10 / 10
Chinatown is the Roman Polanski-directed neo-noir that became the defining American detective film of the 1970s and one of the most-studied screenplays in cinema history. Polanski directed. Robert Towne wrote the screenplay. Jack Nicholson plays J.J. “Jake” Gittes, a Los Angeles private detective specializing in matrimonial cases. Faye Dunaway plays Evelyn Mulwray, the woman who hires Gittes after the real Mrs. Mulwray’s husband is murdered. John Huston plays Noah Cross, Evelyn’s father and the man behind the conspiracy. Roman Polanski himself appears as the small-time enforcer who slits Gittes’s nose with a knife. Perry Lopez plays Lieutenant Lou Escobar, the LAPD officer who once worked with Gittes in Chinatown. The plot follows Gittes’s investigation of a routine adultery case that expands into a conspiracy involving Los Angeles water rights, real estate fraud, and the systematic incest of Evelyn by her father.
The film made approximately twenty-nine million dollars in initial 1974 release on a six million dollar budget. The commercial performance was strong. The film received eleven Academy Award nominations and won one (Best Original Screenplay for Robert Towne). Subsequent decades have established Chinatown as one of the major American films of the 1970s and Robert Towne’s screenplay as the canonical example of three-act structure in modern American cinema. The screenplay is widely taught in film schools as the model for detective-genre screenwriting.
The Structure
Robert Towne’s screenplay is one of the most-studied texts in American screenwriting. The structure is built on the noir detective template (the case that turns out to be more than it seemed, the femme fatale who is more victim than villain, the deepening conspiracy that ends in the protagonist’s defeat). Towne’s specific contribution is the precision with which each clue accumulates and the structural inevitability of the conclusion. The audience reads each new revelation as connected to the previous ones in ways the script has prepared but not telegraphed.
The screenplay also commits to the genre’s tragic register without softening. Most American detective fiction lets the detective win something at the end. Chinatown refuses. Jake’s investigation produces no justice. The villain wins. The woman he tried to save is dead. The child Jake was trying to rescue is delivered into the hands of her abuser. The closing line (“forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”) names the film’s argument: in the world Towne is depicting, decent intentions produce catastrophic outcomes when they confront sufficient corruption. The genre cannot rescue Jake. The genre is the trap.
For Writers
A genre’s standard ending can be refused if the script has prepared the audience for the refusal. Chinatown is a detective story whose detective loses. The audience has been trained on detective stories where the detective wins. The refusal is the film’s argument. The lesson is that genre expectations are tools to be deployed deliberately. Following the genre is one valid choice. Refusing the genre is another, but only if the script has earned the refusal through accumulated evidence that the world it depicts cannot support the standard outcome.
The Water Conspiracy
The film’s central plot machinery is the Los Angeles water conspiracy. Noah Cross and his confederates are engineering drought conditions in the San Fernando Valley to drive land prices down. They will buy the parched land cheap. Cross controls the water that will eventually be used to irrigate the same land at enormous markup. The conspiracy is loosely based on the actual 1908 Owens Valley water dispute that established the city’s water supply through methods the film accurately characterizes as theft.
The water plot operates as the film’s external mystery. The actual mystery is what Cross has done to his daughter. The water conspiracy is the surface puzzle. The incest is the buried truth the film is actually about. The audience spends most of the film tracking the water plot. The incest reveal in the third act reframes everything that came before. The water conspiracy was real, but it was also the cover story Cross used to keep Evelyn under control. Towne’s structural achievement is making the surface puzzle compelling enough to carry two hours and then revealing that the entire film has been about something else.
For Writers
A surface mystery that obscures a deeper truth is the cleanest structure in noir fiction. Chinatown’s water plot is what the protagonist investigates. The incest is what the story is actually about. The lesson is that strong genre fiction often operates on two levels. The visible plot satisfies the genre’s expectations. The buried plot delivers the work’s actual meaning. Build the structure on both levels. The reader will follow the visible plot while the buried plot accumulates weight.
The Closing Sequence
The closing Chinatown sequence is one of the most-studied final scenes in American cinema. Jake has arranged Evelyn’s escape with her daughter Katherine. Noah Cross has tracked them to the Chinatown street. The police are present, ostensibly to help Jake. Evelyn drives away with Katherine. Cross’s people fire on the car. Evelyn is killed. The car rolls to a stop with the horn blaring. Cross retrieves Katherine and walks her away. Jake stands in the street, restrained by his associates, watching the woman he loved die and the child she was protecting delivered into the hands of her abuser.
The sequence delivers on every structural setup the film has built. Chinatown has been mentioned as Jake’s professional trauma since the first act. The audience learns Jake had once worked in Chinatown and tried to save a woman there who died because of his intervention. The closing sequence is the trauma replayed exactly. Jake’s repeated effort to help in Chinatown produces the same outcome. The film argues that some patterns of harm cannot be interrupted by individual decency. The closing line names the resignation. Forget it, Jake. The world the film has depicted does not allow the kind of victory Jake was seeking.
For Writers
A closing sequence that replays the protagonist’s defining trauma in a new context produces the strongest tragic structure available to fiction. Jake’s first Chinatown ended in failure. His second Chinatown ends the same way. The pattern is the meaning. The lesson is that thematic repetition through structural rhyme intensifies fiction’s emotional weight. The reader feels the inevitability when the past returns. Pattern recognition is half of how readers process meaning. Use it deliberately.
Craft Note
The “she’s my sister and my daughter” sequence is the film’s most economical character reveal. Jake has slapped Evelyn repeatedly trying to extract the truth about Katherine. Evelyn finally admits the relationship in fragmented confession: “She’s my sister. She’s my daughter. My sister, my daughter. My sister and my daughter.” Faye Dunaway plays the line as a woman whose composure is shattering in real time. The sequence runs about ninety seconds. The information delivered reframes the entire previous two hours of investigation. Polanski stages the moment in a single sustained shot on Dunaway’s face. The technique demonstrates that the most devastating revelations land hardest when the camera does not look away. The audience is forced to sit with Evelyn’s collapse for the full duration. The technique is unforgiving and exactly right for the material.
The Verdict
10/10. One of the major American films of the 1970s and the canonical neo-noir of its era. Robert Towne’s screenplay is one of the most-taught texts in American screenwriting. Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and John Huston all deliver career-defining performances. The water-rights surface plot, the buried incest revelation, and the closing Chinatown sequence are all permanent contributions to American cinema. Watch it. Then read the screenplay. Then watch it again. The film rewards every level of engagement.
FAQ
Is the water conspiracy based on real history?
Loosely. The 1908 Owens Valley water dispute and the methods by which Los Angeles secured its water supply are the historical reference. The film’s specific characters are fictional. The pattern of corporate water-grabbing is accurate.
Did Roman Polanski really play the knife-wielding henchman?
Yes. Polanski has a brief but memorable role as the small man who slits Gittes’s nose. The casting is the director appearing in his own film.
How is John Huston?
Excellent. Huston plays Noah Cross with sustained menace and casual paternalism. The performance is one of the great late-career roles in American cinema.
Is the closing line the work of the writer or director?
The “forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown” line was added to the script during production. The exact authorship is disputed. The line has entered general cultural reference.
Was there a sequel?
The Two Jakes (1990), directed by Jack Nicholson, continued the Gittes character. The sequel did not achieve the original’s reception. Robert Towne wrote both.
Why did Polanski direct this?
Polanski had been working in Hollywood since Rosemary’s Baby (1968). He was the director Robert Towne and producer Robert Evans wanted for the material. Polanski left the United States permanently in 1977 following his statutory rape conviction.
Should I watch this?
Yes. Chinatown is required viewing for the neo-noir genre and for American cinema of the 1970s.