A 1930s gumshoe named Jake (Jack Nicholson) sticks his nose into a sordid mess over Los Angeles land and... (Learn more)
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston (View All)
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Starring: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
"You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe me, you don't," warns water baron Noah Cross (John Huston), when smooth cop-turned-private eye J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Jack Nicholson) starts nosing around Cross's water diversion scheme. That proves to be the ominous lesson of Chinatown, Roman Polanski's critically lauded 1974 revision of 1940s film noir detective movies. In 1930s Los Angeles, "matrimonial work" specialist Gittes is hired by Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) to tail her husband, Water Department engineer Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling). Gittes photographs him in the company of a young blonde and figures the case is closed, only to discover that the real Mrs. Mulwray had nothing to do with hiring Gittes in the first place. When Hollis turns up dead, Gittes decides to investigate further, encountering a shady old-age home, corrupt bureaucrats, angry orange farmers, and a nostril-slicing thug (Polanski) along the way. By the time he confronts Cross, Evelyn's father and Mulwray's former business partner, Jake thinks he knows everything, but an even more sordid truth awaits him. When circumstances force Jake to return to his old beat in Chinatown, he realizes just how impotent he is against the wealthy, depraved Cross. "Forget it, Jake," his old partner tells him. "It's Chinatown." Reworking the somber underpinnings of detective noir along more pessimistic lines, Polanski and screenwriter Robert Towne convey a '70s-inflected critique of capitalist and bureaucratic malevolence in a carefully detailed period piece harkening back to the genre's roots in the 1930s and '40s. Gittes always has a smart comeback like Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, but the corruption Gittes finds is too deep for one man to stop. Other noir revisions, such as Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973) and Arthur Penn's Night Moves (1975), also centered on the detective's inefficacy in an uncertain '70s world, but Chinatown's period sheen renders this dilemma at once contemporary and timeless, pointing to larger implications about the effects of corporate rapaciousness on individuals. Polanski and Towne clashed over Chinatown's ending; Polanski won the fight, but Towne won the Oscar for Best Screenplay. Chinatown was nominated for ten other Oscars, including Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Cinematography, Art Direction, Costumes, and Score. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
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US Release Date
1/1/74
MPAA Rating
Rated R
Running Time
131 mins.
Locations
- Los Angeles, CA
Language
- English
Awards
- Winner of the Best Actor award at the 1974 British Academy of Film and Television Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Cinematography award at the 1974 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie Awards.
- Winner of the Best Director award at the 1974 British Academy of Film and Television Awards.
- Winner of the Best Screenplay award at the 1974 British Academy of Film and Television Awards.
- Winner of the Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama award at the 1974 Hollywood Foreign Press Association [F Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Sound award at the 1974 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie Awards.
- Winner of the 100 Greatest American Movies award at the 1998 American Film Institute [Festival/Awar Awards.
- Winner of the Best Screenplay award at the 1974 Hollywood Foreign Press Association [F Awards.
- Winner of the Best Original Screenplay award at the 1974 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Editing award at the 1974 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Picture award at the 1974 British Academy of Film and Television Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama award at the 1974 Hollywood Foreign Press Association [F Awards.
- Winner of the U.S. National Film Registry award at the 1990 Library of Congress [Festival/Award] Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Art Direction award at the 1974 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie Awards.
- Winner of the Best Actor award at the 1974 New York Film Critics Circle [Festival Awards.
- Winner of the Best Actor award at the 1974 National Society of Film Critics [Fest Awards.
- Winner of the Best Screenplay award at the 1974 Edgar Allan Poe Awards [Festival/Award Awards.
- Winner of the Best Picture - Drama award at the 1974 Hollywood Foreign Press Association [F Awards.
- Winner of the Best Director award at the 1974 Hollywood Foreign Press Association [F Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Director award at the 1974 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Actor award at the 1974 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Costume Design award at the 1974 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Picture award at the 1974 National Board of Review [Festival/Awa Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Original Dramatic Score award at the 1974 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Actress award at the 1974 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion award at the 1974 Hollywood Foreign Press Association [F Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Picture award at the 1974 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Original Score award at the 1974 Hollywood Foreign Press Association [F Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Director award at the 1974 Directors Guild of America [Festival/A Awards.
Distributor
- Paramount Home Entertainment
- Paramount Pictures
