chinatown
Here's one of the pieces I recently sent out in my promotional sweep to try and pick up writing jobs. It's a quick review of Chinatown, my favourite mainstream movie ever.
I’ve long believed Chinatown (dir. Roman Polanski, 1974) to be the greatest commercial movie of all time. After repeated viewings at home and in the cinema I can safely say it’s the most flawless mainstream movie ever made. It has all of the strengths of the best 70s cinema; tight plotting, good performances, acute cine-literacy, and looks good on screen, with none of the attendant weaknesses; particularly indulgent direction, acting or editing.
There are some weaknesses in Chinatown if you look closely enough, which may be worth enumerating. In a strong decade for cinematography, the camerawork is sometimes just effective, or good but uninspired. However, the locations and period detail are strong without being intrusive, lifting even quite weak shots. There are in the script slightly uncomfortable moments of misogyny and racism that can’t be attributed to the period setting. In particular, the central trope of Chinatown as a place of dark and unresolved secrets, is simple orientalism. In this case portraying the Chinese community as a mysterious and sinister ‘other’ within the city. Despite a fine performance from Faye Dunaway, the female characters are less convincing than the male. There are fewer of them, less active than the males, and sharing with the Chinese community a kind of shadow-life under the script. That said, these are the obvious weaknesses, and barely discernible most of the time.
In almost every other respect Chinatown gets it right. By being untypical of both men, it manages to be one of the best movies director Polanski, and actor Jack Nicholson have ever been involved with, demonstrating their greatest strengths. In Polanski those strengths are getting the best from his actors whatever the script, and bringing out the moral complexity of our behaviour. In Nicholson those strengths are his charisma, and ability to be almost simultaneously admirable and contemptible.
I’ll come to Nicholson in a moment, after looking at Faye Dunaway’s performance. A lesser director than Polanski might have been content to allow her to be coolly distant. Beautiful, iconic and impenetrable. It’s a strategy other directors have used before and since, but Polanski gets more. Dunaway’s performance is nuanced, and doesn’t really come into focus until the end of the movie. Her character is torn between openness and secrecy, between the need to protect and be protected, between shame and pride. It makes her by turns brittle, warm, and distant. She moves rapidly from one to another, without the performance ever seeming overcooked.
This emotional and moral complexity is displayed by both Dunaway and Nicholson, Polanski managing to help them get the most from Robert Townes’ brilliant script. While giving them enough room to relax and do what they do best, Polanski makes sure they act. That means serving the characters as written, rather than relying on a star identity, and turning out another lookalike performance. These characters are deep, they display real conflicts and contradictions, and we believe them. This is Polanski’s gift, visible in most of his films, however weak the script (The Ninth Gate), or limited the actor (Hugh Grant).
Contrary to popular belief, Jack Nicholson spent the 70s overacting at least as much as he did in the 80s. I can only really think of Chinatown and The King of Marvin Gardens, off the top of my head, as films which aren’t marred by his showboating. Usually his charisma carries him through without derailing the film, which has led many to believe that his skill is in being larger than life. Polanski sees beyond this, to a man who is charismatic and interesting even when he isn’t showing-off. In Chinatown Nicholson relaxes, and shows what a fine actor he is, something we wouldn’t really see again until the 90s.
What ‘s also visible even in Nicholson’s silliest roles is that ability to be both admirable and contemptible. Whether it be characters with conflicting motivations, characters who believe themselves to be other than they are, or who find themselves in a situation beyond their competence, Nicholson never plays one-dimensional characters. Here he’s striving to do what he thinks best, while being lied to on all sides, and seemingly unable to grasp the extent of the corruption around him. All of this is admirable, yet he’s also vain, and often careless of those around him.
Finally I’d like to offer a personal anecdote. During the last year of my degree I was quite a way behind on my essays, mainly because of the ‘part-time’ job that was taking up around 30 hours a week. The day before three essays were due I had a shift in work in the morning. That finished around 12, and I went straight over to the university to try and get my essay deadlines extended. I wasn’t able to get the extension, so had to go home and start the essays. I started work around 2pm, and finished around 7am, seventeen hours straight. I still had two hours until the essays became due, but I’d been up over 24 hours, and didn’t want to risk falling asleep and missing the deadline. I didn’t much fancy kids TV, so the natural choice for me was Chinatown. I watched it through an almost narcotic haze, happy to be finished, the morning still fresh. I may not have taken much in on this viewing, but it was one of the most enjoyable. And I can’t think of any other movie I’d rather have had at that time.
I’ve long believed Chinatown (dir. Roman Polanski, 1974) to be the greatest commercial movie of all time. After repeated viewings at home and in the cinema I can safely say it’s the most flawless mainstream movie ever made. It has all of the strengths of the best 70s cinema; tight plotting, good performances, acute cine-literacy, and looks good on screen, with none of the attendant weaknesses; particularly indulgent direction, acting or editing.
There are some weaknesses in Chinatown if you look closely enough, which may be worth enumerating. In a strong decade for cinematography, the camerawork is sometimes just effective, or good but uninspired. However, the locations and period detail are strong without being intrusive, lifting even quite weak shots. There are in the script slightly uncomfortable moments of misogyny and racism that can’t be attributed to the period setting. In particular, the central trope of Chinatown as a place of dark and unresolved secrets, is simple orientalism. In this case portraying the Chinese community as a mysterious and sinister ‘other’ within the city. Despite a fine performance from Faye Dunaway, the female characters are less convincing than the male. There are fewer of them, less active than the males, and sharing with the Chinese community a kind of shadow-life under the script. That said, these are the obvious weaknesses, and barely discernible most of the time.
In almost every other respect Chinatown gets it right. By being untypical of both men, it manages to be one of the best movies director Polanski, and actor Jack Nicholson have ever been involved with, demonstrating their greatest strengths. In Polanski those strengths are getting the best from his actors whatever the script, and bringing out the moral complexity of our behaviour. In Nicholson those strengths are his charisma, and ability to be almost simultaneously admirable and contemptible.
I’ll come to Nicholson in a moment, after looking at Faye Dunaway’s performance. A lesser director than Polanski might have been content to allow her to be coolly distant. Beautiful, iconic and impenetrable. It’s a strategy other directors have used before and since, but Polanski gets more. Dunaway’s performance is nuanced, and doesn’t really come into focus until the end of the movie. Her character is torn between openness and secrecy, between the need to protect and be protected, between shame and pride. It makes her by turns brittle, warm, and distant. She moves rapidly from one to another, without the performance ever seeming overcooked.
This emotional and moral complexity is displayed by both Dunaway and Nicholson, Polanski managing to help them get the most from Robert Townes’ brilliant script. While giving them enough room to relax and do what they do best, Polanski makes sure they act. That means serving the characters as written, rather than relying on a star identity, and turning out another lookalike performance. These characters are deep, they display real conflicts and contradictions, and we believe them. This is Polanski’s gift, visible in most of his films, however weak the script (The Ninth Gate), or limited the actor (Hugh Grant).
Contrary to popular belief, Jack Nicholson spent the 70s overacting at least as much as he did in the 80s. I can only really think of Chinatown and The King of Marvin Gardens, off the top of my head, as films which aren’t marred by his showboating. Usually his charisma carries him through without derailing the film, which has led many to believe that his skill is in being larger than life. Polanski sees beyond this, to a man who is charismatic and interesting even when he isn’t showing-off. In Chinatown Nicholson relaxes, and shows what a fine actor he is, something we wouldn’t really see again until the 90s.
What ‘s also visible even in Nicholson’s silliest roles is that ability to be both admirable and contemptible. Whether it be characters with conflicting motivations, characters who believe themselves to be other than they are, or who find themselves in a situation beyond their competence, Nicholson never plays one-dimensional characters. Here he’s striving to do what he thinks best, while being lied to on all sides, and seemingly unable to grasp the extent of the corruption around him. All of this is admirable, yet he’s also vain, and often careless of those around him.
Finally I’d like to offer a personal anecdote. During the last year of my degree I was quite a way behind on my essays, mainly because of the ‘part-time’ job that was taking up around 30 hours a week. The day before three essays were due I had a shift in work in the morning. That finished around 12, and I went straight over to the university to try and get my essay deadlines extended. I wasn’t able to get the extension, so had to go home and start the essays. I started work around 2pm, and finished around 7am, seventeen hours straight. I still had two hours until the essays became due, but I’d been up over 24 hours, and didn’t want to risk falling asleep and missing the deadline. I didn’t much fancy kids TV, so the natural choice for me was Chinatown. I watched it through an almost narcotic haze, happy to be finished, the morning still fresh. I may not have taken much in on this viewing, but it was one of the most enjoyable. And I can’t think of any other movie I’d rather have had at that time.
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