Chinatown is essentially a noir film from the '40s or '50s transposed to 1970s Los Angeles; it is both a glorious homage and a clever revamp of the genre. But the real genius of Chinatown - aside from Jack Nicholson's note-perfect leading performance as private detective Jake Gittes and the wonderful cinematography and the haunting musical score by Jerry Goldsmith - is Robert Towne's script, often thought to be one of the greatest screenplays ever written. Which is odd, given that Chinatown is an inherently confusing film in many ways. Plot details pile up, one by one, at which point it's never really clear where the narrative is, exactly, or where it's going. And yet it doesn't matter, because the execution - the tone, the atmosphere, the characters, the building of suspense - is utterly flawless, as a mere story about a city's water supply becomes as riveting and fascinating as any great novel. "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown" goes the famous last line. But how could anybody forget a motion picture as tragic and evocative and mysterious as this one?
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
