group discussion
topic:
Films >
Chinatown
date
newest »
newest »
Okay sounds good. I've got to track down a copy. Do you have any requirements Andy about what to watch for in your class?
Candy wrote: "Okay sounds good. I've got to track down a copy. Do you have any requirements Andy about what to watch for in your class?"Hey Candy, good question. Sorry I didn't get back at it sooner, I was in Tulsa for business. Yee haw.
The professor wants us to look at moral codes. He wants to know how Gittes and Noah Cross differ with respect to moral codes. So there you go.
I just picked up the movie today and I will watch it tonight!
Moral codes, eh?*spoiler*
Well I suppose Gittes really could have extorted the lovely but deranged Evelyn Mulwray. I guess he chooses to honor justice (when he thinks she was guilty). He mentions toward the end that he's been in the business for a long time, I suppose it's his faith in justice that keeps his back bone firm when the going gets tough.
There are a lot things happening in this film. Golly.
Faye Dunaway's performance is something else. John Huston's Noah Cross calls her a deranged woman. She has that wild look about her at times, and the way she jerks her head toward the end. She's one coooool customer. What do people think of her?
The love scenes between the two of them, when they're out by her pool having a drink and then when they're lying in bed, is it just me or are they both very beautiful? Nicholson looks so mischievous LOL.
Oh Faye Dunaway is breathtaking in this movie. Isn't she one cool customer!? She plays strong,mysterious and broken...all at once. What a mystery she is! It's hard to believe that Nicholson was so good looking at one time huh? He really had a lovely quality. Hey, I still love him,, but you kow what I mean.
I believe,and I don't kow how to define it but Gittes moral code is the "real" one. It's more lke a compass than anything that can be legislated or forced. He is following his inner guide. He is a perfect example of the film noir hero...bad on the outside good on the inside. His sense of right...in the world, nature. Law protects evil and criminal in Los Angeles we see in this movie...he shouldn't be a cop because deep down he is using his soul as the law. No one else is.
I agree with what your take on Gittes moral code Candy, he has a powerful internal sense of right and wrong.The thing about having such a strong moral code is that he was wrongly convinced that she did it. No matter how strong his moral code, he was still "wrong" right up until the very end I think.
We don't know much about Noah Cross, but from what we do know, I guess we can surmise that his moral code is more apt to slide around and shift with the circumstances. I was trying to establish the idea that Gittes strong moral code is the only way he's able to stay in the business so long, but Noah Cross' very different moral code has let him stay around in the business, too, for a very long time.
Very good point. There is a big diffrernce between feeling ethical and knowing what is right and wrong. It is an important part of the story that Gittes thinks she "did it". It establishes his feelings about women as whether they are trustful or good. It hints at the way we can make mistakes in justice about innocence (see Execution thread)
When the Mulwray scandal breaks in the papers, Gittes is getting a shave in a barbershop. Another customer berates Gittes for digging up the dirt. Gittes heatedly defends his work as an honest profession. If Mulwray wanted to stay out of the papers he shouldn’t have been bedding the young woman. For Gittes this isn’t a moral position. He doesn’t much care about Mulray’s actions. In fact a powerful man cheating on his wife with a younger woman is to be expected, which is of course what the audience believes too, which the story counts on. At this point Gittes is confident that he’s got it right, but then the real Evelyn Mulwray walks in, and maybe he hasn’t got it right. Gittes is outraged, but again it’s not moral outrage, but professional. Someone has put one over on him. To save his reputation, he’s got to solve this beautifully constructed, labyrinthine mystery. Until maybe the end of the film, I don’t see Gittes wrestling with any moral issues. The same goes for Noah Cross, who is way beyond morals. He’s about as Nietzschean a character as you’ll find outside of the work of Cormac McCarthy. It’s all about the acquisition of power and the freedom that it gives. And if one could do it and get away with it, wouldn’t one? When the film was released, audiences were not quite prepared for the mystery’s ultimate revelation. Incest had not yet become the flavor of the week, which makes that scene with Nicholson slapping the sister-daughter out of Dunaway so explosive and pathetic.
Alex, what a fantastic post. So good to read your thoughts here. I think you're right about Gittes. Maybe I am too strong in saying Gittes center is moral...it's making a lot of sense when you say it's about professionalism. Almost like he is "by the rules" even if they are sleasy rules but somehow...The thing is...if he didn't have somethign more than a sense of fairplay professionally...would he be so hurt about "it's chinatown"? Isn't it that he does take things more morally than others and that's why he has to be told "forget it..."?
I don't know. It's possibl I am projecting some kind of soul or self knowledge onto Gittes that he doesn't deserve. You've given me something to think about Alex, thank you! I wonder if it has to be so awful a contrast to highlight the little sensitivity or soul in Gittes...is it love that I am seeing in him?
"ritic Michael Eaton emphasizes that Chinatown "is, in fact, a perfect title for a complex detective thriller with dimensions which are political (about the nature of power), sexual (about the nature of gender), metaphysical (about the nature of evil), psychological (about the nature of the self) and philosophical (about the nature of knowledge)"
"This idea of "Chinatown" hovers over the film like a foul smell, even though we go to the actual place only once, at the end. (Indeed, the last word in the film is "Chinatown.") According to film historian William J. Palmer, Chinatown functions less as a real place than as "a symbol of the futility of attempting to grasp and interpret reality."
"Just as the jigsaw puzzle is the metaphor at the heart of Citizen Kane's vision of the life of Charles Foster Kane, so Chinatown is the metaphor at the heart of this movie's vision of Los Angeles as the most malevolent, perverse, corrupt, unjust, and meaningless place imaginable."
I enjoyed this page.....
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/film/mov...
Thanks for the link to the page, which I'm currently printing and will read this morning under a bright LA sun. I think that Chinatown represents a level of reality that outsiders don't have access to, but that is also historically true of the real Chinatown. The film does a brilliant job of weaving history into the story.
