Listen to our discussion of "Chinatown" on the private eye classic's anniversary!

This year is the 50^th anniversary of the neo noir classic, Chinatown, so we discussed it it in a recent episode of Cineverse. As host Erik Martin describes, “’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.” 

 

Be sure and check it out!