Chinatown: Film Commentary

     Roman Polanski's 1974 film, 'Chinatown', revolutionized the film noir genre. Aside from the absense of voice-over, the film shares all the same characteristics with earlier noirs. That is, of course, except for the fact that ?Chinatown? is

Chinatown is based on Roman Polanski’s lifeworks. Polanski’s goal is to emphasizes the meaning of how cinematography is made, and how it inspires by understanding the concept of setting, lighting, and how the image is captured. This film was released in 1974 by director of Roman Polanski to focus on private investigator J.J. Gittes, played by Jack Nicholson to investigate the elements behind the truth. Polanski’s goal is to emphasize the audience to give an ominous feeling of the main character, J.J. Gittes and his point of view by showing in color instead of black and white pictures. Due to these reasons, Polanski wanted to use Panavision to give a flawed vision about the past, which the story is set in the years of 1937. Polanski states, “a traditional detective story with a new, modern shape” for Paramount picture. (1) This paper focuses on the film Chinatown which is neo-noir, not only because of the setting, but the concept of cinematography that connects duplicates occurrences together that describe three categories: background of the cinematographer, point of view of the main character, and the interpretation of the ending scenes.

Society has had issues with violence through all of history and still today. There is violence seen when they talk about Johnny and his home life. Pony was explaining to Cherry how Johnny got hurt and why he gets scared easily. Ponyboy stated, “We were used to seeing Johnny banged up — his father clobbered him around a lot. (32)” This shows how violence could affect someone’s life in a negative light. Secondly, the socs and the greasers rely on each other to survive one the streets and today’s gangs now rely on each other too. On page 59 to 62, Dally helped Johnny and Ponyboy like family because he helped them when they needed it the most. This sounded like the gangs now and how they give advice to the people that are in trouble. Lastly, the greasers believe that fighting is just a way of life. Dally relies on violence because that’s all he knows. His parents didn't care about him and with a very violent world, he goes to jail at ten years old. With that, it created a person that lives for violence and crime. For instance, people today still think that violence is the answer to everything. ISIS an Islamic terrorist group terrorizes people because they want their point across. Why can’t people just resolve things peacefully? Humans should speak their mind verbally, instead of physical harm to innocent people. Both in the book and in today's society, people use physical harm to solve problems and that creates an issue of

Corruption is dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery while greed is defined as intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth and power, according to Oxford Dictionary. The film Chinatown directed by Roman Polanski embodies these underlying tones of corruption and greed. The main focus of corruption and greed in the film is Noah Cross. He murders Hollis Mulwray for greed and attempts to flee from police to add to the corruption. Polanski vision and perspective made the film innovative.

The first instance of corruption that is witnessed from the clip is when Detective Trupo pulls Frank Lucas and his new wife over on their wedding day. At this point, Trupo takes two actions that confirm that his ethics are not ______???______. First, Trupo pulls over Lucas and asks him to exit the vehicle without reasonable cause, then threatens Lucas to make payments to him on the first of each month after seeing that Lucas can afford as much as a fifty thousand dollar chinchilla coat with all of the heroin that he has sold. This situation from the film is explaining that crooked detectives and other law enforcers during the 1970s

The amount of crime in a society reflects the society’s values greatly. Alex and his friends commit violent crimes in this book purely for their entertainment. Alex says,“ But what I do, I do because I like to

Violence in the short story is very interesting because its so apparent and yet so deep. Towards the end of the story, the Misfit says to Grandmother “She would of been a good woman . . . if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” Flannery O’Connor doesn’t say that being exposed to violence makes them better people, but the message is clear: violence changes us as a people (both in the story and in the real world). Up until the very end, each member of the family, mostly Grandmother, acted egotistically and only focused in herself. None of the characters take a minute to evaluate whats right and wrong for themselves or anyone else. They all react based on their instincts without thinking things through so much. But when Grandmother is put in a life or death situation where she’s forced to carefully pick her words and actions, she is suddenly capable of a being more selfless and spiritually sound. The Grandmother’s everyday considerations probably have nothing to do with her son or the kids, really anyone in her family, but when she is faced with her own mortality she has this moment of “grace”—she calls the Misfit her own son, and reach makes an effort, emotionally and physically, hoping to save herself or comfort him. In the end, however, the Grandmother’s moment of “grace” ends up getting her killed. O’Connor

Violence is the central concept that carried and resolved the main conflict between LaHood and the people of Carbon Canyon. Without the ever present violence in the film, there would not have been such a grand conflict that needed resolving, and said conflict would have also never been resolved. Even though there’s various examples of violence in the film, only two of them are going to be analyzed in depth. The first is the sexual violence that occurred between LaHood’s son, Josh, and Megan, and the second is the the violence that the Preacher partakes in and what is his reasoning behind it.

Violence and war is notable throughout history. However, it is lazy to say that this proves humans are naturally violent. Rather than using nature as an excuse for those who chose to act violently it’s important we recognize that we have a choice to decide how we act. In Howard Zinn’s, “Violence and Human Nature” He shows that violence is not an instinct but that the environment in which they live in provokes them to act violently or peacefully depending on their choice (43). In City of God, a film concentrating on the gangs of Rio de Janeiro during the 1960’s to the 1980’s, specifically the township of Cidade de Deus, we are introduced to various characters who all make different choices under different motivations. Rocket, the little brother to a member of the Tender Trio, who are essentially the Robin Hood’s of the City of God, to act non-violently despite his environment and the influences around him.

The viewer sees a private eye and beautiful client. First thought, "It’s definitely another Hollywood crime drama." On the surface, Chinatown has all the elements of a film noir: the presence of a beautiful but dangerous woman, otherwise known as the femme fatale, a gritty urban setting, compositional tension (highly contrasting light and dark colors or oblique camera angles), and themes of moral ambiguity and alienation. Chinatown, however, is different. Polanski shot Chinatown with color film, and though his colors do appear especially vivid, color film precludes the contrast intensity that black and white film offers. In addition, Evelyn is not the classic femme fatale. Though Jake mistakes her for her husband’s killer at first, Mrs.

Already five minutes into the film we have the exposition. The time period is set in the late 1960’s early 1970’s. The audience is given narrative economy that sets up the time period as well as the location, Harlem, New York. Along with just the basic time and place we clearly see that Frank Lucas is the protagonist. We learn from the start that he can be violent. This builds his characters, he has the will to be dominant and gets power, just as he wants power. From the beginning we are lead to believe Frank will do anything it takes to get what he wants even if that means burning a man alive. We learn right away this film is about gangsters, about crime, and it is about struggle for power.

In Cawelti’s piece, he talks about the “generic transformation” that appears in Chinatown. Most of all, he points at the “myth” of the hard-boiled detective, a well known noir character archetype that appears in both Chinatown and The Long Goodbye. According to Cawelti, the “hard-boiled” detective is an archetype that is meant to portray the “moral ambiguity” theme often seen in classical film noir. These types of characters are licensed by the state as private investigators, but are far from morally upright beings. They follow their own internal code of ethics, and if the law needs to be broken in order for the job to get done, that is just the way things have to go (Cawelti 499-500). Both Jake Gittes and Philip Marlowe are private investigators who do their own thing when it comes to enforcing the law. Mostly because they realize that the system is corrupt, so they invent their own form of justice. To Gittes, that means lying his way in and out of most situations; to Marlowe that means killing his friend who has committed murder.

Roman Polanski's Hollywood film Chinatown, directed in 1974, tells the story of Jake Gittes, a private investigator. The film focuses in on the dark reality of corruption behind power hungry men, making this a true neo-noir film. Chinatown reveals a depth narrative allowing the viewer to follow Gittes and uncover the secrets around the water dispute in California. I chose to bring focus to the significance of the male gaze and how this form of power can change and affect our views. The prominent female character in the film, Evelyn Mulwray, is a wealthy white woman. With her character comes active male attention and desire. Laura Mulvey's Theory of "The Gaze" supports this argument by studying the power and influence of a patriarchal

Another example is from the scene when” he said he fix the lock come see how fix it is ,i'm not yaling i'm apsat ,i want his name give me his name “. In this scene it shows how the man was threatening to the blame on the man who is fixing the locks and he is saying that it is him without even having any evidence that it is him. Clearly, the actions that the people have on the other different people are wrong and they are making assumptions about people when they do not even know anything about them, which leads to have a wrong ideas about others and it leads to violence.

Violence can be described as a behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something. Violence has been around from the beginning and can be seen through history in writing and events that occurred. In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, violence’s jarring effects on societal members are evidenced through various relationships and partnerships, portraying society’s corrupt ideologies and ethics.