Roman Polanski's mid-70s noir did what that decade's neo-noirs were doing except he kept it in Raymond Chandler time. The high style fashions of young Hollywood come out and play while the tale dives into depravity and darkness. The push through a scenario of monstrous capitalism to something more Old Testament and disturbing allows viewers to wonder which is being tarred by which as it all will inevitably be absorbed in the name of business. And it's still a compelling thriller.
Jack Nicholson had yet to commit to his Jack persona and was still preferring a more naturalistic acting style. Nevertheless, the Jack we'd know from Cuckoo's Nest onward is clearly forming. His Jake Gittes is a wise guy who knows a scam when he sees it, for his own preservation as much as for the protection of his clients. But he's willing to take the beatings that all good gumshoes need to give them the victim's wash to get clear of the cynicism. By the time the story is half done, there is no longer any need for the sarcastic Chandler tone.
Faye Dunaway, also destined for mid-career breakthrough in Network, presents a vulnerable L.A. aristo who is a few conversations shy of crumbling. She's got a lot of life to confront. Dunaway takes us from an eerie confidence to someone attempting to stop shaking to death. This role with its sustained denial of panic before disaster clearly informed her big scenes with William Holden in Network.
Veteran director John Huston takes over his every scene as the patriarch Noah Cross. Huston had begun his directorial career with seminal noirs like The Maltese Falcon in a career that saw him blurring the lines between cinema and true life adventure. As Cross, he exudes an intimidating urbanity, roughed up by his consumption of the best of anything he wanted in his loud and privileged life. Huston has acted throughout his career with varying results but give him a director of actors as astute as Polanski and he seems to wear the character like a favourite shirt.
Polanski, also steps back from the kind of dazzle he had put into almost everything he'd done till then. He let the story tell itself. Fans of his (we'll get to the elephant) might find this film one of his more subdued or even dull but his management of the action as storyteller here is the stuff of mastery. A confession conducted with a series of slaps allows the horror of its subject to feel equal to the pain of the violence. It's not a forties-style slap her around and find the truth, it's tearing the pretence away to see the worst. We're not invited into the action but kept at a cold arm's length; it feels as desperate as it looks.
Chinatown is a moment of greatness from a cinema artist at his peak.
Now ... Roman Polanski is problem figure. He pleaded guilty to the charge of sexual assault of a minor before absconding with his freedom, never to face the consequences. If he was a fingernail's thickness less of a master filmmaker this would dominate all mention of him since. Fans of his early work can plead that his misdeeds were without precedent. I know of none such. For my money he had one last great film (The Tenant) in him for the rest of his career and even that was released before the crime.
Should that make a difference? I don't know. I cannot solve this problem here any better than I can those of Michael Jackson or Woody Allen. Polanski is also difficult because some of his early films are powerfully aligned to the plight of women as victims of men (including this one) or whole societies. There's nothing tokenistic about the assaults in Repulsion or Rosemary's Baby: it's not simply that he makes a good film, he has made them deep and confronting. Does it matter that he had Hitler in his face as a child and Charles Manson as an adult? Probably, but I don't know how. All I can surely say is that if you are to see his strong early career films there is plenty to take away and that none of them condone the kind of actions that brought him before the law. I think the choice is a personal one but it is one to make with serious consideration.
Viewing notes: I most recently rewatched Chinatown on the recent 4K that scrubs up like it was made last week. It's having a minor revival to go along with the 4K and is widely available on streaming.
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