#36: Chinatown

Chinatown (Polanski, 1974)

I've got a love/hate relationship with Polanski films. On one hand the writing is really incredible and they always have really good casts. On the other hand, all the ones I've seen have featured well intentioned but cynical men investigating some massive conspiracy on their own and causing more harm than good. The conspiracies aren't always entirely plausible. It's like he takes corruption stories from the news, approaches them with zero skepticism and stretches them out to their logical extremes.

In the case of Chinatown, it's okay, becuase Jack Nicholson is awesome. He plays the part of the well intentioned cynical PI thinking he can take on corruption on his own so well, you can suspend disbelief more easily than you can for a movie like Ghost Writer. Chinatown also has more than it's share of iconic scenes that have been parody fodder for years.

Another reason it's easier to suspend disbelief for a movie like Chinatown than one like The Ghost Writer is the setting. It takes place in the 1930s during the expansion and development of Los Angeles, and uses that setting to deconstruct the noir genre. In old PI films, you can always tell who the bad guys are. They're always cackling evilly, they've got giant scars, they're running around murdering people in cold blood. The villains in Chinatown are the opposite. They're cool, calm, collected, politic, and opportunistic. They don't spend their time chasing after jewel encrusted falcons. They spend their time trying to control the entire water supply for a desert city for a thousand times the payout. They commit their murders privately, and the police do whatever they say because they're such god damned rich important people. Nicholson figures out just enough of the conspiracy to give him a glimmer of hope that the bad guy can be taken down, and plays around with the same kind of clever setups they play in old detective stories. Unfortunately, his plans rest on the police acting like policemen and not cronies, and the outcome would have been better if he'd just stayed out of the whole thing altogether.

Rating: ***** / 5

46/100

Others:

Ghost World: *** / 5

I thought I'd like this one more, but the concept has been done to death. Introverted, cynical, intelligent, sarcastic outcast tries not to sell out and ends up alienating everyone. The main character is very similar to Claire Fisher from Six Feet Under, only she was written with a lot more depth and sensitivity. The exact same concept was done more believably and poingantly in the recent movie Greenberg. Some of the assumptions of the writing misrepresent the real world. She needs to get a job, and she thinks her only option is a boring customer service job. I tell you, there are plenty of low paying easy jobs that don't involve customer interaction and don't require such complete conformity. Why is this introverted individualist only applying to movie theatre popcorn stands? And, the scene at the art gallery? I'm sure regular audiences would jump to the conclusion that the icon was a statement of racism, but the art crowd would jump just as easily to the conclusion that it's a comment on racism. I've seen far more superficially racist paintings at art galleries, but the art community gets the intention. Ghost World portrays the world a lot more monotonous and alienating than it really is.

The Piano Teacher: ** 1/2 / 5

Haneke films are derivative of Ingmar Bergman. I guess I can see the merit of what he's tyring to do, but the result is the characters barely come off as human. He goes for the aesthetic of Bergman without the psychological relevance.