chinatown
- November 1st, 2013
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Okay, so, I finally saw Chinatown the other day. Roman Polanski, 1974. Colour film noir.
Turns out the ending filmed wasn’t the end scripted. The screenwriter’s ending was rather different. (This is spoilerriffic, but c’mon, it’s a 1974 film.)
So let me get this straight, because this is really icky, and I don’t mean that in a funny way…
…the child-rapist director Polanski changed the ending of the script so that instead of being caught and going to jail, the child-rapest villain Noah Cross who raped his own daughter not only gets away with it, but the police kill his victim so he doesn’t have to worry about it coming out, the private detective J.J. Gittes who has been figuring all this out walks away when the cops tell him to, and Cross gets custody of the granddaughter-and-daughter that resulted from the rape he committed.
And this is considered a classic ending – albeit a “down” ending – that people don’t find, you know, really icky and repulsive.
God damn, I did not become a supervillain soon enough.
Also, Paul said he felt it failed as a noir because of the colour cinematography, and it should’ve been shot black-and-white. I don’t think I agree; I actually think that part works. It probably might’ve been better in black and white, but I think it works.
No, I think it fails because Gittes walks away at the end. Not because the daughter-raping villain gets away with his crimes, but because Gittes walks away when he’s told. It breaks his character, and it breaks the film.
Not to mention the whole child-molester-wins thing.
Ugh. Now I just feel gross.
eta: To answer a question I suspect might come up: yes, I do avoid Mr. Polanski’s work; somehow I’d missed that he directed this. It was only after the film, in the TCM ‘about the movie you just saw’ segment they usually run, that I found out.
Thanks for taking one for team Supervillain. I am never watching that movie.
Well, to be pedantic, at the time he made that movie he was just a child-rapist-to-be director. On the other hand, in high school when we read “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” we went and saw the Polanski film where the now-a-child-rapist made a movie about a child who was raped. um. (Also, I am annoyed that while my HS also had us see “Apocalypse Now” in the theaters when we were reading Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”, they never mentioned that the original story was PRACTICALLY A FUCKING DOCUMENTARY ABOUT FUCKING BELGIAN COLONIALISM.)
I’m not sure what is meant by ‘classic’ ending, but when I saw it, I thought it was *supposed* to be viewed as an icky ending – “everything is irrevocably fucked up. the bad guys won. give up.” It’s been long enough since I’ve seen it that I’m not sure about characterization of Gittes walking away. I remember thinking it was a case of recognizing that the forces of civilization and real morality have lost.
Allegra: I actually wouldn’t’ve, had I known it was one of his films. But you’re welcome nonetheless.
rmd: Given his utter lack of remorse and outright indignation about being prosecuted, I’m not so sure we can be certain about that child-rapist-to be. But you’re of course correct in that he hadn’t been convicted of anything yet, and hadn’t yet raped the child he would be later convicted of raping. That was a couple of years later.
As for the ending, check out reviews and commentary, particularly places like IMDB – or, for that matter, TCM’s post-showing comments. It’s supposed to be seen as a “down” ending, sure – but classic, a brilliant stroke. But for me, there’s a big difference between “down” and “grotesque,” which it becomes, given Mr. Polanski’s crimes.
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