“What did you do in Chinatown?”
(Gittes) “As little as possible”
Chinatown is one of those towering masterpieces of the seventies, ranking alongside with the Godfathers and Apocalypse Now among many others, which is known as the last great decade of American cinema. The movie follows the quintessential private eye who makes money off working adultery cases and other petty cases. He has moral code which he abides by and a disdain for humanity in general, which makes him perfect for the job. As the movie progresses, events reveal the other dimensions to his character, like how he has a massive ego that refuses to get hurt. The same is true with all the other characters. Consider, the femme fatale, who at first seem so bent and corrupted that we are left feeling a natural disgust with her. Or the charismatic Noah Cross, who has only 3-4 scenes in the movies, with which we find out his entire being. We never realize how our perception of each character completely changes towards the end of the movie. By the end we even cease to be judgmental, and we ascribe everything that happened to fate and the way of the world.
Chinatown works, not by simply by the sheer lucidity of its flow or the directorial or acting achievements, although all these are very much there. It combines a multitude of concepts, all old and many-time used, to portray a line of thought mainly concerned with deathly cynicism and the failure of the search of goodness which is supposed to be innate to the human soul. Its described as a “noir”, something that attaches itself with the dark, brooding b&w movies of the 40’s with contrasts of bright light and pitch dark and sharp contours overlying everything visible and implied. It is a detective movie in the oldest sense of the word, up to 3/4th of its runtime. In the end, it is in the sudden, mellow and most importantly, drastically subtle transition from the particularity of the events to the generality of human nature and the working of the laws of nature that makes it work. But even all that is done already. What makes it stand out is the spatial dimension. Chinatown is the end of the world. The movie follows each character into their personal dilemmas posed by exposure to the dark underbelly of the city. It is this character driven direction that kept me hooked to my seat. After the first time, with each viewing, the entire movie seem to reverberate with a kind of spiritual desperation that is fascinating to bear. The nostalgia returns to us in a heavier manner, but the movie avoids portraying its emotional excesses. The attitude of the film seemingly waxes to nihilism but on closer inspection, all we see is a physical impossibility, which is very much related to the circumstances.
And lastly, the score of the film fits in so perfectly with the general mood that it almost seem like a miracle. It is melancholic, riveting and always threatening to explode in your face. Its my favorite film score of all time, which is strange considering how this is also my favorite film of all time. The strained character of the different relationships and the murkiness of the legal system are products of the mindset of the age rather than anything else, as the time was indeed exceptional. The various indulgences of the characters, like the trappings of the past, the sexual derision, the chauvinism and the firm grasp of the human ego all seem very much circumstantial and very much real. Especially the last scene. The alien landscape of the town stretches in all directions and the long scaled buildings and the unfriendly sign-boards are simply symbols of utter hopelessness. The “moral midnight” it creates is only in the hearts of men, and as strong as it may be, it is several steps away from reality, which refuses to budge.
