Re-run Around #2

CHINATOWN

The private eye thriller is a well worn path, trodden by films since time was time and secrets were secrets. Vivid images come naturally to mind at the mention of the genre: incriminating photographs taken from unsecured rooftops. Trilby's shadowing grim faced ex-cops. Smokey eye'd, smouldering, cupid-bow lipped molls. Dirty fingered exchanges of cash, loot and threats.

All these cliches are present and incorrect in Roman Polanski's 1974 noir Chinatown, captured so perfectly that within the first ten minutes you feel comfortable inhabiting the offices of Jake Gittes's private detective agency as if you yourself have a wayward husband and you need a PI to snoop out the misdeeds.

Jack Nicholson lives, breathes and reclines in the role of Jake, showing his now customary combination of slick seduction and manic danger. Set during the chronic water shortages that blighted 1930's LA, Gittes is an ex-cop escaping the pressure and danger of working in Chinatown to take up more slippery work, uncovering private indiscretions for the highest bidder.

Jake is hired by the wife of a prominent water engineer Hollis Mulwray who is apparently playing away from home. With precision, Jake photographs and discredits Mulwray's reputation and soon Mulwray's body is found washed up in the reservoir. Nicholson is pitch perfect in his portrayal of the hardened ex-cop taking a sly relish in his work, enjoying operating on the fringes of the law he once upheld in Chinatown.

However the conventionality of the film begins to twist as, in the ensuing scandal, Jake becomes aware that he was hired by an impostor. Jake's incredulity is matched by a newly invigorated passion to discover who is responsible for fooling him and why. Soon it becomes clear that he has been dragged into a battle for control of the water supply to the city and must challenge sinister corporate faces with dark fingers lining the pockets of city officials, if he is to find the truth.

By resisting the urge to use a conventional voice over, Polanski draws his audience into the world of Jake, uncovering the clues as he does, taking each step alongside him and becoming just as emotionally entangled in the plot. Jake's profession is a paradox of uncovering what is hidden by exposing what is seen through the lens of a camera and we as an audience take the same journey to discover each delicious nugget of truth served up in tantalising portions on the screen.

Chinatown becomes a paradox in it's own right, a juxtaposition of horror and joy. The joy in the film lies in uncovering each mystery, of piecing together how Mulwray's true wife, played with understated regality by Faye Dunaway, fits into the schemes of her wealthy father who has vested interest in the water supply. The horror in the film comes when we realise that uncovering that which is hidden, leads Jake to face dark secrets and subversive lives.

The legacy of Chinatown is clear in its familiarity. The cliches are a flattery, the copy cats a homage. Such is it's influence that a second look at LA Confidential, Blade Runner (at least in the directors cut) or Who Framed Roger Rabbit are a deja-vu. However, the real legacy of Chinatown is as a pillar of storytelling without patronising or over indulging your audience with distractions and grandstanding. Polanski treats us as grown ups, capable of discovering the nature of people and being horrified by the consequences.

This is never truer than as Jake makes his final and brutally dark discovery. A discovery which subverts both the genre and most people's fundamental understanding of what people are capable of. Jake is forced to realise that sometimes the horror is just too great, justice no longer worth the sacrifice. So, just like Jake, the audience cannot help but look away as the edifice of slick PI's, corporate money men and finding redemption in truth are torn apart by the gruesome nature of the world we live in.

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

xx