Why Chinatown remains a masterpiece 50 years later

“Forget it Jake—it’s Chinatown,” we famously hear an associate of private eye Jake Gittes say to his boss. But while Gittes may be able to put it behind him, Chinatown can’t be so easily forgotten by its audience—even five decades years later.

Set in 1937 Los Angeles, Chinatown explores themes of corruption, power, and moral ambiguity. The story follows Gittes, played by Jack Nicholson, who is hired by a woman claiming to be Evelyn Mulwray to investigate her husband, Hollis Mulwray, the chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, whom she suspects of infidelity. As Gittes delves deeper, he uncovers a complex web of deceit, corruption, and murder related to the city's water supply. The real Evelyn Mulwray, played by Faye Dunaway, reveals herself, and Gittes becomes entangled in a larger conspiracy involving land and water rights in Los Angeles, leading to a tragic and shocking conclusion.

To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Chinatown, conducted last week, click here. To hear the June episode of the Cineversary podcast, which celebrates Chinatown’s 50th anniversary, click here.

That was then, this is noir

After watching Roman Polanski’s brooding psychological mystery, originally released 50 years ago this month, one cannot overlook the overt resemblance it bears in both style and structure to classic film noir—a term invented by French critics to classify a particular genre of post-war American cinema. Noir represents a pessimistic, highly stylized brand of films that incorporate themes such as inescapable fates and femme fatales, and employs shadowy compositions and urbanized settings to frame its often bleak narratives. It personified the hard-boiled detective story, the murder mystery, the psychological crime drama, and the thriller. The era began, arguably, in 1941 with The Maltese Falcon and continued with a plethora of similar fare, including Double Indemnity, To Have and Have Not, Out of the Past, and The Big Heat, and supposedly reached its golden age denouement in 1958 with Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil.

Over a decade passed before Hollywood seemed to return to the thematic and formalistic characteristics quintessential of the discarded noir tradition, at least evident in a few prominent films. “Neo-noir” pictures like Klute, Dirty Harry, (both 1971), and The Godfather (1972) brought back the look and feel of old-school noir. Neo-noir movies like these adopt the themes, archetypes, and visual template of classic noir but often occur in modern settings and employ contemporary situations and/or sensibilities as well as present more graphic and adult content.

Among all the neo-noirs released over the past 60-plus years, Chinatown may be the greatest. It certainly mimics, for the most part, the look, vibe, and attitude of classic noir in its set design, costumes, cars, urban environment, duplicitous characters, and crime. However, this film deviates in that it’s shot in color and often in the bright light of day, there are no canted angles or expressionistic visual traits, a shadowy black chiaroscuro lighting scheme isn’t predominant, and Evelyn Mulwray isn’t an archetypal spider woman—she leads men into danger and is deceitful, but she doesn’t have evil intentions.

“Chinatown was seen as a neo-noir when it was released -- an update on an old genre. Now years have passed and film history blurs a little, and it seems to settle easily beside the original noirs. That is a compliment,” wrote Roger Ebert.

Brian Eggert of Deep Focus Review seemed to agree: “While not retro cinema or an imitation of classic film noir through black-and-white photography, the picture occupies the thirties setting without irony in a thorough rebuilding of the era’s décor and costumes. That the film does not attempt to imitate classic film noir is a testament to it occupying that very condition. Polanski does not overemphasize his mise-en-scène until it becomes impossible to ignore. Yet, we see the setting through modern eyes—which is to say, we see the film through the definitions of seventies cinema that is certainly broader than that of the forties in terms of censorship, allowing for a more salacious story to be told. Chinatown is a film neither wholly representing the thirties, forties, or the seventies; today, it feels timeless. And in its singularity, it assumes the identity of true film noir.”

Interestingly, Chinatown gives us a privileged look inside the repertoire of the archetypal noir detective, with many “inside baseball” details and techniques. Recall how Gittes cannily uses broken pocket watches to time those he tails, passes himself off as an important official by using that person’s business card, breaks the tail light on Evelyn’s car to shadow her more easily, coughs loudly to conceal a page pilfering from the hall of public records, and pulls a man’s jacket over his head to incapacitate the antagonist during a dustup.

Gushing praise on its golden anniversary

Ponder the picture’s joint virtues of timeliness and timelessness: Chinatown was a fascinating product of its period, yet it remains ageless and relevant because, despite its retro framing, it continues to be relevant over the last half century thanks to the pervasive pessimism that has characterized American society since the early 1970s.

Reflect for a moment on the sociopolitical context of that period. In 1974, Americans were more suspicious of authority, distrustful of government, and gripped by gloom in the wake of Watergate (the cover-up was exposed just before this film’s release), the lingering Vietnam War, the Warren Commission findings, gasoline shortages and the energy crisis, and the assassinations of major leaders in the late 1960s. There was a pervading, brooding sense of paranoia and cynicism in the culture, and conspiracy theories were becoming more popular to explain political mysteries. Many Americans felt helpless to affect change and blinded to what might really be going on. This vibe helped fuel the popularity of several dark, brooding, cynical thrillers that examined themes of paranoia, corruption, and disillusionment in the 1970s. Examples include Executive Action (1973); Day of the Dolphin (1973); The Parallax View (1974); The Conversation (1974); Three Days of the Condor (1975); All the President’s Men (1976); Capricorn One (1977); and Winter Kills (1979).

In the middle of this run came Chinatown, a film that seemed to eerily capture the mood and spirit of mid-1970s America. It was, as critics affirm, the product of an ingenious blend of social commentary in the screenplay by Robert Towne, a visual tour de force in technique and visual storytelling by director Polanski, and a showcase of masterful performances by Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, Walter Huston and the rest of the cast.

Additionally, It marked the apex of the New Hollywood movement that began, debatably, with Bonnie and Clyde in 1967 and ended in the early 1980s. According to some film scholars, Chinatown represented the peak period of this movement before the release of Jaws the following year and the dawn of the blockbuster. New Hollywood movement films often explored the grim and dark aspects of human nature and societal constructs, and their themes commonly examined sociocultural dilemmas, often questioning the pursuit of the American Dream as a futile endeavor.

Chinatown was also graced with a talented crew that perfectly complemented the ambitions of such an intelligent film. Cinematographer John Alonzo blended sun-drenched yellows and browns with rich shadings in his deep-space Panavision framing. With the stylized production design and impeccable costuming of the period by Richard Sylbert, and the haunting horn and piano score by Jerry Goldsmith, the look and vibe of 1937 Los Angeles was flawlessly depicted.

The movie was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, with Towne winning for Best Original Screenplay. The American Film Institute ranks Chinatown #19 and then #21 on its 1998 and 2007 lists, respectively, of the top 100 American films ever made; it earns second place on the AFI’s top 10 mystery movies list; and Noah Cross was named the AFI’s 16th best villain of all time.

Today, Chinatown tallies an impressive 98% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, where its average critical score is 9.2 out of 10 and its audience score is 93%. At Metacritic.com, it boasts a Metascore of 92 out of 100.

Chinatown inspired several films in its wake. It established that neo-noir was critically and commercially viable as a subgenre, perhaps encouraging subsequent filmmakers to create, like Chinatown, retro noirish works set decades earlier such as Farewell My Lovely (1975) and The Big Sleep (1978, both starring Robert Mitchum), Angel Heart (1987), Miller’s Crossing (1990), Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), and LA Confidential (1997). It also enjoyed a sequel, The Two Jakes (1990), directed by Nicholson himself. Two animated comedies tip their cap to Chinatown: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Rango (2011). Brick (2005) draws inspiration from Polanski’s film. Three Hindi films released in India pay homage: Six Feet Under (2007), Sonchiriya (2019), and Raat Akeli Hai (2020). Director Matt Reeves cited Chinatown as an influence when making The Batman (2022). A Chinatown prequel has been in development with Netflix over the last five years, with Towne attached as screenwriter and David Fincher as director. And there were reports that Ben Affleck was going to direct an adaptation of the book The Big Goodbye, about the making of Chinatown, which sounds similar to the approach for The Offer (2022) about the making of The Godfather.

Exemplary direction

To accentuate the voyeuristic perspective of both Gittes and the viewer (seeing through his eyes), Polanski consistently uses subjective camera shots, commonly shooting over Nicholson’s shoulder, especially during driving scenes, or framing Nicholson in profile off to one side of the screen. This does more than merely present a subjective viewpoint. It also suggests Gittes’ impotence—his being ‘boxed in’ a corner in the face of evil or greater numbers—and hints at malevolent forces lurking in the corners, just beyond our field of vision. In this sense, a deep psychological framing is achieved, and a sense of apprehension is evoked with a more menacing off-screen space.

The director shrewdly employs foreshadowing techniques to hint at what’s to come, if you pay close attention. Examples include numerous mentions and imagery of water; Hollis Mulwray, then Gittes, losing a left shoe; sudden car honks that long precede the blaring car horn caused by Evelyn’s dead body at the conclusion; the revealed flaw in Evelyn’s iris, the same eye that is later blown away by a bullet; the object Gittes tries to fish out of the saltwater pond earlier, eventually revealed to be Noah’s bifocals; the car’s steaming radiator outside the window of the barbershop, which the steam emanating from Gittes’ car during the Orange Grove sequence recalls; and the missing left lens of Jake’s sunglasses after getting manhandled by the farmers, similar to the cracked left lens of Noah’s bifocals.

It was Polanski’s nihilistic vision that guided the film fluently along the pessimistic path of noir. Consider his tragic past: the murder of his Polish family members in Nazi Germany decades earlier and the killing of his wife Sharon Tate by the Manson family only five years prior. Perhaps these experiences motivated him, even subconsciously, to imbue the film with a consistently dark tone and prompted him to change the original, more upbeat ending of Towne’s script (in which Evelyn lives and Kathryn escapes to Mexico).

Possibly Polanski’s finest moment is the concluding scene, where all the disparate characters and conflicting forces converge in L.A.’s Chinatown neighborhood. The director fashions this sequence as a subjective experience for the audience, keeping the camera at eye level and maintaining Gittes’ POV as if we are present with him among the bystanders on the street.

Jack’s peak period

Nicholson embodies a multifaceted personality who veers from predictable personalization; unlike Bogart’s Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, he isn’t two steps ahead of every other character as a master chess-playing gumshoe. The actor expertly plays Gittes as cocky and confident, but his Achilles’ heel is that he refuses to be deceived or outwitted, and he doesn’t realize until it’s too late that he’s in over his fedora. This is a self-assured man who doesn’t suffer fools lightly and enjoys the art of the humorous but corrosive insult, which often results in violent repercussions for him. Nicholson’s shamus can be refined, patient, suave, and sensitive but at other times vulgar, irascible, and vicious, the latter evidenced when he cruelly slaps the truth out of Evelyn. Nicholson deftly balances between these polarities and evinces the portrait of a complex individual—one with a shadowy past only hinted at in this story.

It’s significant that Nicholson is in every scene of the film, which is fitting because Gittes is the true surrogate for the audience; we only learn as much information as he does when he learns it. It’s also astounding that the actor – and the character – spends over one-third of the film either wearing an ostentatious facial bandage or sporting an ugly nose scab. Fortunately for us, Nicholson was no prima donna who refused to look unglamorous.

Roger Ebert wrote: “He can be raw, he can tell dirty jokes, he can accuse people of base motives, but all the time there’s a certain detached underlevel that makes his character sympathetic… Gittes becomes a man who just wants to get to the bottom of things. He’s tired of people’s lies…He doesn’t like being jerked around.”

This was Jack at the peak of his powers, during his incredible run of stellar performances that started with Easy Rider and continued through Five Easy Pieces, Carnal Knowledge, The Last Detail, and his Oscar-winning turn in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, all from the late 1960s through 1970s, when he earned five Academy Award nominations in six years.

Masterful storytelling

The original story by Towne could be the best screenplay ever written. The Writers Guild of America ranks it #3 behind only Casablanca and The Godfather. This is a tale that requires more than one viewing to not only fully grasp the intricate plot but also to appreciate how brilliantly the story unfolds and how craftily each scene builds upon what came before. Rewarding small details and foreshadowing easter eggs can be found by those who pay close attention. It’s one of the most intelligent and unpredictable cinematic yarns ever spun, and it represents a lost breed of slow-burn, downbeat, fatalistic, and intricately clever narratives that Hollywood stopped making a long time ago. It was “the last of the great complicated storylines that movies dared,” according to film scholar David Thomson.

Critics regard this story as Towne’s definitive statement, his brilliant apocalyptic vision of a counter-myth to modern capitalist society, with Noah Cross seen as a destructive variation on the narrative of America’s founding fathers. Per film critic Glenn Erickson: “Following in the footsteps of classic noirs that yearned for lost hopes and ideals, Chinatown constructs a noir metaphor for the Garden of Eden. In this case, the Garden has been overrun by the Devil.”

The screenplay is composed in the same formulaic private-eye style of author Raymond Chandler, with Gittes constructed as a contemporary Phillip Marlowe. Towne, however, kept the cynicism of the detective genre intact and further enhanced it with a layered, intricate social critique and a smooth plot pacing that offered one startling revelation after another with clean, perfect precision.

Salon critic Andrew O’Hehir wrote: “The greatness of Chinatown…lies not in its cynical view of the California dream (that’s too easy) but in its fatalistic, even tragic conception of America and indeed of human nature.”

“The exhaustive, labyrinthine narrative is built up like a fortress around this film’s bitter heart. If we place ourselves in his shoes, as a kind of moral crusader, what we end up facing is the emptiness of an all-or-nothing fuck you. It’s the kind of ending Hollywood was able to do at one time without fear, where they could upset the moral compass of the hero in order for the audience to think about their own,” opined Jeremiah Kipp of Slant Magazine.

The dialogue, particularly the caustic remarks and memorable lines by Gittes and Cross, is especially savory. Chinatown is richly abundant with eminently repeatable quotes, including:

“All right, Curly. Enough's enough. You can't eat the Venetian blinds. I just had them installed on Wednesday.”

“Are you alone?” followed by “Isn't everybody?”

“Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.”

“Mrs. Mulwray, I goddamn near lost my nose. And I like it. I like breathing through it. And I still think you're hiding something.”

“You see, Mr. Gittes, most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place, they're capable of anything.”

“As little as possible.”

And, of course: “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

Deeper meanings behind the mystery

Crafted with numerous themes and subtexts, Chinatown is an intellectually rewarding piece of cinema. The inescapability of guilt, shame, and past trauma is one key message. Jake, Evelyn, Hollis, Ida, Katherine, and Escobar have skeletons in their closets or dark secrets that come back to haunt them. Chinatown itself exemplifies Jake’s guilt; recall that years ago he had been told by a colleague to do “as little as possible” there, after managing to get an unnamed woman “hurt.” Chinatown represents a place but also a state of mind where the individual is helpless against powerful and unpredictable forces, evil propagates, and inexorable fate awaits.

Chinatown also explores the futility of good intentions and the common man’s ability to thwart evil. The financial power and influence of Cross and his cronies prevent Jake and the police from producing any change or protecting the innocent. Mulwray’s dam causes deaths, the police end up killing Evelyn, and her illegitimate daughter ultimately falls under the clutches of her vile father/grandfather.

Jake proves to be wholly ineffectual and inadvertently responsible for the death of Evelyn, Cross gains custody of Katherine, and Cross presumably succeeds in his plan to control the city’s water and profit from exploiting the farmers’ land. His poor instincts, lack of foresight, and inability to learn from his past failure as a cop in Chinatown result in an even worse tragedy. These examples underscore themes of ignorance and illusion. Consider, too, how Jake misidentifies many clues, such as not recognizing Detective Loach as the person who instructs him to visit Ida Sessions’ house, which sets into motion a series of dominoes leading to Evelyn’s demise. He constructs explanations based on unreliable, limited information and worsens the situation when he trusts his distorted reality. In trying to help Evelyn, he leads her father directly to her.

Additionally, Chinatown is a study on the repercussions of voyeurism and invasion of privacy. The film opens with a client looking at photographs of his wife in bed with another man taken by Gittes. He snaps photos of Hollis Mulwray with another woman together, which inadvertently get published and create a scandal. His telephoto lens and binoculars are used in other scenes, to spy on Evelyn or Hollis from afar. But Gittes’ covert spectatorship and curiosity have violent consequences. His nosiness results in a scar on his olfactory organ, a brutal thrashing from a pack of farmers, a philandering wife receiving a black eye, and a lover losing an eye and her life.

Duality and ironic opposites are in Polanski’s crosshairs, as well. Gittes prides himself on being a savvy private eye, yet he is blind to the truth. Evelyn is both a sister and a daughter to Kathryn. Escobar has a cold in the summertime. Water is abundant, yet there is a drought. Cross’s justification for his manipulation of the water supply is that he’s thinking about “the future”, which he won’t live to enjoy anyway. Saltwater is a life essence for fish but deadly to vegetation and human beings. Cross’ water is both “bad for the grass” and “bad for the glass,” namely Gittes’ ability to see the truth.

Chinatown also explores the American dream usurped by corruption. Consider that Cross pilfers from these dreamers and steals their land and water. This potent patriarch can be seen as a destructive variation on the story of America’s founding fathers. The drought in Los Angeles is transformed into a spiritual thirst, with the malevolent Noah Cross seen as a biblical perversion of his first name. He’s drowned his son-in-law, but he’s also secretly planning to nourish the valley so that a new Eden will emerge.

Basking in the glow of 50 candles

On its golden birthday, Chinatown confers a priceless present to film fans: It proved 50 years ago that noir, even a noir narrative anchored in antiquity, never went out of style. It may not have been the first major instance of neo-noir, but I believe it remains the best example to date of this evolved subgenre or style, however you choose to define it. Chinatown is a fascinating artifact in that, notwithstanding its age, it looks and plays like a more recent movie, as can be said of several period-piece and neo-noir contemporaries from the 1970s like The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Badlands, Taxi Driver, The Long Goodbye, The Conversation, and The Sting. That’s because it was crafted with intelligence and respect for an intuitive and sophisticated audience, imbued with modern sensibilities, and unafraid to challenge our expectations for a straightforward plot.

The foreboding and pessimism oozing from nearly every pore of Chinatown’s sweaty brow ingeniously upset the viewer’s equilibrium in ways that arguably no classic noir did quite so effectively in the 1940s and 50s. Arrestingly armed with the graphic violence, nudity, and profanity verboten from private eye pictures and cinematic thrillers of the classic period and not beholden to any production code that demanded comeuppance for criminals, this film is responsible for helping noir transition effectively to the modern age. That transition was surely eased with legendary names attached like Nicholson, Dunaway, Huston, Towne, Goldsmith, and, separating the art from the problematic artist, Polanski.

On the noir continuum, Chinatown remains after five decades a momentous pivot point bridging two eras, refusing to atrophy or soften around the edges, ever insisting that rot and decay are just a shallow dig away if you’re determined to look. Jake may want to forget it, but we certainly don’t.