The truth did come out: Her "sister" is actually her daughter, and the father of her daughter was her father. It's about incest. Creepiness expected of the director.
The writer of the movie, Robert Towne, said that “Chinatown” refers to a state of mind. It represents the hopelessness of trying to help someone but ending up hurting them instead. Gittes refers to this in his story about working in Chinatown. Also, the reason they went to Chinatown in the end was they needed a place for Curly to pick up Evelyn and Catherine, so they agreed to meet at her butler’s house which happens to be in Chinatown.
maybe worth adding that in the early years of the LAPD, Chinatown was pretty much the sanctioned area for vice. 'Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown' can be read as 'you know how this goes; you've been here before'.
On a side note, Robert Towne got his start as an actor in the film "The Creature from the Haunted Sea." He went by the name Edward Wain. It was a goofy movie but, at least, he got a foot in the door. It's all good.
There was basically a ten-year stretch during which Faye Dunaway was on top of the world as probably the most important actress in Hollywood. Chinatown was sort of in the middle of it. I highly recommend checking out the two bookends of the period: Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Network (1976). They're both such great films.
DEFINITELY "Bonnie And Clyde" and "DEFINITELY "Network"!!!!! How there are not countless reactions to those two movies is beyond me. There are, I believe, only three for "Network". NONE for "Bonnie And Clyde". Those stand right next to Chinatown, Godfather, Cuckoo's Nest, Taxi Driver, etc as far as undisputed masterpieces of that "New Hollywood" era. ("Dog Day Afternoon" is another). Anyways, DEFINITELY seconding both "Bonnie And Clyde" and "Network". (and if I had to pick a fourth essential Faye film: "Barfly"!)
Nicholson was praised by a lot of critics for appearing in a good part of the film with his nose bandaged up like that. They didn't think many leading men of his caliber would allow themselves to be seen like that.
yeah, no actor ever wants to be seen on film dying. That's why so many chse parts in which they could do a death scene. Name ONE critic who said as you claim.
@randywhite3947 As compared to what? See "A Man for All Seasons" (six Oscars), "Casablanca" (Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Director), 1957's "12 Angry Men".
Just google the screenplay class, there are state links to universities that have used the screenplay as a blueprint of no wasted page and time to tell a story this complex, exceptionally dark, and the foundation for the incredible production effort to craft something truly memorable and special that elevated crime noir going forward in film and TV today.
Couple of things: Noah Cross is played by John Huston, the great director of THE MALTESE FALCON. He was also the father of Angelica Huston (who Jack just started dating her), so that line “Are you sleeping with my daughter?” had added punch. The butler is played by James Hong (Lo Pan from BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA and the grand dad in EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE).
The screenplay for this is considered one of the greatest ever written and is used for teaching and training writers. No matter how many times this is watched, - new details, more depth, additional complexities always crop up. Chinatown is more a frame of mind, and circumstance of life, is not a place, but is unknown and bitter social realities.
And if you ever watch Bogart's version of MALTESE FALCON, John Huston's the director AND his famous '20s and '30s actor-father plays the ROLE of the soon-to-die captain of the SS PALOMA, carrying in the Falcon statuette. The stuff dreams are made of. He gets better, though, and plays the Older of the miners in TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE in 1948.
He also won an Oscar for "treasure of the sierra madre" as well as his father for best supporting actor. Years later him & Angelica both won for "prizzi's honor"
When I saw this film on opening night in 1974, knowing nothing about it, I thought Evelyn Mulwray might be in league with her father the whole time, setting Gittes up. She walked a tightrope in creating that character, keeping us guessing until the end.
My Favorite Polanski film is The Pianist. One of Adrien Brody best work and it won him an Oscar for that role and desrevingly so. Hope you guys will add this to your long list of movie to watch. Great work👍
Great movie. Hell, you probably could pick about a half-dozen Nicholson films from the late 60s to the mid 70s (EASY RIDER, FIVE EASY PIECES, CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, THE LAST DETAIL, CHINATOWN, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST, etc) as among the best of his career.
This is a perfect film. Maybe the best screenplay ever. Nicholson may have turned in a better performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but this is the best film he was ever in.
Ken Kesey, the author, wanted Gene Hackman in the role of RP McMurphy. Anyone who read the novel would agree, Hackman would have been perfect. I believe Nicholson got too much credit. The supporting cast was outstanding. Everyone in the cast were perfect in their roles. Kesey refused to watch the film.
This film is so good, one of the best neo noir films alongside Body Heat. Also Robert Evans was the producer of this film, and he was also one of the people responsible for getting The Godfather made. The score is beautiful.
If TBR and Sam could ever find a way to cover Body Heat, it would be great. Brilliant directing, writing, hot musical score, and performances by William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, and Ted Danson.
John Huston is probably one of the greatest directors of all time and his role in this is iconic. Im pretty sure a handful of his movies are in the top 50 all time lists which is nuts
Just recently moved to Southern California to pursue screenwriting and writing in general. A lot of screenwriters look to this screenplay as one of the best of all time. I remember first watching this movie and following the screenplay as it went for shits n gigs. One of the best movie experiences of my life. The ending is devastating. Super pumped you reacted to one of my favorite movies and no one ever reacts to this movie for some reason
Finally! I've been waiting for years for these two to watch this movie, and their reactions, especially when they learned the pond was filled with salt water, were priceless. This film is arguably th greatest film noir ever, and the tortuous process that led to its creation, which is based on real-life events, is worth reading about. By the way, Jack Nicholson, after he appeared in this film, discovered that the woman he thought was his sister was actually his mother. Now that they've seen Chinatown, TBR and Samantha should turn their attention to Network, for which Faye Dunaway won her Best Actress Oscar.
I've run into that basic sister/mother thing quite a few times reading about people in the last century. Look up Merle Oberon sometime, and they're not all famous actresses. All to do with sex with underage girls being just a thing that was tolerated among men but something that needed to be buried on the part of the women it happened to. Feel free to chime in with Polanski-related comments if you must, but it's not like he invented statutory rape.
@MDK2_Radio Depends on when you hear about it from the person involved. It never came to trial so we don't know what the DA would have pursued in court.
@@karlmortoniv2951The latest I read on this topic was that Polanski and his lawyer had a deal worked out with the DA for some jail time + time off for already served time, but at the last minute they heard the judge wasn’t going to honor the deal, so Polanski fled the country. Not excusing the action, but explaining what was happening.
I've been a fan of this movie since I first saw it in a theater soon after its release. I believe John Huston's portrayal of Noah Cross is one of the great movie villains of all time.
The character of Hollis I. Mulwray is inspired by the real City Engineer William Mullholland. The one for whom a major LA street is named. The history of LA is water. Jack had just started dating John Huston’s daughter Angelica when Huston’s character asks Jack’s character if he’s sleeping with his daughter.
The Two James doesn’t hold a candle to Chinatown, of course, but I just loved getting to catch up with Jake so many years later. It’s sad that we’ll never get the third one they had planned.
@@alankingsley2916 I've never seen it, but I've heard that despite definitely being inferior to "Chinatown" - I mean, there aren't a whole lot of movies that can measure up to it anyway - it's actually a pretty good sequel.
Chinatown is both a location and a metaphor for the futility of good intentions. 90% of the movie wasn't pointless. This is a film noir that took all the tropes from that genre and subverted them. One of the biggest being the "femme fatale" (deadly female). it's only at the end that we find out that not only was Evelyn innocent of her husband's murder, she is a tragic victim of sexual abuse from the real murderer. And it was him trying to save her that got her killed. And the way they managed to get us from the metaphorical Chinatown to the literal Chinatown in the last 10 minutes is mindblowingly brilliant.
This is one of the best movies of all time, and it gets better each time you watch it. Every single thing Jake does to protect Evelyn brings her closer to danger. Every person who tries to tell Jake, "You may think you know what you're dealing with, but you don't", is telling him the truth. I used to hate the downbeat ending (which was changed from the original script), but the tragic irony in almost every scene is downright poetic. Chinatown is the epitome of top-tier Film Noir. Edit: It took me like ten times before I fully understood the plot, but it almost doesn't matter because everything is steeped in such brilliance technically and creatively. This movie really is a MOOD.
Chinatown was a place where the police never really knew what was going on. Nothing was as it seemed. Jake worked there as a young cop. The case Jake worked on in the present as a detective was just like working in Chinatown. Nothing was as it seemed. Chinatown was symbolic of mystery and misdirection.
I saw this film in 1974. It's why I love movies to this day. "Repulsion" is a Roman Polanski film I strongly recommend. And...the man yelling at Mulwray at the beginning of the film is Rance Howard, Ron's father. I also recommend "Farewell, My Lovely."
@@zeltzamer4010 So, random guy, you consider a film about incest, and the VICTIM of the incest being killed, a great film. But that isn't what you consider "insane"?
@@jnagarya519 My endorsement of the movie is not an endorsement of what happens in it, obviously. By that measure, anyone who likes The Empire Strikes Back must support interplanetary war and hand mutilation.
@@zeltzamer4010 I am an adult with critical faculties. And as a professional writer I critically evaluate not only the writing but look behind and beyond it to sources. A super-convoluted writing that is ultimately based upon BLAMING THE VICTIM of incest is problematic. None of that is obscured by actors or cinematography or "enjoying" it as a viewer who surrenders objectivity to wallow in emotion. One of the best movies ever made, in all particulars, is 1966's "A Man for All Seasons". Another is 1957's "12 Angry Men". Art should not debase.
Chinatown is one of the best films of the seventies and it’s widely considered one of the best screenplays of all time, written by Robert Towne (Polanski contributed a lot to the story as well, including the ending).
In the wrong hands the ending would have been melodramatic and ruined the film, but Polanski was a great filmmaker in his prime and it made the movie devastating at the end. He told Towne she had to die at the end of the film would have no deeper meaning
My favorite Nicholson movie and there are a lot of great Jack performances. Faye Dunaway was also amazing and there are 3 other of her movies you should see with her. 3 Days of the Condor with Robert Redford, another thriller that has you guessing, her first big splash in Bonnie and Clyde where she plays Bonnie Parker to Warren Beatty's Clyde Barrow and Network, the prescient 1975 classic about news becoming all about ratings and is still applicable today.
Altman movies are also very interesting, and worth a watch. Movies include McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Nashville, The Wedding, MASH, The Player, Gosford Park and more!
The Greatest film in the last 50 years hands down. Its a perfect ending. In the 20s and 30s rich Baron's ruled the Nation, and Rich locals like Mr. Cross ruled cities and states, money could buy them out of anything. By the way, the guy that played Mr. Cross(Jon Huston) is one of the best Directors of the 20th Century. The Maltese Falcon was his first ever film. He also directed The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, The Asphalt Jungle, The African Queen, Annie and Prizzis Honor. P.S. if you watched it a 2nd time you will understand it better. Nothing is pointless, Noah Cross was a rich, greedy man who killed his ex partner, not only because he SHAFTED HIM via his water plans, but because he took away his Daughter and Grand Daughter from him. (Most do not get that part). Also, the name Chinatown is a "Metaphoric Connotation" for how Noah Cross operates. He gets away with everything because the Cops don't care (they are paid off). Likewise, the Cops do not care about the Citizens of Chinatown because they are mostly Chinese. That is why its named Chinatown, the Cops are indifferent to the crimes of a rich man.
This film gets better with repeated viewings. Chinatown is sort of a metaphor for a situation that's too complicated and convoluted to get a handle on. Like the line that Noah Cross says to Jake: You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe me, you don't. The whole film Jake thought he had things figured out, but he never did until the end. Also, a great Faye Dunaway film that you should definitely check out is Network.
Yes, and also that truly figuring it out usually involves tragedy because you have to get in so deep to figure it out that you become a player in the 'game'--and it's almost a certainty that you are the weakest player and thus cannot help or protect anyone, even yourself. Jake was lucky to get out of this alive. Or was he lucky? Now he has to live with another instance of trying to help someone he cared about, only to make sure she got hurt (killed). And that doesn't even include Katherine, who now is under the control of her father/grandfather, a despicable person. Jake can only hope that Cross is too old to repeat what he did to Evelyn, but it certainly won't be a good environment for Katherine...
Also, the score is one of the reasons for the success of this film; it perfectly expresses the bittersweet, noir-ish tone and brings a jazzy 1930’s feeling to the atmosphere.
Kevin Pollak reflected on a cereal moment Jack Nicholson confessed to him on the set of "A Few Good Men' where while he was rehearsing with John Huston during this movie, he was actually sleeping with his daughter at the time, Angelica, and while he is thinking about coming clean with the old man, during rehearsal, John asks the line, as written in the scrip to Jack "Are you sleeping with my daughter?" And Jack could not help but see the irony of that moment. LOL
This is loosely based on the story of real Los Angeles "water wars" from the 1930s/40s, and how farmers were driven out of what used to be rural farmland north of LA so that their land could be developed into what is now the San Fernando Valley. "Mulray" is a pseudonym for Mulholland (for whom Mulholland Drive is named), a big name in the history of LA water.
One of Jack’s movies is “As good as it gets” that’s one of my favorite performances of his, great movie , Helen Hunt and Jack both won academy as awards for their performances
One of the classics of all time with an all-star cast. Based on the San Fernando Valley when it was just farmland & on the issue of lack of water to the region (How Ironic) to turn the valley into the city it is today. The character Hollis Mulwray was based on William Mulholland, the superintendent of Los Angeles Water & Power. As well as naming Mullholland Drive after he died. Great reaction video you two !!! Keep it going you two !!!🀄
It should be pointed out that "Chinatown" is NOT a true story. Robert Towne took some people and re-aligned their stories to cook up his own thing. Not that this kind of awfulness didn't go on back then, but "Chinatown" should not be taken as historical fact.
The San Fernando Valley has never been a city. It is about 60 suburbs in search of a city. I grew up there in the late 1940's, 1950's, and 1960's and watched it change from farmland to the bleak concrete jungle it is today. The Ventura Freeway took our house via Eminent Domain in 1956.
It was a foregone conclusion that Nicholson would win the Oscar for this, but the Academy in one of its dippier moments gave it to Art Carney instead. Jack won the following year. But this is still my favorite Nicholson film. Thanks for your great reaction video!
The Godfather Part II also came out in 1974. Most thought it was a toss up between Nicholson and Al Pacino and Carney surprised by beating both. The other nominees that year, Dustin Hoffman in Lenny and Albert Finney in Murder on the Orient Express were strong performances as well. Really great year for the best actor category.
I have seen 4 of the 5 Best Actor nominees (only missing Dustin Hoffman in LENNY), and IMO the only deserving candidates were Carney and Nicholson (it was neck and neck between the 2 for me). That being said, I think the person who should've won that year was Gene Hackman for THE CONVERSATION who bizarrely wasn't even nominated.
One of the greatest crime movies of all time. I consider L.A. Confidential to be a sister movie, which I'm pretty sure would make sense to fans of both
In this film, Roman Polanski acts himself as the evil, weasely gangster in a white suit who slits Nicholson's nose. Also in this film, the legendary director John Huston plays the evil, powerful Noah Cross, the incestuous rapist. Chinatown is up there among the five most important films. It was used for ages in film schools all over the world as an example of a perfectly plotted film. Screenwriter: Robert Towne (got an Oscar for it). You better keep attention when you see it, a lot of things is going on here. A solid piece of filmmaking, perhaps Polanski's best.
In my mind, this movie is paired with L.A. Confidential - two great films with a complex storyline that's set back in time in a very corrupt Los Angeles.
The much-maligned sequel, The Two Jakes, is very weird and not actually a mystery in the conventional sense, but I think it’s got great neo-noir vibes and Nicholson is wonderful. It’s only tangentially related to Chinatown, but it does follow up on a few of the threads.
Whatever you think about Polanski, this is one of the best movies of all time. Jack Nicholson at his very best, the script, the settings, costums, everything is perfect.
Great filmmaker whose movies deserve to be preserved, terrible human being who deserves to die in obscurity. But he is a prime target when talking about separating the art from the artist. Michael Jackson, Luc Besson, Ezra Pound...etc. all great artists, all guilty of terrible things. Personally, I absolutely believe it's possible, even necessary, to separate the two.
You may want to see The Ninth Gate, by Polanski, with Johnny Depp, drama, suspense, supernatural. Chinatown has been on the classic movie list for years now.
The Chinatown connection in Dunaway's character is her Chinese servants that hide her in Chinatown I believe. The story is one of the honored film scripts ever written, by Robert Towne that Polanski then directed. Noah Cross was played by John Huston, one Hollywood's greatest directors. His first movie whose script he also wrote was The Maltese Falcon which I think I remember you featured on your show. Faye Dunaway became famous for Bonny and Clyde (1967) a movie you should react to, one of the most influential movies ever made. Its success opened the door for the golden age that followed with the films of Francis Ford Coppalla, Martin Scorcese , Steven Spielberg etc.
Jake Gittes had been a patrol cop in Chinatown, and he had been given the order to look the other way because of pay offs to the cops and local politicians. How did you manage to miss that?
For something very different from Polanski, he did direct--and star in--one comedy, a horror movie spoof that predates Mel Brooks by several years: _The Fearless Vampire Killers_ . It costarred Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate, who was infamously murdered by the Manson cult the following year. Two more must-see Faye Dunaway performances are _Bonnie and Clyde_ ,where like _Chinatown_ she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, and _Network_ , for which she finally won.
Another film by Polanski is Tess (1979), which is based on a novel by Thomas Hardy, a truly bleak story filled with tragic events. The movie was nominated for 6 Academy Awards, winning 3 for cinematography, art direction and costume design.
I first watched 'Çhinatown' in the late seventies. I watch it every few years. It becomes ever more entrancing. The story, performances, scripting are like porcelain ('China') - fragile. The whole story could shatter at any moment if anyone drops their part.
Today (as I type this, anyway) is the 49th anniversary of when this came out in theaters. One of the greatest noir films of all time. Almost every time I drive by or go to Chinatown in LA I'll say that line "It's Chinatown, Jake". Great reaction, as always.
If you guys are interested I'd recommend the sequel The Two Jakes with harvey keitel it's obviously not as great but I like seeing Gittes get a little closer after this
Classic movie, Jack did return for a sequel called The Two Jakes which came out in 1990, nowhere near as great but still pretty good and worth a watch to see Jack play that character again.
11:47 You guys are the only reactors to keep in that line which ALWAYS made me laugh! So happy to see both of you spontaneously react in the same exact way when he says it! Jack Nicholson: King of the Line Deliveries.🤣 Happy you got to see Jack in a role where he's a good guy, not playing crazy! He's a very versatile actor, like De Niro; and like De Niro, we tend to think of him in certain kinds of roles and movies! But he can do anything! I just watched him in "Reds", the movie he made after "The Shining". A completely restrained, understated, romantic performance, the complete opposite of what he did in "The Shining"! And he was nominated and all that, everyone knows about it but it's just that the "crazy" Jack is what people remember the most. He followed "Reds" with "Terms Of Endearment", which got him his second Oscar. A comedic, romantic, gentle performance. He gets to be over the top but in a fun way. A million years from "The Shining" or the Joker. After that he played an Italian hit man in a mob comedy, "Prizzi's Honor"....completely different. But once he played the Devil in "Witches Of Eastwick" and then followed that with playing the Joker, that sort of clinched it: he became locked in that persona. "The Shining", the Devil, the Joker, "A Few Good Men", "The Departed". He became a professional bad guy! But even then: "About Schmidt" in the early 2000s, he plays a gentle old man, amazing performance, totally the opposite of "crazy Jack". Ok, back to the reaction! LOVING this reaction!
I love this movie. One of my favorites. I worked as an actor for a number of years in L.A. I met Faye Dunaway and found her to be rude. I learned afterwards that she was rude to a lot of people. I worked with James Hong, who is the butler at the Mulwray's house. He was very nice. He was sure we had worked together before. However I am a big fan of his work in John Carpenter's Big Trouble In Little China and I assured him that I would have known if we had worked together. A fun Polanski film is The Fearless Vampire Killers . Polanski actually has a bigger role onscreen in that film.
Interesting. I met Faye Dunaway in 1998. She was not rude to me, nor my associates. Though I have not worked in the movie/tv industry. Maybe that was the difference. I found her to be a fascinating person.
I really ennjoyed your analysis of this movie as I'd never really thought that deeply about it. I've always just admired it mainly for the fantastic cinematography and its haunting score. But I now think you are spot on about how the movie shifts into a totally different gear when you finally get to Chinatown. And it is there that everything suddenly gets very real for Jake whereas for everyone else it becomes something they just don't want to get involved with. I think I'd always kinda gotten it and I knew the writer's explanation for the term Chinatown, but with your added clarity I see also the director's take on the term, in that Chinatown to Polanski, is maybe better understood as a metaphor for the world's hidden and very ugly underbelly. And it is something most people don't want to have anything to do with. Maybe most viewers of this movie don't want to see it too, which maybe explains why it also took me so long. And all I can say is if that truly was what Polanski was going for I think its brilliant. I agree with you too in your assessment of Polanski movies in general. And it makes sense that in many of his movies evil wins, since he was directing movies right around the time the Hays Office was abandoned. And that was something you could never do under the Code. But for another example, of that theme, consider reacting to his THE NINTH GATE. It's another apocalyptic tale but much better, I think, than ROSEMARY'S BABY which I never cared much for. (I'm not a big fan of bad theology. But I may have also been negatively influenced prior to seeing it by Mort Drucker's satire of it, which was hilarious). THE NINTH GATE, however, is a lot more cerebral, more like a cross between ROSEMARY'S BABY and CHINATOWN. I think you'll like it.
John Huston,the movie's villain and a legendary director, was Daniel Day Lewis's main inspiration when playing Daniel Plainview in "There will be Blood"
The script was very intricate. Clues were peppered throughout. You identified some in your commentary! Jake was a very “nosey” person😂😂Notice how and when the bandage got smaller😮
This is David Fincher's favourite film so it's cool that it reminded you of Se7en. "The Tenant", The Ninth Gate" and "The Pianist" are highly recommended. Also, Polanski's Macbeth is the best Shakespeare adaptation IMO.
If you think Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby were dark, Roman Polanski's adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth is even darker. On the other hand, Chinatown is one of the great films of the 70's. The best decade ever for film.
Robert Towne's original ending had Evelyn getting away to Mexico with Katherine thwarting Cross but Roman Polanski and Jack Nicholson re-wrote the ending basing it on the ending of OF MICE AND MEN. Towne criticized the change for twenty-eight years before admitting it was the correct ending in 2002.
The ninth gate was interesting. Jonny Depp was good in that film from the kid toucher Roman Polanski. This movie combines several of my favorite things mystery and domestic violence 😁😉😉
Great reaction - I think Day-Lewis used Huston for his voice as Daniel Plainview - another amoral protean figure involved in shaping the landscape - other films along these lines include the sequel Two Jakes, also The Conversation, and Motherless Brooklyn - also Once Upon a Time in the West
I wish every reactor on RUclips would do Once Upon a Time in the West. My all-time favorite movie and hardly anyone ever reacts to it. I think maybe there are four total reactions to it and half of them are reactors that have no idea what they are doing.
"Why is this movie called"Chintatown'?" is an incredible self-own. Chaos. Madness. No one speaks the same dialect. "As little as possible." It's said by Gittes to the cop at the end of the movie. This is existential dread, man.
Nominated for 11 Oscars including Best Picture but won for Best Original Screenplay. The line at the end, "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown." It means you can't change the past, you have to wait and see what the future holds.
"Never confuse the singer with the song"-guys, dont confuse Polanskis personal life with the films. This film is a classic, and its film noir-ALL this genre is DARK. Its not "the last ten minutes". Its film noir dude.
Uh, I don't think so? Based on literally the entirety of the movie, the line means there's nothing you can do about it anyway. You can't change it, everything is rooted too deep, so just walk away.
@@robertcampbell8070 Exactly, and it refers to the corruption, wealth and power and the water scandal too in that way, tying it all together. Pity the review didnt seem to get that instead calling it two films. Oops.
@@petercofrancesco9812 “Corruption” is too one-sided since that perspective requires maintaining the primacy of a conventional sense and expectation of law and order, or of how things are supposed to work. Historically (and even today to some degree), Chinatowns or Chinese immigrant communities in North America were not forced to function strictly according to Western expectations, but were allowed to operate according to their own cultural norms and mores, their own expectations of how things work, their own set of rules and how those rules are applied and enforced. Chinese society under Confucianism (and also under today’s Communist Party) had a different approach to the law and to ideas like the good of the community; and the way such a society operated could seem to Western observers to be at least ad hoc pragmatism, if not unfathomable and mercurial lawlessness. That is what “it’s Chinatown” is getting at: There is a different way of doing things, a different set of rules, expectations and understanding of how they will be applied that is confusing or even disturbing to those outside of the society who are powerless to change it. That is true whether the reference is to the literal Chinatown or to the society of the rich and powerful, who also seem to have and are allowed to retain their own way of doing things, their own set of rules, their own relationship to the law; and all of that is difficult or impossible for those outside of that society to understand, accept or change. The movie doesn’t completely lose its outsiders’ perspective on either form of Chinatown, but there is an element of understanding that Chinatown isn’t just corruption and lawlessness so much as it is another way of thinking and doing that works according to its own logic.
I can see why it might not win. For one thing it is very dark and disturbing. I mean I love this movie and the Cross father/daughter reveal still leaves me feeling like I am breaking out in hives when I see it. For another it is a movie where you have to be paying attention every second or else you will miss something that keeps you from connecting all of the dots and a lot of people these days don't have that attention level. It is not a film for lazy movie watchers which seems to be what a lot of the movie watching audience these days has become.
Close to my all time favorite movie. It's hard to say that there is such a thing as the best movie, but it's both a call back to Hollywood early Noir but at the same time it's own exquisite creation.
If there has ever been a perfect movie, this is it. The opening line "All right, Curly, enough's enough, you can't eat the Venetian blinds, I just had them installed on Wednesday" is an in-joke about the film noir tradition: black and white film noir movies were notorious for constantly using shots showing how the horizontal slits of light that pass through Venetian blinds, alternating with lines of darkness where the light is blocked, are used to light something (usually someone's face), giving a chiaroscuro effect that often symbolizes moral ambiguity. You can't really do that when a movie is in color, but the line pays tribute to it all the same, and signals to us that the filmmakers know the conventions of the genre in which they are working. The 2011 computer-animated film Rango features a villain who is clearly an homage to the character of Noah Cross. I wish I knew more Polanski movies than I do, but every one that I have seen demonstrates his genius; of those I have seen, apart from Chinatown (clearly his masterpiece), I would especially recommend The Pianist (for which he won his Oscar), The Ghost Writer, and The Fearless Vampire Killers, in which Polanski himself plays the character who is arguably the lead. Good sometimes triumphs over evil in a Polanski movie, but don't ever expect it to do so.
Yep, to your question at around 41mins, they went back to Chinatown to regroup at her butler Khan's house. Great little pull in on Jack's face when she gives the address before we know it's in Chinatown.
I still own the LP Record of Jerry Goldsmith's music score I bought in 1974 ! The movie had a different score originally but the film makers did not like it and Goldsmith was hired on at the last minute. He came up with this classic score in two weeks and it's one of his best ! It's a perfect mate to the score he came up for "LA Confidential" !
It’s a fascinating story. Being a third generation Hispanic Californian, with a lot of family still in Southern California, I have a deep appreciation for this movie. The Owens valley was rich in agriculture in the early 20th century, that is until their water was diverted to LA and the development of the San Fernando valley…
There is s sequel named "Two Jakes". Polanski wasnt involved, and the movie is not as great as "Chinatown", but its still a very enjoyable film noir. Highly recommend, especially if you'd like to see more of Nicholson's Jake Gittes. But there are also some noir classic like "Big sleep", "Out of the past", "Touch of evil" or "Murder, my sweet" which are more deserving.
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"Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown." Such a haunting line and metaphor for life. Sometimes no matter how hard you try, the truth will never come out.
The truth did come out:
Her "sister" is actually her daughter, and the father of her daughter was her father.
It's about incest. Creepiness expected of the director.
Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown.
Forget it Homer, it’s Chiro-town.
Famous line, nice 👍
@@graham974😊
One of the greatest lines ever
Top quote of the top 🎥 films!
The writer of the movie, Robert Towne, said that “Chinatown” refers to a state of mind. It represents the hopelessness of trying to help someone but ending up hurting them instead. Gittes refers to this in his story about working in Chinatown. Also, the reason they went to Chinatown in the end was they needed a place for Curly to pick up Evelyn and Catherine, so they agreed to meet at her butler’s house which happens to be in Chinatown.
Nice tie up .
maybe worth adding that in the early years of the LAPD, Chinatown was pretty much the sanctioned area for vice. 'Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown' can be read as 'you know how this goes; you've been here before'.
I got the same feel , hey anything goes here move on......its Chinatown .
On a side note, Robert Towne got his start as an actor in the film "The Creature from the Haunted Sea." He went by the name Edward Wain. It was a goofy movie but, at least, he got a foot in the door. It's all good.
@@clarencewalker3925 Makes sense as Nicholson started in other Roger Corman films as well.
There was basically a ten-year stretch during which Faye Dunaway was on top of the world as probably the most important actress in Hollywood. Chinatown was sort of in the middle of it. I highly recommend checking out the two bookends of the period: Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Network (1976). They're both such great films.
She isn't in it a ton but Three Days of the Condor is great too.
"A Face in the Crowd" CRUSHES "Network".
DEFINITELY "Bonnie And Clyde" and "DEFINITELY "Network"!!!!! How there are not countless reactions to those two movies is beyond me. There are, I believe, only three for "Network". NONE for "Bonnie And Clyde". Those stand right next to Chinatown, Godfather, Cuckoo's Nest, Taxi Driver, etc as far as undisputed masterpieces of that "New Hollywood" era. ("Dog Day Afternoon" is another). Anyways, DEFINITELY seconding both "Bonnie And Clyde" and "Network". (and if I had to pick a fourth essential Faye film: "Barfly"!)
I was thinking the same thing during the watch. It's amazing to me how little she is known to youger audiences, seing how big she was.
@@Oxmustube true true. She's mostly known for her overacting in Mommie Dearest these days, which really is a shame
Nicholson was praised by a lot of critics for appearing in a good part of the film with his nose bandaged up like that. They didn't think many leading men of his caliber would allow themselves to be seen like that.
yeah, no actor ever wants to be seen on film dying. That's why so many chse parts in which they could do a death scene.
Name ONE critic who said as you claim.
@randywhite3947Roger Ebert.
The script by Robert Towne is considered one of the greatest of all time. It's still used in writing classes to this day.
Sources for that hype?
@randywhite3947 As compared to what? See "A Man for All Seasons" (six Oscars), "Casablanca" (Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Director), 1957's "12 Angry Men".
Just google the screenplay class, there are state links to universities that have used the screenplay as a blueprint of no wasted page and time to tell a story this complex, exceptionally dark, and the foundation for the incredible production effort to craft something truly memorable and special that elevated crime noir going forward in film and TV today.
Couple of things:
Noah Cross is played by John Huston, the great director of THE MALTESE FALCON. He was also the father of Angelica Huston (who Jack just started dating her), so that line “Are you sleeping with my daughter?” had added punch.
The butler is played by James Hong (Lo Pan from BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA and the grand dad in EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE).
The screenplay for this is considered one of the greatest ever written and is used for teaching and training writers. No matter how many times this is watched, - new details, more depth, additional complexities always crop up. Chinatown is more a frame of mind, and circumstance of life, is not a place, but is unknown and bitter social realities.
Spoiler a bit-
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The last shot of Faye Dunaway is a callback or reference to her role in “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967)
And if you ever watch Bogart's version of MALTESE FALCON, John Huston's the director AND his famous '20s and '30s actor-father plays the ROLE of the soon-to-die captain of the SS PALOMA, carrying in the Falcon statuette. The stuff dreams are made of. He gets better, though, and plays the Older of the miners in TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE in 1948.
Son of actor Walter Huston (Treasure Ot The Sierra Madre).
He also won an Oscar for "treasure of the sierra madre" as well as his father for best supporting actor. Years later him & Angelica both won for "prizzi's honor"
Faye Dunaway. Great performance in this movie. She keeps you guessing about her motives until that shocking scene with Nickleson.
When I saw this film on opening night in 1974, knowing nothing about it, I thought Evelyn Mulwray might be in league with her father the whole time, setting Gittes up. She walked a tightrope in creating that character, keeping us guessing until the end.
@@lemorab1 It wasn't she who kept you guessing; it was the screenplay.
She didn't keep you guessing; the screenplay did that.
"Nicholson"
My Favorite Polanski film is The Pianist. One of Adrien Brody best work and it won him an Oscar for that role and desrevingly so. Hope you guys will add this to your long list of movie to watch. Great work👍
Bawled my fucking eyes out in that movie.
Mine is the unknown Frantic with Harrison Ford
Another sex-obsessed film from Polanski? Gee, what a non-surprise.
He needs to take a break and spend some time on a special kind of couch.
An all time classic! Great pick this week!!
Edit: Great line from Samantha “If you’re getting shot at, you’re doing something right”
That’s from Batman
@@ReallyGoodandKind my apologies
I audibly gasped when I saw you guys reacted to this. I love this movie so much. So excited!
For another great Oscar-nominated performance by Jack (a year before Chinatown), I highly recommend The Last Detail.
Great movie. Hell, you probably could pick about a half-dozen Nicholson films from the late 60s to the mid 70s (EASY RIDER, FIVE EASY PIECES, CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, THE LAST DETAIL, CHINATOWN, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST, etc) as among the best of his career.
The passenger too.
This is a perfect film. Maybe the best screenplay ever. Nicholson may have turned in a better performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but this is the best film he was ever in.
Exactly. There is nothing wrong with this film, one of the most perfect films ever made.
See him in "As Good as it Gets" and "The Witches of Eastwick".
@@jnagarya519 Hes even better in The Wolfman. His best work no one talks about.
Ken Kesey, the author, wanted Gene Hackman in the role of RP McMurphy. Anyone who read the novel would agree, Hackman would have been perfect.
I believe Nicholson got too much credit. The supporting cast was outstanding. Everyone in the cast were perfect in their roles.
Kesey refused to watch the film.
This film is so good, one of the best neo noir films alongside Body Heat. Also Robert Evans was the producer of this film, and he was also one of the people responsible for getting The Godfather made. The score is beautiful.
Body Heat needs some love from movie reactors.
Oh yes, Body Heat is great!
KLUTE and THE LONG GOODBYE are two more needing to get rediscovered.
"Body Heat" is great, but man, "Double Indemnity"...
If TBR and Sam could ever find a way to cover Body Heat, it would be great. Brilliant directing, writing, hot musical score, and performances by William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, and Ted Danson.
John Huston is probably one of the greatest directors of all time and his role in this is iconic. Im pretty sure a handful of his movies are in the top 50 all time lists which is nuts
And his directing career began (The Maltese Falcon) and ended (The Dead) with masterpieces.
"pretty sure"? Perhaps you should actually research the question.
Just recently moved to Southern California to pursue screenwriting and writing in general. A lot of screenwriters look to this screenplay as one of the best of all time. I remember first watching this movie and following the screenplay as it went for shits n gigs. One of the best movie experiences of my life. The ending is devastating. Super pumped you reacted to one of my favorite movies and no one ever reacts to this movie for some reason
I used to have that original poster with no lettering and plastered on a polished wood backing. It was seriously badass.
Finally! I've been waiting for years for these two to watch this movie, and their reactions, especially when they learned the pond was filled with salt water, were priceless. This film is arguably th greatest film noir ever, and the tortuous process that led to its creation, which is based on real-life events, is worth reading about. By the way, Jack Nicholson, after he appeared in this film, discovered that the woman he thought was his sister was actually his mother. Now that they've seen Chinatown, TBR and Samantha should turn their attention to Network, for which Faye Dunaway won her Best Actress Oscar.
I've run into that basic sister/mother thing quite a few times reading about people in the last century. Look up Merle Oberon sometime, and they're not all famous actresses. All to do with sex with underage girls being just a thing that was tolerated among men but something that needed to be buried on the part of the women it happened to. Feel free to chime in with Polanski-related comments if you must, but it's not like he invented statutory rape.
@@karlmortoniv2951 to be clear, it wasn’t merely statutory.
@MDK2_Radio Depends on when you hear about it from the person involved. It never came to trial so we don't know what the DA would have pursued in court.
Network was my favorite movie of all time. Very prescient satire on news, terrorism and politics.
@@karlmortoniv2951The latest I read on this topic was that Polanski and his lawyer had a deal worked out with the DA for some jail time + time off for already served time, but at the last minute they heard the judge wasn’t going to honor the deal, so Polanski fled the country.
Not excusing the action, but explaining what was happening.
“As little as possible”… Such a heartbreaking line..
I've been a fan of this movie since I first saw it in a theater soon after its release. I believe John Huston's portrayal of Noah Cross is one of the great movie villains of all time.
Not a lot of acting by Huston for that ...
Jack was dating his daughter at the time
@@rxtsec1 More than dating.
@@frankgesuele6298 yeah they were together for years
The character of Hollis I. Mulwray is inspired by the real City Engineer William Mullholland. The one for whom a major LA street is named. The history of LA is water.
Jack had just started dating John Huston’s daughter Angelica when Huston’s character asks Jack’s character if he’s sleeping with his daughter.
And now they're running out of water. What a difference 😶
There was actually a sequel to this in 1990 that nobody saw called "The Two Jakes" with Nicholson returning and also directing.
The Two James doesn’t hold a candle to Chinatown, of course, but I just loved getting to catch up with Jake so many years later. It’s sad that we’ll never get the third one they had planned.
@@alankingsley2916 I've never seen it, but I've heard that despite definitely being inferior to "Chinatown" - I mean, there aren't a whole lot of movies that can measure up to it anyway - it's actually a pretty good sequel.
@@anthonyvasquezactor IMO the last act is a mess. The rest is pretty good, though!
What's the main premise of that without any spoilers? Does it have any relation to the original?
Chinatown is both a location and a metaphor for the futility of good intentions. 90% of the movie wasn't pointless. This is a film noir that took all the tropes from that genre and subverted them. One of the biggest being the "femme fatale" (deadly female). it's only at the end that we find out that not only was Evelyn innocent of her husband's murder, she is a tragic victim of sexual abuse from the real murderer. And it was him trying to save her that got her killed. And the way they managed to get us from the metaphorical Chinatown to the literal Chinatown in the last 10 minutes is mindblowingly brilliant.
This is one of the best movies of all time, and it gets better each time you watch it. Every single thing Jake does to protect Evelyn brings her closer to danger. Every person who tries to tell Jake, "You may think you know what you're dealing with, but you don't", is telling him the truth. I used to hate the downbeat ending (which was changed from the original script), but the tragic irony in almost every scene is downright poetic. Chinatown is the epitome of top-tier Film Noir.
Edit: It took me like ten times before I fully understood the plot, but it almost doesn't matter because everything is steeped in such brilliance technically and creatively. This movie really is a MOOD.
Chinatown was a place where the police never really knew what was going on. Nothing was as it seemed. Jake worked there as a young cop. The case Jake worked on in the present as a detective was just like working in Chinatown. Nothing was as it seemed. Chinatown was symbolic of mystery and misdirection.
I saw this film in 1974. It's why I love movies to this day. "Repulsion" is a Roman Polanski film I strongly recommend. And...the man yelling at Mulwray at the beginning of the film is Rance Howard, Ron's father. I also recommend "Farewell, My Lovely."
If you haven't seen "The Pianist" that should be next on your list. It's also a Roman Polanski movie. 10/10
One of the best movies ever made in literally every department. It’s insane.
You haven't seen many movies.
@@jnagarya519 LOL, okay random guy. I’ve seen thousands.
@@zeltzamer4010 So, random guy, you consider a film about incest, and the VICTIM of the incest being killed, a great film.
But that isn't what you consider "insane"?
@@jnagarya519 My endorsement of the movie is not an endorsement of what happens in it, obviously. By that measure, anyone who likes The Empire Strikes Back must support interplanetary war and hand mutilation.
@@zeltzamer4010 I am an adult with critical faculties. And as a professional writer I critically evaluate not only the writing but look behind and beyond it to sources. A super-convoluted writing that is ultimately based upon BLAMING THE VICTIM of incest is problematic.
None of that is obscured by actors or cinematography or "enjoying" it as a viewer who surrenders objectivity to wallow in emotion. One of the best movies ever made, in all particulars, is 1966's "A Man for All Seasons". Another is 1957's "12 Angry Men". Art should not debase.
Chinatown is one of the best films of the seventies and it’s widely considered one of the best screenplays of all time, written by Robert Towne (Polanski contributed a lot to the story as well, including the ending).
He changed Robert Towne's ending, which in my opinion would have been better.
In the wrong hands the ending would have been melodramatic and ruined the film, but Polanski was a great filmmaker in his prime and it made the movie devastating at the end. He told Towne she had to die at the end of the film would have no deeper meaning
My favorite Nicholson movie and there are a lot of great Jack performances. Faye Dunaway was also amazing and there are 3 other of her movies you should see with her. 3 Days of the Condor with Robert Redford, another thriller that has you guessing, her first big splash in Bonnie and Clyde where she plays Bonnie Parker to Warren Beatty's Clyde Barrow and Network, the prescient 1975 classic about news becoming all about ratings and is still applicable today.
A masterpiece, one of the great 1970's neo noir's! Another one is The Long Goodbye from Robert Altman, you guys should check it out.
I think the father in the film was the director of The Maltese Falcon, John Huston.
@@stsolomon618 Yes that's him Angelica's father. Huston also directed Key Largo and Treasure of the Sierra Madre, both magnificent films!
@seansersmylie Thanks for that. I saw those films they are very good.
Good game to play with The Long Goodbye is Spot the Schwarzenegger
Altman movies are also very interesting, and worth a watch. Movies include McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Nashville, The Wedding, MASH, The Player, Gosford Park and more!
The Greatest film in the last 50 years hands down. Its a perfect ending. In the 20s and 30s rich Baron's ruled the Nation, and Rich locals like Mr. Cross ruled cities and states, money could buy them out of anything. By the way, the guy that played Mr. Cross(Jon Huston) is one of the best Directors of the 20th Century. The Maltese Falcon was his first ever film. He also directed The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, The Asphalt Jungle, The African Queen, Annie and Prizzis Honor. P.S. if you watched it a 2nd time you will understand it better. Nothing is pointless, Noah Cross was a rich, greedy man who killed his ex partner, not only because he SHAFTED HIM via his water plans, but because he took away his Daughter and Grand Daughter from him. (Most do not get that part). Also, the name Chinatown is a "Metaphoric Connotation" for how Noah Cross operates. He gets away with everything because the Cops don't care (they are paid off). Likewise, the Cops do not care about the Citizens of Chinatown because they are mostly Chinese. That is why its named Chinatown, the Cops are indifferent to the crimes of a rich man.
Exactly! 👌
This film gets better with repeated viewings. Chinatown is sort of a metaphor for a situation that's too complicated and convoluted to get a handle on. Like the line that Noah Cross says to Jake: You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe me, you don't. The whole film Jake thought he had things figured out, but he never did until the end. Also, a great Faye Dunaway film that you should definitely check out is Network.
Yes, and also that truly figuring it out usually involves tragedy because you have to get in so deep to figure it out that you become a player in the 'game'--and it's almost a certainty that you are the weakest player and thus cannot help or protect anyone, even yourself. Jake was lucky to get out of this alive. Or was he lucky? Now he has to live with another instance of trying to help someone he cared about, only to make sure she got hurt (killed). And that doesn't even include Katherine, who now is under the control of her father/grandfather, a despicable person. Jake can only hope that Cross is too old to repeat what he did to Evelyn, but it certainly won't be a good environment for Katherine...
The absolute BEST movie of all time. So glad you finally watched this one. Pressing play now. Can't wait.
😃
See 1966's "A Man for All Seasons".
@@jnagarya519 I have, but I like this much more.
Also, the score is one of the reasons for the success of this film; it perfectly expresses the bittersweet, noir-ish tone and brings a jazzy 1930’s feeling to the atmosphere.
Watch "Bonnie and Clyde" for Faye Dunaway in her iconic role as bank robber Bonnie Parker. A wild, and violent movie.
And Heaven Can't Wait, Reds, Dick Tracy and Bugsy with Warren Beatty
Kevin Pollak reflected on a cereal moment Jack Nicholson confessed to him on the set of "A Few Good Men' where while he was rehearsing with John Huston during this movie, he was actually sleeping with his daughter at the time, Angelica, and while he is thinking about coming clean with the old man, during rehearsal, John asks the line, as written in the scrip to Jack "Are you sleeping with my daughter?" And Jack could not help but see the irony of that moment. LOL
"The Pianist" and "The Ninth Gate" are highly worthwhile.
This is loosely based on the story of real Los Angeles "water wars" from the 1930s/40s, and how farmers were driven out of what used to be rural farmland north of LA so that their land could be developed into what is now the San Fernando Valley. "Mulray" is a pseudonym for Mulholland (for whom Mulholland Drive is named), a big name in the history of LA water.
One of Jack’s movies is “As good as it gets” that’s one of my favorite performances of his, great movie , Helen Hunt and Jack both won academy as awards for their performances
"She's my sister and my daughter!"
The look on your faces!! 🤣
One of the classics of all time with an all-star cast. Based on the San Fernando Valley when it was just farmland & on the issue of lack of water to the region (How Ironic) to turn the valley into the city it is today. The character Hollis Mulwray was based on William Mulholland, the superintendent of Los Angeles Water & Power. As well as naming Mullholland Drive after he died. Great reaction video you two !!! Keep it going you two !!!🀄
It should be pointed out that "Chinatown" is NOT a true story. Robert Towne took some people and re-aligned their stories to cook up his own thing. Not that this kind of awfulness didn't go on back then, but "Chinatown" should not be taken as historical fact.
Never said it was. I said it was BASED.
The San Fernando Valley has never been a city. It is about 60 suburbs in search of a city. I grew up there in the late 1940's, 1950's, and 1960's and watched it change from farmland to the bleak concrete jungle it is today. The Ventura Freeway took our house via Eminent Domain in 1956.
It was a foregone conclusion that Nicholson would win the Oscar for this, but the Academy in one of its dippier moments gave it to Art Carney instead. Jack won the following year. But this is still my favorite Nicholson film. Thanks for your great reaction video!
The Godfather Part II also came out in 1974. Most thought it was a toss up between Nicholson and Al Pacino and Carney surprised by beating both. The other nominees that year, Dustin Hoffman in Lenny and Albert Finney in Murder on the Orient Express were strong performances as well. Really great year for the best actor category.
Carney deserved it.
I have seen 4 of the 5 Best Actor nominees (only missing Dustin Hoffman in LENNY), and IMO the only deserving candidates were Carney and Nicholson (it was neck and neck between the 2 for me). That being said, I think the person who should've won that year was Gene Hackman for THE CONVERSATION who bizarrely wasn't even nominated.
One of the greatest crime movies of all time. I consider L.A. Confidential to be a sister movie, which I'm pretty sure would make sense to fans of both
Yes!! 😀👍
One of the best scripts ever written.
13:50 "daughter? Sister?" The foreshadowing 😆
In this film, Roman Polanski acts himself as the evil, weasely gangster in a white suit who slits Nicholson's nose. Also in this film, the legendary director John Huston plays the evil, powerful Noah Cross, the incestuous rapist. Chinatown is up there among the five most important films. It was used for ages in film schools all over the world as an example of a perfectly plotted film. Screenwriter: Robert Towne (got an Oscar for it). You better keep attention when you see it, a lot of things is going on here. A solid piece of filmmaking, perhaps Polanski's best.
In my mind, this movie is paired with L.A. Confidential - two great films with a complex storyline that's set back in time in a very corrupt Los Angeles.
The much-maligned sequel, The Two Jakes, is very weird and not actually a mystery in the conventional sense, but I think it’s got great neo-noir vibes and Nicholson is wonderful. It’s only tangentially related to Chinatown, but it does follow up on a few of the threads.
The sheep farmer who disrupts the hearing was played by Ron Howard's father, Rance.
Whatever you think about Polanski, this is one of the best movies of all time. Jack Nicholson at his very best, the script, the settings, costums, everything is perfect.
Yep, and as great as The Godfather 2 is, I think Chinatown should have won the best picture Oscar for 1974.
Great filmmaker whose movies deserve to be preserved, terrible human being who deserves to die in obscurity. But he is a prime target when talking about separating the art from the artist. Michael Jackson, Luc Besson, Ezra Pound...etc. all great artists, all guilty of terrible things.
Personally, I absolutely believe it's possible, even necessary, to separate the two.
Yes, I agree🤔
This is one of my favorite movies, and it might have my all time favorite movie ending.
Robert Evans played a part in bringing some real classic to the screen. But movies that make you feel uncomfortable was kind of an overall 70's thing
1970s film was steeped in paranoia.
You may want to see The Ninth Gate, by Polanski, with Johnny Depp, drama, suspense, supernatural. Chinatown has been on the classic movie list for years now.
I Love the Ninth Gate but I suspect that you and Samantha would not. I still recommend it however because I am dying to see someone react to it.
I would give this more thumbs up if I could, absolute fave!
One of those films I have to watch every year. Love it so much.
Yes!!👍😀
The Chinatown connection in Dunaway's character is her Chinese servants that hide her in Chinatown I believe. The story is one of the honored film scripts ever written, by Robert Towne that Polanski then directed. Noah Cross was played by John Huston, one Hollywood's greatest directors. His first movie whose script he also wrote was The Maltese Falcon which I think I remember you featured on your show. Faye Dunaway became famous for Bonny and Clyde (1967) a movie you should react to, one of the most influential movies ever made. Its success opened the door for the golden age that followed with the films of Francis Ford Coppalla, Martin Scorcese , Steven Spielberg etc.
Jake Gittes had been a patrol cop in Chinatown, and he had been given the order to look the other way because of pay offs to the cops and local politicians. How did you manage to miss that?
this movie is just a pure vibe.
For something very different from Polanski, he did direct--and star in--one comedy, a horror movie spoof that predates Mel Brooks by several years: _The Fearless Vampire Killers_ . It costarred Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate, who was infamously murdered by the Manson cult the following year.
Two more must-see Faye Dunaway performances are _Bonnie and Clyde_ ,where like _Chinatown_ she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, and _Network_ , for which she finally won.
Another film by Polanski is Tess (1979), which is based on a novel by Thomas Hardy, a truly bleak story filled with tragic events. The movie was nominated for 6 Academy Awards, winning 3 for cinematography, art direction and costume design.
One of the most beautifull films I've ever seen.
I first watched 'Çhinatown' in the late seventies. I watch it every few years. It becomes ever more entrancing. The story, performances, scripting are like porcelain ('China') - fragile. The whole story could shatter at any moment if anyone drops their part.
I think this is one of James Hong's first films. I love that guy. Hey Higgins too!
Played a sleazy private detective in the great Black Widow (1987).
I took several screenwriting classes in college and every textbook uses this as an example of a perfect script.
Today (as I type this, anyway) is the 49th anniversary of when this came out in theaters. One of the greatest noir films of all time. Almost every time I drive by or go to Chinatown in LA I'll say that line "It's Chinatown, Jake". Great reaction, as always.
One of the greatest movies of all time. #5 in my personal top 10 all time. "Mr. Gittes."
A masterpiece. In my top five...
If you guys are interested I'd recommend the sequel The Two Jakes with harvey keitel it's obviously not as great but I like seeing Gittes get a little closer after this
Welcome to noir. Happy endings are hard to come by. I REALLY recommend Double Indemnity. Universally regularly regarded as the best film noir.
Classic movie, Jack did return for a sequel called The Two Jakes which came out in 1990, nowhere near as great but still pretty good and worth a watch to see Jack play that character again.
11:19 "Ohhh!!" 😳
sam's eyes 😆
11:47 You guys are the only reactors to keep in that line which ALWAYS made me laugh! So happy to see both of you spontaneously react in the same exact way when he says it! Jack Nicholson: King of the Line Deliveries.🤣 Happy you got to see Jack in a role where he's a good guy, not playing crazy! He's a very versatile actor, like De Niro; and like De Niro, we tend to think of him in certain kinds of roles and movies! But he can do anything! I just watched him in "Reds", the movie he made after "The Shining". A completely restrained, understated, romantic performance, the complete opposite of what he did in "The Shining"! And he was nominated and all that, everyone knows about it but it's just that the "crazy" Jack is what people remember the most. He followed "Reds" with "Terms Of Endearment", which got him his second Oscar. A comedic, romantic, gentle performance. He gets to be over the top but in a fun way. A million years from "The Shining" or the Joker. After that he played an Italian hit man in a mob comedy, "Prizzi's Honor"....completely different. But once he played the Devil in "Witches Of Eastwick" and then followed that with playing the Joker, that sort of clinched it: he became locked in that persona. "The Shining", the Devil, the Joker, "A Few Good Men", "The Departed". He became a professional bad guy! But even then: "About Schmidt" in the early 2000s, he plays a gentle old man, amazing performance, totally the opposite of "crazy Jack". Ok, back to the reaction! LOVING this reaction!
I love this movie. One of my favorites. I worked as an actor for a number of years in L.A. I met Faye Dunaway and found her to be rude. I learned afterwards that she was rude to a lot of people. I worked with James Hong, who is the butler at the Mulwray's house. He was very nice. He was sure we had worked together before. However I am a big fan of his work in John Carpenter's Big Trouble In Little China and I assured him that I would have known if we had worked together. A fun Polanski film is The Fearless Vampire Killers . Polanski actually has a bigger role onscreen in that film.
Interesting.
I met Faye Dunaway in 1998.
She was not rude to me, nor my associates.
Though I have not worked in the movie/tv industry. Maybe that was the difference.
I found her to be a fascinating person.
I saw "Fearless Vampire Killers" during the late 160s-early 1970s once. Still remember it as hilarious.
I really ennjoyed your analysis of this movie as I'd never really thought that deeply about it. I've always just admired it mainly for the fantastic cinematography and its haunting score. But I now think you are spot on about how the movie shifts into a totally different gear when you finally get to Chinatown. And it is there that everything suddenly gets very real for Jake whereas for everyone else it becomes something they just don't want to get involved with. I think I'd always kinda gotten it and I knew the writer's explanation for the term Chinatown, but with your added clarity I see also the director's take on the term, in that Chinatown to Polanski, is maybe better understood as a metaphor for the world's hidden and very ugly underbelly. And it is something most people don't want to have anything to do with. Maybe most viewers of this movie don't want to see it too, which maybe explains why it also took me so long. And all I can say is if that truly was what Polanski was going for I think its brilliant.
I agree with you too in your assessment of Polanski movies in general. And it makes sense that in many of his movies evil wins, since he was directing movies right around the time the Hays Office was abandoned. And that was something you could never do under the Code. But for another example, of that theme, consider reacting to his THE NINTH GATE. It's another apocalyptic tale but much better, I think, than ROSEMARY'S BABY which I never cared much for. (I'm not a big fan of bad theology. But I may have also been negatively influenced prior to seeing it by Mort Drucker's satire of it, which was hilarious). THE NINTH GATE, however, is a lot more cerebral, more like a cross between ROSEMARY'S BABY and CHINATOWN. I think you'll like it.
John Huston,the movie's villain and a legendary director, was Daniel Day Lewis's main inspiration when playing Daniel Plainview in "There will be Blood"
The script was very intricate. Clues were peppered throughout. You identified some in your commentary! Jake was a very “nosey” person😂😂Notice how and when the bandage got smaller😮
This is David Fincher's favourite film so it's cool that it reminded you of Se7en.
"The Tenant", The Ninth Gate" and "The Pianist" are highly recommended. Also, Polanski's Macbeth is the best Shakespeare adaptation IMO.
If you think Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby were dark, Roman Polanski's adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth is even darker. On the other hand, Chinatown is one of the great films of the 70's. The best decade ever for film.
Robert Towne's original ending had Evelyn getting away to Mexico with Katherine thwarting Cross but Roman Polanski and Jack Nicholson re-wrote the ending basing it on the ending of OF MICE AND MEN. Towne criticized the change for twenty-eight years before admitting it was the correct ending in 2002.
The ninth gate was interesting. Jonny Depp was good in that film from the kid toucher Roman Polanski. This movie combines several of my favorite things mystery and domestic violence 😁😉😉
Ahh my night shift made better by my fav pair on RUclips watching an absolutely amazing movie! Keep up the good work
Great reaction - I think Day-Lewis used Huston for his voice as Daniel Plainview - another amoral protean figure involved in shaping the landscape - other films along these lines include the sequel Two Jakes, also The Conversation, and Motherless Brooklyn - also Once Upon a Time in the West
I wish every reactor on RUclips would do Once Upon a Time in the West. My all-time favorite movie and hardly anyone ever reacts to it. I think maybe there are four total reactions to it and half of them are reactors that have no idea what they are doing.
"Why is this movie called"Chintatown'?" is an incredible self-own. Chaos. Madness. No one speaks the same dialect. "As little as possible." It's said by Gittes to the cop at the end of the movie. This is existential dread, man.
Nominated for 11 Oscars including Best Picture but won for Best Original Screenplay.
The line at the end, "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown."
It means you can't change the past, you have to wait and see what the future holds.
"Never confuse the singer with the song"-guys, dont confuse Polanskis personal life with the films. This film is a classic, and its film noir-ALL this genre is DARK. Its not "the last ten minutes". Its film noir dude.
Uh, I don't think so? Based on literally the entirety of the movie, the line means there's nothing you can do about it anyway. You can't change it, everything is rooted too deep, so just walk away.
@@robertcampbell8070 Exactly, and it refers to the corruption, wealth and power and the water scandal too in that way, tying it all together. Pity the review didnt seem to get that instead calling it two films. Oops.
Not really. It's more like it's futile to fight corruption at this level, so let it go.
@@petercofrancesco9812 “Corruption” is too one-sided since that perspective requires maintaining the primacy of a conventional sense and expectation of law and order, or of how things are supposed to work. Historically (and even today to some degree), Chinatowns or Chinese immigrant communities in North America were not forced to function strictly according to Western expectations, but were allowed to operate according to their own cultural norms and mores, their own expectations of how things work, their own set of rules and how those rules are applied and enforced. Chinese society under Confucianism (and also under today’s Communist Party) had a different approach to the law and to ideas like the good of the community; and the way such a society operated could seem to Western observers to be at least ad hoc pragmatism, if not unfathomable and mercurial lawlessness.
That is what “it’s Chinatown” is getting at: There is a different way of doing things, a different set of rules, expectations and understanding of how they will be applied that is confusing or even disturbing to those outside of the society who are powerless to change it. That is true whether the reference is to the literal Chinatown or to the society of the rich and powerful, who also seem to have and are allowed to retain their own way of doing things, their own set of rules, their own relationship to the law; and all of that is difficult or impossible for those outside of that society to understand, accept or change. The movie doesn’t completely lose its outsiders’ perspective on either form of Chinatown, but there is an element of understanding that Chinatown isn’t just corruption and lawlessness so much as it is another way of thinking and doing that works according to its own logic.
Veteran composer Jerry Goldsmith composed the scores for both Chinatown and LA Confidental both of which earned nominations for best original score.
Now you've got to watch 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit'. It's Chinatown, but with cartoons.
amazing how this is a runner up in a poll. should be the winner every time!
I can see why it might not win. For one thing it is very dark and disturbing. I mean I love this movie and the Cross father/daughter reveal still leaves me feeling like I am breaking out in hives when I see it. For another it is a movie where you have to be paying attention every second or else you will miss something that keeps you from connecting all of the dots and a lot of people these days don't have that attention level. It is not a film for lazy movie watchers which seems to be what a lot of the movie watching audience these days has become.
@@88wildcat 100% correct. too many lazy viewers with little or no attention level.
“She’s my sister…..She’s my daughter…. She’s my sister and my daughter!!”
Iconic moment, iconic film.
The Chinatown address was the butler's house. Played by the amazing James Hong.
“Jesus! I thought this was about water?”
😂
Close to my all time favorite movie. It's hard to say that there is such a thing as the best movie, but it's both a call back to Hollywood early Noir but at the same time it's own exquisite creation.
Daniel day lewis partially based his portrayal of Daniel plainview on John Houston. You can hear it in the voice inflections
If there has ever been a perfect movie, this is it. The opening line "All right, Curly, enough's enough, you can't eat the Venetian blinds, I just had them installed on Wednesday" is an in-joke about the film noir tradition: black and white film noir movies were notorious for constantly using shots showing how the horizontal slits of light that pass through Venetian blinds, alternating with lines of darkness where the light is blocked, are used to light something (usually someone's face), giving a chiaroscuro effect that often symbolizes moral ambiguity. You can't really do that when a movie is in color, but the line pays tribute to it all the same, and signals to us that the filmmakers know the conventions of the genre in which they are working. The 2011 computer-animated film Rango features a villain who is clearly an homage to the character of Noah Cross. I wish I knew more Polanski movies than I do, but every one that I have seen demonstrates his genius; of those I have seen, apart from Chinatown (clearly his masterpiece), I would especially recommend The Pianist (for which he won his Oscar), The Ghost Writer, and The Fearless Vampire Killers, in which Polanski himself plays the character who is arguably the lead. Good sometimes triumphs over evil in a Polanski movie, but don't ever expect it to do so.
"Chinatown" is a metaphor.
"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown." is Escobar's way of saying, "It would've been best if you never gotten involved at all."
Yep, to your question at around 41mins, they went back to Chinatown to regroup at her butler Khan's house. Great little pull in on Jack's face when she gives the address before we know it's in Chinatown.
Maybe the best screenplay ever written
This is one of my favorite movies of all time
I still own the LP Record of Jerry Goldsmith's music score I bought in 1974 ! The movie had a different score originally but the film makers did not like it and Goldsmith was hired on at the last minute. He came up with this classic score in two weeks and it's one of his best ! It's a perfect mate to the score he came up for "LA Confidential" !
It’s a fascinating story. Being a third generation Hispanic Californian, with a lot of family still in Southern California, I have a deep appreciation for this movie.
The Owens valley was rich in agriculture in the early 20th century, that is until their water was diverted to LA and the development of the San Fernando valley…
Imagine Johnny Depp directed by Roman Polanski... The Ninth Gate (1999)
'..I thought this was about water.' lolololol
@27:40 - 27:42 you can literally see the wheels spinning in Daniel's head lmao. Great reaction you guys.
When the wheels hit "Polanski" they make a sound "of course"
There is s sequel named "Two Jakes". Polanski wasnt involved, and the movie is not as great as "Chinatown", but its still a very enjoyable film noir. Highly recommend, especially if you'd like to see more of Nicholson's Jake Gittes. But there are also some noir classic like "Big sleep", "Out of the past", "Touch of evil" or "Murder, my sweet" which are more deserving.