Rape, power and Polanski's "Chinatown"
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- jlichman
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more from Movies:
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/btm/feature/2009/10/13/chinatown/inde...
In case you're wondering why the arrest of a 76-year-old man for a sex crime committed 32 years ago has provoked a world-historical display of stupidity and sanctimony on all sides, the answers, such as they are, can be found in "Chinatown." By pure coincidence (I think), the genre-defining 1970s neo-noir is the latest DVD release in Paramount's Centennial Collection, hitting the street barely a week after its director was detained in Zurich, pending extradition to the United States.If "Chinatown" is the greatest of all American detective films -- and I think the case is a very strong one -- then that results from its remarkable confluence of ingredients: Career-best performances from Jack Nicholson, as witty and thin-skinned private eye J.J. Gittes, and Faye Dunaway, as the promiscuous and damaged California WASP wife who either does or doesn't hire him; an unusually intelligent and engaged producer, Paramount's legendary Robert Evans; a script loaded with the pain and nostalgia of Los Angeles history, from native son Robert Towne. Oh, and then there was the director, a phenomenal European craftsman who didn't much want to come back to L.A., because he already knew too much about the terrible things that could happen there. What was his name again?
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- Movies, Film, Roman Polanski, Noir, 2 more
