Reshaping Genre in Chinatown
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	Narrator:  Although it appears two decades after the heyday of film noir in crime films, Roman Polanski's 1974 Chinatown appropriates and reshapes many of these genre's conventions. In fact, the opening of Chinatown harkens back to earlier film noir in crime films. In this scene, we're introduced to Private Investigator, Jake Gittes, played by Jack Nicholson, in his office. From the Venetian blinds to the cramped space, the scene uses shading and an air of shabbiness to suggest
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	a world full of moral shadows and gray areas. More than a little ironic, Gittes’s white suit doesn't identify him as a force of goodness. Instead, he's the tough and cool investigator exposing the sordid details of private lives.
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	Narrator:  Gittes is tasked with the seemingly classic film noir assignment: trailing Hollis Mulwray, the Los Angeles Water Commissioner, whose wife suspects him of having an affair. But Gittes discovers quite quickly that he was duped by a fake Mrs. Mulwray, and that this crime is about much more than infidelity. And as Gittes investigates further, it becomes clear that he's being manipulated, and has little knowledge of what is really happening. In fact, if traditional
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	crime films are about murder, sex, and money, in Chinatown those tropes are more magnified, and the crimes are larger and more grotesque.
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	Narrator:  The crime in Chinatown turns out to be a massive political conspiracy to steal the water supply of Los Angeles. And in this twisted world, the private eye isn't just beaten up, he's disfigured. Gittes is in far deeper than he realizes, readily admitting later in the film that "You can't always tell what's going on." But the diabolic patriarch Noah Cross is
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	more emphatic, stating, "You may think you know what you're dealing with, but you don't."
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	Narrator:  One way that Chinatown reimagines the traditional crime film is in its setting. Unlike earlier film noir movies with their dark lighting, Chinatown happens in a largely sunny California world with wide open spaces—world that belies its dark underbelly. Still, the addition of rich yellows, reds and browns to the Los Angeles urban-scape in the film creates a sickly, rather than a sunny and natural climate.
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	Narrator:  The femme fatale is a staple of the film noir movie, and in Chinatown that role is filled by Evelyn Mulwray, played by Faye Dunaway. But while Evelyn does seduce Gittes, the hard-boiled detective, the power of her sexuality poses little threat compared to the reality he uncovers behind it.
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	Narrator:  When Gittes suspects Evelyn of murdering Mulwray and confronts her about it, Evelyn tearfully reveals that she was raped by her own father, Noah Cross, and that Katherine, the mysterious "other woman" initially seen with Hollis Mulwray, is both Evelyn's sister and daughter.
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	Narrator:  The climactic sequence of Chinatown occurs in the LA neighborhood of the title, suggesting in a manner that appears rather racist today, that the corruption and violence of the film reflects a mysterious society in which traditional laws and ethics don't matter. Gittes's plan to help Evelyn and Katherine escape is foiled when the police show up and arrest him for withholding evidence and extortion. Noah Cross approaches Katherine and tells her that he's her grandfather, but Evelyn intervenes, pulls out
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	her pistol, and fires at Cross. As Evelyn and Katherine try to escape in their car, the police open fire. Gittes watches helplessly as Evelyn dies behind the wheel of her car, and as Cross walks away unscathed with Katherine, who will no doubt become another victim of Cross's sexual abuse. In the end, Walsh, one of the policemen, can only comment, "Forget it, Jake, this is Chinatown," summing up how in this modern film
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	noir, crimes go unpunished and there are no happy endings.