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Forget it, Jake.
Oct. 23rd, 2007 11:40 amSo I watched Chinatown last night. It's very hard to say whether I really liked it or not, but I'm definitely still thinking about it, so I can tell it's a film rather than a movie or a flick. I think I liked it. I didn't dislike it. Hmmm.
I find it really hard to discuss without assuming that you've seen it, although I realize that many of you have not. If you like noir, it's definitely worth seeing. It is not really set in Chinatown, despite the title. At least, not in a physical sense. Despite my love for pattern recognition, I tend to be somewhat literal minded when it comes to film. I don't seek out allegory or assume anything about subtle metaphors. Thus great (or at least pretentious) film is often lost on me. It served as an interesting counterpoint to the Nero Wolfe episodes I've been watching of late -- with NW being very stylized and fluffy to a certain extent, and Chinatown much grittier.
I think I found myself coming out of it with a both a feeling that I should shower to try to wash some of the corruption and fatalism out of my brain, and a "WTF?" feeling about various points in the plot. The points are logical, however, and really aren't that WTF. Certainly not as compared to The Big Sleep or something of that nature. I think at least in part it's because we follow Gittes (Nicholson's) character so closely that we only learn things as he does. In The Big Sleep, this isn't a huge deal because it's so staged that we are content to observe events as they unfold. Chinatown is a far more realistic production, though, and put together with enough skill that I found myself frustrated with Gittes inability to see things coming, and found myself shocked by the turns and twists as he was. Everything at the end just came too far and too fast and -- like that character -- at the end, there is nothing you can do but watch helplessly as it all unravels.
I find myself in a mood to discuss it, so if you've seen it and are thus motivated, let me know.
I find it really hard to discuss without assuming that you've seen it, although I realize that many of you have not. If you like noir, it's definitely worth seeing. It is not really set in Chinatown, despite the title. At least, not in a physical sense. Despite my love for pattern recognition, I tend to be somewhat literal minded when it comes to film. I don't seek out allegory or assume anything about subtle metaphors. Thus great (or at least pretentious) film is often lost on me. It served as an interesting counterpoint to the Nero Wolfe episodes I've been watching of late -- with NW being very stylized and fluffy to a certain extent, and Chinatown much grittier.
I think I found myself coming out of it with a both a feeling that I should shower to try to wash some of the corruption and fatalism out of my brain, and a "WTF?" feeling about various points in the plot. The points are logical, however, and really aren't that WTF. Certainly not as compared to The Big Sleep or something of that nature. I think at least in part it's because we follow Gittes (Nicholson's) character so closely that we only learn things as he does. In The Big Sleep, this isn't a huge deal because it's so staged that we are content to observe events as they unfold. Chinatown is a far more realistic production, though, and put together with enough skill that I found myself frustrated with Gittes inability to see things coming, and found myself shocked by the turns and twists as he was. Everything at the end just came too far and too fast and -- like that character -- at the end, there is nothing you can do but watch helplessly as it all unravels.
I find myself in a mood to discuss it, so if you've seen it and are thus motivated, let me know.
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