In Chinatown, the water department, under the influence of Cross, is behind a plan to secretly dump water from a vital reservoir in the San Fernando valley at night during a drought, so that the local agricultural land becomes unusable, and is devalued – allowing the department and Cross to buy it off cheaply from ...
The duality inherent in the water serves as a symbol for corruption, showing it both as the means by which a city lives and grows and as a spreading disease that taints everything it comes in contact with. Like the grass, anything that cannot adapt to the corrupt environment is eventually destroyed.
The plot of Chinatown is also drawn not just from the diversion of water from the Owens Valley via the aqueduct but also from another actual event. In the movie, water is being purposely released in order to drive the land owners out and create support for a dam through an artificial drought.
Robert Towne used the 1906 Los Angeles water crisis as the backdrop for Chinatown, and delved into the details by tugging at corporate greed and moral high ground. He used the exploitation of the water in the Owen's Valley to feed the growing city of Los Angeles, as a thematic thread throughout the film.
Most people can barely hear it, even though it is the last line in the movie by our fallen hero, Jack Nicholson as Jake Gittes, because it's said in a whisper. Jake Gittes (under his breath): “As little as possible.”
Chinatown (7/9) Movie CLIP - Capable of Anything (1974) HD
What does the last line in Chinatown mean?
"Forget it, Jake; it's Chinatown" is an encouragement to Jake to forget this set of circumstances, just as he "forgot" the circumstances surrounding his time in Chinatown.
The ending is especially disturbing because earlier in the movie you find out the villain raped his daughter. His daughter had a baby as a result. In the end the bad guy steals away the child (possibly planning to rape her) and the daughter he raped is shot as she tries to escape.
Noah Cross drowned him the salt pond at Mulwray's house. Noah's glasses were found in the salt pond later, by Jake. He killed him over Katherine and not the water bond issue. It was done in the heat of an argument over her.
Gittes discovered that there was salt water in the pond, and pieced together that Mr. Mulwray likely died in the pond, since he was found with fresh water in his lungs. Mr. Gittes then looked in the pond and found a pair of glasses.
The ending of Chinatown sees Jake Gittes piecing together the web of conspiracy weaved by Noah Cross (John Huston). Jake discovers it was Cross who murdered Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling) and was also responsible for the death of Ida Sessions.
The Chinese characters zhen zhu fang, or Pearl Square, on the facade of People's Park Complex are often photographed from Temple Street in Chinatown. In 2009, the building was again repainted – this time, in a brighter yellow-and-green scheme.
Chinatown is a 1974 American movie directed by Roman Polanski, written by Robert Towne, and starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Hillerman and John Huston. The movie is based on a true story about arguments that people had over the water politics in 1937 Los Angeles. It is considered to be a film noir.
What is the significance of the nose in Chinatown?
The cutting of Gittes's nose is important not only because it marks Gittes for the rest of the film, but because the nasty little hood who cuts Gittes is played by Polanski himself, brandishing a triangular knife like those that dominated his first feature whose title seems to fit this film as well, Knife in the Water.
This expression is a quote from the movie Chinatown, from the year 1974. In this quote, Forget it means don't try to fix the problem because it is futile. Jake is just the name of the character that someone is speaking to at the moment in the movie. Chinatown represents any place that has corruption.
She is said to wear tight curls reminiscent of sausages, which itself has phallic imagery and therefore sexual undertones. Furthermore, the red dress she wears solidifies her position as this supposed 'seductress' as the colour red is often associated with love, lust and sexual desire.
The central metaphor of Chinatown is not so much a cynical or despairing view of the world, but rather a corrective to a typically masculine arrogance that assumes control of situations that no one can truly master.
Now in his 80s, the screenwriter has even returned to “Chinatown” himself, working with Fincher to script a prequel series that explores Gittes' days as a newly minted detective patrolling the neighborhood that would come to haunt him.
His implication in Mulwray's murder is confirmed when he instructs his assistant, “Take those glasses from him, will ya?” gesturing to the bifocal glasses Gittes has in his hands. They belong to Cross, making him the man responsible for Mulwray's drowning in the saltwater pound outside his house.
In 2010, when Chinatown was 36 years old—the same age as Jack Nicholson when he starred in the movie, when he was, by broad critical consensus, at the peak of his star power—a poll of The Guardian's top critics proclaimed it “the best film of all time.” So, we might take the occasion of its 50th birthday in 2024 to ...
In 1906, firefighters torched the Chinatown in California's Santa Ana after one man in the community was reported to have leprosy. After banning Chinese from walking on the streets after dark in Antioch, white residents burned down its Chinatown. San Jose was once home to five Chinatowns.
In a foreshadowing similar to an earlier shot of a pocket watch with a shattered face, Jake breaks the ruby lens of Evelyn's taillight and then in his car trails the glowing, damaged white “eye” in the distance. Polanski's own morbid sensibility percolates throughout.
