CHINATOWN

Chinatown is a film-noir that was made in the 1970s. The thing that most distinguishes Chinatown from other film-noirs is the fact that it was produced in color. This movie is about JJ Gittes a cheating specialist who Evelyn Mulwray hires to find out who her husband is having an affair with. But, when Hollis Mulwray gets murdered JJ gets assigned to a new case, one that requires him to find Hollis’s killer. This film supports an all star cast including big names such as Jack Nicolson Faye Dunaway and Roman Polanski.
Well some may consider this a film-noir I would have to disagree. This film takes on more aspects of genres such as mystery, thriller and tragedy. I say this because, number one this movie is in color, number two it doesn’t exhibit much low-key lighting and number three and JJ Gittes is not a typical hardboiled detective. The color of the film I think makes this film more interesting and all together more pleasurable to watch but I do feel that the color takes away from the film-noir aspects. The coloring makes it hard to show things such as low-key lighting which is yet another important part of film-noir. My third point of JJ Gittes not being a typical hardboiled detective, I say that because he doesn’t drink and he shows too many feelings in his work. He feels sorry for Evelyn Mulwray after her husband dies, which your normal hardboiled detective would not do.
Overall I felt that this was a fabulous movie. It was kind of weird though to see Jack Nicolson at such a young age. This movie has it all killing, nudity, mystery and a surprise ending.