Chinatown
I don't know if 1974's Chinatown is without doubt the best film for everyone involved, both in front and behind the camera, but one could certainly make the case. Director Roman Polanski and screenwriter Robert Towne come together with a neo-noir staple which provided Jack Nicholson one of his most famous roles as private investigator J. J. Gittes who struggles to find the truth surrounding the death of chief engineer at the Department of Water and Power (Darrell Zwerling), who Gittes was hired to surveil by a woman (Diane Ladd) pretending to be his wife (Faye Dunaway), and uncover how that death plays into a larger conspiracy of the Los Angeles draught and a land scheme which allows 30s Los Angeles to become a major character in the film.
Nicholson is terrific here as the morally-flexible detective. Not above bending, or outright breaking, the law to get to the truth, Gittes stumbles through events, slowly putting the pieces together despite having his nose nearly sliced off his face and falling for the real Evelyn Mulwray (Dunaway) whose complicated secrets eventually tie back to her father (John Huston) and the young woman Gittes mistakenly believed to have been Mulwray's mistress (Belinda Palmer).
You wouldn't expect a movie about a land swindle to be as fascinating as Chinatown, but the various pieces all fit together quite nicely including allowing the audience to learn only as much as Gittes uncovers and framing those events through his perspective, a score which the AFI ranked among the best ever made and John A. Alonzo Oscar-nominated cinematography. Those are all blended together with the now historic reveal from Dunaway's character and the tragic ending that takes Gittes back into Chinatown, the sight of his greatest failure, for the film's final tragic turn and one of the best closing lines ever uttered on film.
Nominated for 11 Oscars (but with Towne being the only winner), the AFI named Chinatown the second-best mystery of all time (behind only Vertigo) and it was added to the United States National Film Registry. The 1990 sequel, in which Nicholson returned to reprise the role, is sadly forgettable but it's failure does nothing to detract from the film's critical and commercial success (earning back nearly five times its budget). A piece of movie history, Chinatown is now available in a new 4K edition with a handful of featurettes on the film and its legacy, and a commentary track from Towne and David Fincher (who has been working on his own prequel to the film).
Watch the trailer- Title: Chinatown
- IMDb: link
