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Posted: |
Jan 13, 2011 - 12:34 PM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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While there are several CHINATOWN threads, there are none more generally about the aesthetics of the film and score here in the "General Discussion" area (there's one by neotrinity in the non-film score area). Curious, given how worshipped Goldsmith is around here.
Anyways, just revisited the film after many years, and it must have been a really long time, because I thought everything took place IN Chinatown.
It's a great film all around. Like POSTMAN, it harkens back to the classic film noirs, but this one even more overtly. Everything from credits to lighting to setting to casting to music add to that. But at the same time, it has Polanski's trademark "mood shots". I love that about him...his ability to get into a setting (especially outdoors) while also keeping a tight narrative. Waves rolling, birds chirping, leafs rustling and so on. You can really feel the heat in draught-ridden L.A. here.
Jack Nicholson delivers one of his best performances, even more impressive considering that he spends 1/3 of the movie with a nose patch (thus obscuring some of his expressive features). Faye Dunaway is good too, but Huston is a bit "distant", emotionally. Maybe that's the point.
The only thing I didn't really like was the ending. It's just a bit too convenient to have every character gathered in the same spot for the finale, with some absurd interaction between them. Feels a bit "forced".
Goldsmith's music is good too. Sparsely used, it highlights all the pivotal "something's up" scenes, some sneaking-around cues and an adorable, sleazy sax theme that is used way too rarely. Except for the theme, it isn't necessarily something I would play on CD, but it's interesting in the film. Especially love those unusual piano rumblings and riffs.
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Goldsmith's arid scoring is dead-on -- it feels like the film is living and breathing the music.
Perfect description.
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Goldsmith's arid scoring is dead-on -- it feels like the film is living and breathing the music.
Perfect description.
Agree completely! Speaking of this score, I just put it on after this thread, still one of my all time favorites. Jerry we miss you.
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Posted: |
Jan 13, 2011 - 2:00 PM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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It's a brilliant film. The ending does not feel at all forced to me. Yes, Huston is emotionally remote. That's the point. He's dead inside.
Yeah, that's a possible interpretation.
Regarding the ending, it just felt so at odds with the whole film, which seems to have space and time so tidily in order otherwise. But here they are, Gittes, Huston, his daugher, grandaughter/daughter, the cops, the bad guys....all neatly assembled in Chinatown (without really explaining why or how), and then it is as if Polanski is rushing through all the climactic confrontations and relations in order to get the downbeat ending that is inevitable of the genre. I just didn't buy it. But in the scheme of things, it's a relatively minor point.
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It's a brilliant film. The ending does not feel at all forced to me. Yes, Huston is emotionally remote. That's the point. He's dead inside.
Yeah, that's a possible interpretation.
Regarding the ending, it just felt so at odds with the whole film, which seems to have space and time so tidily in order otherwise. But here they are, Gittes, Huston, his daugher, grandaughter/daughter, the cops, the bad guys....all neatly assembled in Chinatown (without really explaining why or how), and then it is as if Polanski is rushing through all the climactic confrontations and relations in order to get the downbeat ending that is inevitable of the genre. I just didn't buy it. But in the scheme of things, it's a relatively minor point.
You consider that ending tidy? Looked messy to me. The ending was set-up early on. Hell, the title is called Chinatown, so it seemed logical to me that they would end up there for the final confrontation; everything was leading to Chinatown in regard to both plot and subtext. And I don't think Huston's emotional distance was a possible interpretation. What other interpretations would there be for an incestuous, power-mad looney like that?
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You consider that ending tidy? Looked messy to me.
I agree. I consider the FILM as a whole tidy (space, time, realism), but the ending was indeed messy and 'rushed', IMO.
I didn't mean rushed, I mean literally messy, as in "You're gonna need new car seats." 
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I'm not sure who "the bad guys" are who show up at the end of Chinatown. L.A. Police? Gitte's operatives? Mulwray is there because he and Mulvihill make Jake drive them to Chinatown where Evelyn is trying to escape to Mexico with her daughter aboard Curly's skip.
A very tidy ending, if you ask me. Or do you prefer Towne's original ending?
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