for land speculators who had secretly
bought up property in the San Fernando Valley, where the new reservoirs
were built.

Towne took elements of this historical event, set his story in 1930s
Los Angeles, created a fictional crime, and gave the case to the slick
Gittes, who did divorce work.

But, in many ways, the real story of "Chinatown" centers around the
aging Noah Cross, played by legendary director John Huston. Cross, the
revered city father who plots the water-land scam, is, as Towne so aptly
put it once, a man who "raped the land and raped his daughter, and got
away with both."

Towne's dark ambitions paled next to those of Polanski, the Polish
director then best known for such psychological thrillers as
"Repulsion," "Cul-de-Sac," and "Rosemary's Baby."

Polanski revamped Towne's massive detective story into a sleek,
structured script of incest, crime, and corruption that is now mandatory
reading in most film schools.

The difference between visions of screenwriter and director was best
seen in the ending.

Towne had Evelyn Mulwray shooting her father, going to jail, and
Gittes escaping with her young daughter Katherine to Mexico.

Polanski changed all that: Evelyn tries to kill her father and gets
killed in the process, Gittes is busted, and Katherine winds up in the
hands of her grandfather -- Noah Cross.

The dark attitude was enhanced by Nicholson, who was not yet a star
but a brassy, young actor willing to take career risks.

The actor wore a bandage on his nose for more than half the film
and played Gittes for what he was: a chump.

These elements -- dark script, fine direction, gritty acting -- help
separate "Chinatown" from similar films that have followed.

Few directors working today have Polanski's clear vision of films
such as "Chinatown" or his technical ability to put what they see up on
the screen. But, ultimately, it's not a question of talent so much as
attitude.

In "L.A. Confidential," director Curtis Hanson, who co-wrote the
film with Brian Helgeland, has put together a nicely shot and
beautifully acted movie. It excels in showing how two cops -- one
corrupt, one honest -- end up on the same side of the fence out of
political necessity.

But "Confidential" is not in the same class as "Chinatown," and the
ending says it all. In "Confidential," the bad guy gets his due, justice
is done, and a kind of faith in the system is restored.

As such, "Confidential" is much closer to the classic private eye
movies of the 1940s such as "The Maltese Falcon" or "The Big Sleep,"
where tarnished private eyes walk down mean streets and get their man.

What's surprising is that James Ellroy's novel, "L.A.
Confidential," on which the movie is based, is very much in tune with
"Chinatown." It looks at the dark side of the American Dream today,
where the bad guys not only get away with the crime, they become heroes.

Why didn't that ending make it to the screen?

Perhaps it's beyond the prevailing Hollywood sentiment: Serious
doesn't sell, it's too close to real life, and it's too complex for the
multiplex audience.

Expectations have changed. Robert Towne, after all, is now churning
out box-office no-brainers such as "Mission Impossible."

Polanski, on the other hand, is still producing dark films with
uncomfortable endings: It's his way of making the audience take a
position on what they've seen, of making the audience responsible.

But perhaps Walsh was right.

"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

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