cinemajesty
Film Review: "Chinatown" (1974)Character J.J. Gittes, the private eye for tricky matrimonial cases with the usual "inflagranti" finish note to a case, performed to picture-carrying excellence by actor Jack Nicholson at age 36, trusting director Roman Polanksi, at the height of his powers in Hollywood, to wear two third of the film bandaid noise after investigations get all-too-messy concerning a major struggle for the water-supply dominion in Los Angeles county.Producer Robert Evans, in close excutive action with legendary as prestigious Hollywood Major Studio "Paramount Pictures", opens doors for director Roman Polanski, who gets filmmaking freedoms to find classic 1940s hard-boiled film noir homages, when screenwriter Robert Towne's Academy-Award-given original script out of total eleven nominations at the Oscars on April 8th 1975 in its 47th edition, losing all major categories to equal as comparable "The Godfather: Part II" starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro as Young Vito Corleone directed by Academy-Award-winning Francis Ford Coppola.Nevertheless "Chinatown" strikes an even darker note than its direct competitor, when street-thug-behavior gets respectable due to the shear non-stop endurance and elevated to excellence impersonated by haunting as impeccably-written character of "Noah Cross", portrayed in fine-beat-acting by highly-successful director in his own right John Huston (1906-1987), who shares the highest suspense moments with Jack Nicholson getting seemingly sucked deeper into L.A.'s underworld of contract-making, funds-shifting with iron-fist for the so-called "Future" of mankind with running water in an unless desert city. Director Roman Polanski makes sure that the 125-Minute-Editorial does not fail once to lose its grip onto the audience with additional atmospheric scoring by supreme composer Jerry Goldsmith (1929-2004) and supporting grace and classic-beauty-indulging actress Faye Dunaway as notorious character Evelyn Mulwray, who carries a family that deep hiding in female's spirit that every scene she appears becomes unbearable for tension points that have not been done better in Hollywood-filmmaking ever since.Copyright 2018 Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC
eagandersongil
"Chinatown" is not the most beloved, best-known, or most remembered of the films, but ironically, it is one of the most important films of the 70's, "chinatown" is not a kind film, and it's not even the best movie of Polanski, but his narrative capacity is absurd, even to this day there is a maxim in entertainment that is not true, that all the stories have already been told, it is up to the interlocutor to tell them in different ways, and that is precisely what this movie does, inspired by the great noir films of the 1940s, it is not a novelty, and at the same time it is unlike anything we have seen, such as "the unforgivable" of '92 is the last great act of the western genre in cinema - even out of season, "chinatown" does the same thing with the noair genre. The great point that draws attention to "chinatown" is his script, he is completely magnificent, I would say, which is a complete synthesis of the perfection of how to script a movie, in 2 hours we have complete development of all the characters, we have a simple plot which gains layers of depth every minute, we have problems that mix with the city, turning into a political and social plot while bringing a classic story of a detective full of twists, who at one point surrenders to the cliché, but then surprises the all showing that in "chinatown" there are no spaces for the obvious. The film touches on such as love, police, ethics, society, organized crime, rape, nothing in a very deep way but also nothing is shallow, it gives the introduction to the theme, and the viewer who links the dots, alias, "chinatown" is a film that has to be seen and reviewed to be able to connect the points in a more satisfactory way, and to have a broad and complete notion of its history, which is not easy to understand in the first one visited during the film. With a great photo, extremely clear and brings new york life together with an assembly that joins the script to bring a great rhythm to the film, and a soundtrack that combines but is not marked in technical parts, the film has no much to criticize, is not perfect, but is not far behind the artistic part of the film, part that brings jack nicholson who is incredibly in a centered role, and alias, doing a great performance, and the stunning Faye Dunaway, who we love and hate her throughout the film, and she makes the whole story run around her, and she succeeds in behaving like the guiding thread of the script, interpreting many facets. Polanski and his artistic team did a fine job here, their film is not perfect, it's true, but it's a pity that it's not such a remembered movie, because the same is wonderful.
areatw
'Chinatown' is one of the best films of the 70s and without doubt one of the most memorable in the crime/detective genre. This is a first-rate picture all round with very few faults, if any. It's an intelligent mystery, complex yet relatively easy to follow, and has no difficulty in holding your attention from start to finish.Part of what makes 'Chinatown' so memorable is just how perfect it is in appearance. The cinematography is on another level to anything else I've seen from the 70s - each and every scene is crafted in such a stylish and elegant way. The script is also brilliant and gives us some classic lines, including of course the famous last line of the film, 'Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown'. 'Chinatown' is a film that lives up to its glowing reputation. It's difficult to fault this detective gem.
