The Eternal Mystery of Film Noir | Chinatown at 50

Film noir has never been easy to define. Less a genre, more an inkblot test, its origins are as scattered and difficult to pinpoint as its cinematic offspring. And even its most established tropes vary in frequency from film to film. Detectives are a staple, of course, as are criminals. But the set patterns prescribed to them in the popular imagination are subverted just as often as they are obeyed.

In its heyday, the film noir movement was defined in equal part by a glorious deluge of mysteries, heist capers, murder stories, and thrillers of all shapes and sizes. It was only in retrospect that these disparate subgenres were lumped together by French critics who noticed a pervasive sense of fatalism in American films made during and after the Second World War.

With their high-contrast compositions, stark shadows, and morally dubious protagonists, film noir – meaning black film, or dark film – seemed the perfect umbrella term under which to examine them. Taken as a whole, these features offered contemporary viewers a totally unique experience, influenced by German expressionism, hard-boiled literature, and prevailing post-war anxieties.

The classic era of noir is generally regarded to have ended in 1958 with the consecutive releases of Touch of Evil and Vertigo, each of which took the stylistic conventions of the movement to its extremes. But film noir was soon reborn in the New Hollywood era, more self-conscious, more naturalistic, and no longer beholden to the restraints of censorship. These new films went far beyond street crime to highlight systemic corruption and a broader cultural malaise. There was Harper, Marlowe, The Long Goodbye, The Conversation, Farewell My Lovely, and Night Moves. But, fifty years on from its release, the most famous neo-noir of all remains Chinatown.

Screenwriter Robert Towne drew from the work of Raymond Chandler to tackle a story inspired by the real history of the California Water Wars. And he partnered with producer Robert Evans, director Roman Polanski, and actor Jack Nicholson to bring the project to fruition.

The plot follows Detective J.J. Gittes as he takes on a simple marriage infidelity case that soon leads him down a trail of violence, deceit, and all manner of double-crossings. Nicholson gives a remarkably restrained performance as Gittes, eschewing the wide-eyed unpredictability that had defined his career up to that point in favour of a more subtle approach. He is present in every single scene, serving as the audience’s personal guide to the seedier side of Los Angeles.

With its expansive story of murder and corruption, Chinatown deliberately evokes the private investigator films of the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, Hollywood legend John Huston – director of The Maltese Falcon – was cast in the role of the main antagonist, a direct nod to the genre’s roots. And like the growling engine of a motorbike, Huston’s distinctive voice creeps up on the audience, creating a pervasive sense of menace that permeates each successive scene.

Naturally, no private investigator worth his salt would ever be caught dead without a femme fatale to duel and desire. Here, Faye Dunaway gives a career-best performance as Evelyn Cross-Mulwray, who struggles to keep a dark family secret hidden from Gittes’ prying eyes. Dunaway lends the part a vulnerability hitherto forbidden to such characters, taking what could have been a brooding cliché and turning it into a fully-formed three-dimensional human being.

The film follows a propulsive structure, each scene leading directly into the next. There is a slow accumulation of details that builds towards a tragic finale. Just as Raymond Chandler regarded plot as secondary in purpose to prose, Robert Towne relegates Gittes’ own personal journey to the realm of subtext, while Los Angeles itself comes to the fore as the real main character, an ever-expanding city all too reliant on the flow of water.

Roman Polanski’s precise framing highlights the characters’ relationships to their locations. Close-ups underscore method – inspection, interrogation, pursuit – and wide shots emphasise the insignificance of the characters against the vastness of the land. In a clear departure from noir tradition, there are no abstract visuals in the film. No bold shadows, bright white open doorways, or empty soundstage dream scenes.

And why should there be? After all, in a world of colour, there is nowhere to hide. The film’s period setting is effectively rendered with stylish costumes, production design, and a haunting jazz-tinged score. Every prop and item of clothing creates an impeccable impression of reality, from stylish short-brim fedoras, to sleek aerodynamic convertible cars.

Now, before we move on, it’s worth mentioning some of the film’s Irish connections.

• The story is partly inspired by the life of William Mulholland, an Irish-American civil engineer. Mulholland designed the Los Angeles aqueduct to help irrigate the city, leading to the wide-scale expansion of the city over time. But his career ended in tragedy when the St. Francis Dam collapsed, killing at least 431 people in the surrounding area.
• Raymond Chandler spent some of his childhood summers in Waterford, living with his maternal uncle. He would later reference Ireland quite extensively in a few of his novels.
• John Huston felt a deep connection with his family’s Irish heritage and left Hollywood to live in Galway after the HUAC communist witch-hunts. He then directed Moby Dick, Sinful Davey, and The Dead on-location in Ireland.
• And finally, Jack Nicholson himself traces his own ancestry back to Sligo.

Okay, our nation’s credibility has been firmly established, so let’s get back to business.

Chinatown was a huge critical and commercial success upon release. It cemented Nicholson’s status as a new superstar, immortalised Towne as one of the greatest living screenwriters, gave Robert Evans the freedom to become an independent producer, and established Polanski as the European gem in the crown of New Hollywood.

But the glory days did not last long.

Polanski was arrested for sexual assault in 1977. He pleaded guilty to statutory rape but fled the United States to France while out on bail. While he continued to work as a director in Europe over the ensuing decades, his reputation has come under increasing scrutiny in the wake of the MeToo movement. Robert Evans was convicted of cocaine trafficking in 1980. He was also suspected to be involved in the murder of a business partner during pre-production of The Cotton Club.

Meanwhile, Nicholson returned to film noir with a remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice. Following that, he re-teamed with Towne for a sequel to Chinatown called The Two Jakes. Not only did the actor return to the role of J.J. Gittes, he also served as the film’s director. But sadly, the sequel failed to recapture the magic of its predecessor.

Before his death, Evans capitalised on his own reputation as a mogul-cum-sleazeball to write a bestselling memoir, The Kid Stays in the Picture. Nicholson has retired from acting, Polanski remains in exile from Hollywood, and Towne is reportedly developing a Chinatown prequel series for Netflix with David Fincher.

Whether or not the latter project will ever come to fruition remains to be seen. But in the meantime, further entries in the film noir canon have hit our screens in the last couple of years. And funnily enough, there’s been a lot of Irish talent involved both in front and behind the camera. Liam Neeson became the latest actor to take on the role of Raymond Chandler’s iconic private investigator Phillip Marlowe in Neil Jordan’s Marlowe. Not to be outdone, Colin Farrel has taken on the mantle of a completely original character in the new detective series Sugar. And last but not least, Andrew Scott has slipped into the cold-blooded skin of Tom Ripley in Steve Zaillian’s Ripley.

Film noir? Non, monsieur.

Film vert, blanc, et orange!

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