Chinatown (Special Collector's Edition) [1974]

Chinatown remains one of the great 70s films of all time, alongside such perfect works as The Conformist, The Godfather I&II, Badlands, Shampoo, Mean Streets, Network, The Last Picture Show, The French Connection, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest & The Deer Hunter. Penned by key New-Hollywood screenwriter Robert Towne (The Last Detail) & directed by Roman Polanksi, it recreates a knowing take on film noir. This is done by updating the colour scheme, moving from the chiaroscuro experimentation of film noir such as The Big Heat, Out of the Past & In a Lonely Place to a lush colour scheme utilising orange-filters in an intrigueing manner. The film recreates an era with John A Alonso's cinematography- which sits next to the perfect recreations of era in colour such as Reds, Days of Heaven, Barry Lyndon & Heaven's Gate. Towne's screenplay is complex & knowing, so many twists & parallels it is as good as the genre to which it refers- most notably the roman-noir writings of Raymond Chandler (The Long Goodbye) & Dashiel Hammett (Red Harvest). It makes the film adaptation of LA Confidential look a joke compared. Great to see a lack of voiceover, Towne can easily do the droll-Bogart quips- as is seen when Jake talks to the cops- but the images are left to do the talking. And when the twists come, they come- & are as powerful as those in films such as Vertigo. The cast are brilliant- one of Nicholson's key performances (so why did he win an Oscar for As Good as it Gets?), alongside brilliant turns from Faye Dunaway, Diane Ladd & a creepy John Huston (there's also a top cameo from Polanski & an appearance from John Hillerman, familiar to those who watched Magnum PI!). The film starts off as a simple detective story, a local politician is accused by his wife of having an affair, Jake Gittes- who used to work for the D.A. until an undefined event in Chinatown- takes on the case & starts to tail the man in question. The backdrop of politics appears to be related- 1937 LA has not yet expanded to the valleys & is experiencing a water shortage; add to this politicians who wish to build a new dam. Enter Faye Dunaway, an extension of the femme fatale who is more of a victim than a spiderwoman, who informs Gittes that she is the real wife of the man he's tailing (so who was the woman who originally hired him?). Complexities abound when said man turns up dead in the LA water system & it turns out saltwater was in his lungs. Enter a web of modern corruption, leading to Noah Cross (John Huston), who was involved with the dead man & wants to track a girl seen by Gittes during surveillance. Enter more complexities & revelations... Chinatown is a simply brilliant film, one that can definitely be called perfect- it slowly reveals a portrait of a changing LA- where modern life is taking over (the Okies recalling those in Grapes of Wrath are being destroyed by the politicians & the police are in cahoots with Cross)- preceding the world James Ellroy takes up with books like The Black Dahlia & LA Confidential. It also has a brilliant score from Jerry Goldsmith, which William Goldman believes saves the film (see Which Lie Did I Tell?). A masterpiece of 20th century cinema that is great value at this budget price...

Fantastic film - great performances from Nicholson and Dunaway.

is a 1974 American neo-noir mystery film directed by Roman Polanski from a screenplay by Robert Towne. The film stars Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. It was inspired by the California water wars, a series of disputes over southern California water at the beginning of the 20th century, by which Los Angeles interests secured water rights in the Owens Valley. The Robert Evans production, released by Paramount Pictures, was Polanski's last film in the United States and features many elements of film noir, particularly a multi-layered story that is part mystery and part psychological drama. Chinatown was released in the United States on June 20, 1974, to acclaim from critics. At the 47th Academy Awards, it was nominated for 11 Oscars, with Towne winning Best Original Screenplay. The Golden Globe Awards honored it for Best Drama, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay. The American Film Institute placed it second among its top ten mystery films in 2008. In 1991, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". It is also often cited as one of the greatest films of all time. A sequel, The Two Jakes, was released in 1990, again starring Nicholson, who also directed, with Robert Towne returning to write the screenplay. The film failed to match the acclaim of its predecessor. Classic film noir in briillant 4k a must own.

What a film Chinatown is. The 4k bluray looks beautiful with accurate hdr that depicts the mood and period perfectly Chinatown is a magnificent achievement. It's a modern noir as good as the classic noirs from the golden era. A rarity indeed. Make sure you watch this film time after time for it never tires and just gets better every time you watch

As a fan of Jack Nicholson, missed this film when it first came out. Also stars Faye Dunaway. Director Roman Polanski. Has an intricate plot. Excellent film (in my opinion).

Obviously a five star film. Clearly great picture quality on the blu ray disc. But its the same quality as already available Premium Collection blu ray. So maybe the 4K disc is just upscaled blu ray? Question mark as I have no 4K gear. I had expected, however, remastering for 4K and therefore of blu ray which often happens. The packaging is classy. That small poster I was surprised where that turned-up in the film. A Business card but photos are black and white and not especially good shots. Where this version takes off is the timing of release. Voting year in the two Big English speaking States. In the case of the UK we have the totally allowed subsidising of the private water companies which must surely be against competition law. And the very rich ‘buying the future.’ John Huston playing the rich man above the law; it has to be said a typical Conservative party influencer. Grandee. It even has the line ‘water should belong to the people.’ Locally I noticed a severe leakage on High Street took a couple of weeks at least to be attended to. And reports of sewage dumping in rivers are too often to be untrue. Yet dividends are paid to shareholders and bonuses are paid to directors. And its all okay. No herding sheep in the chamber of the House of Commons here. They are all sitting down. And the Conservative party will not get the punishment they deserve. They will continue to exist, probably re-package and keep going. I actually admire their will to Power which never seems to wane. They have got away with far more than any Labour Executive could even dream about. They own the Police and the News media. Don’t let money impinge on what is right and wrong.

Brilliant from start to finish. An absolute classic that is as good now as when it came out.

Roman Polanski created an unforgetable film-noir. Although shot in colour, it still retains an authentic feel of place and time. Jack Nicholson plays the inevitable gumshoe wandering into a convoluted plot until it's way above his head. Faye Dunaway has the role of Femme-fatale to perfection. These two are the main players, but there's a decent supporting cast that includes an alarming `Goodfellas'-style cameo from the director himself. The plot twists so much it must be watched rather than described. Pacing, lighting & editing are absolutely spot-on, enabling the whole movie to flow in both plot and character development. And the icing on the cake is its theme music, which surfaces as incidental elements throughout the movie. It's a slow-burning jazz number with languid trumpet lead that hits the spot in every theme and is as much a part of plot cohesion as the script itself. Some don't appear to enjoy this movie half so much as they should. I don't know why, and clearly my praise of it must be as confusing to them. All I can say is that I was bowled over at first watching and have loved it ever since. It's nearly 40 years old now, but might have been made yesterday. No element has aged in the least. The Collector's Edition supplied by Amazon is crisp & clear. It is listed as 125mins run-time, `15' viewer-rating, and 2.35:1 aspect ratio. There's a number of interesting extras. Highly recommended and collectible.

Roman Polanski's finest work takes place in a prewar Los Angeles where everyone has a past they would just as soon keep hidden, where morality is fluid, to say the least, and where respectability is generally always fraudulent. It also happens to be the most interesting film ever made about water...although to the extent that it is really about anything, it mostly seems to be about secrets: the cost of keeping them, what happens once they're in the open, what happens when you try to find them out. As one might expect from the arthouse days of the 1970's, this movie is a bit more intellectual than your average movie, but that's hardly a strike against it. In fact, there have been few films quite as exciting and engaging as Chinatown ever to come out in Hollywood. It has a masterfully-constructed plot, clever-but-still-believable dialogue, virtuosic acting, editing, scoring--it's a rare kind of film that has everything working for it (Citizen Kane is another example) and it single-handedly revived film noir while adding countless new, imaginative touches (such as the infamous Jack Nicholson nose scene). Needless to say, it's a great film. The one question that remains is this: What does a movie have to do to win a Best Picture Oscar, anyway? Yes, Chinatown lost to The Godfather, Part II, which is another near-flawless film. Still, the creative staff could, at the time, have savored the fact that it had another parallel to Citizen Kane--both films only won Oscar honors for their screenplays. It's quite a profound drop we've seen in film since 1974--a year where three undeniably great films were nominated for Best Picture (GF II, Chinatown, and The Conversation). These days, it's usually unlikely that even a single Best Picture nominee will have any sort of staying power. It might be the way of things, but watching Chinatown is a way to see that they weren't always this way. The setup of Chinatown [spoilers] involves a man by the name of Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson), a private investigator who takes a simple job to investigate if a man (a very high-ranking city official) is cheating on his wife. After taking some photographic evidence of the affair (or so he thinks), the man's real wife (Faye Dunaway) comes forward to let Gittes know he's been duped. They try to figure out why Gittes was framed, and the case leads in a number of different directions, most of which involve Dunaway's wealthy, shady father (John Huston), before all the threads come together at the end of the film, which truly has to rank high on any list of the greatest film endings of all time. It's all wrong--not a single person deserves what they get, though it all seems like just a matter of inevitability. [/spoilers] I'm gratified that we're finally getting a special edition of the film--the edition currently in existence is hardly outstanding. There seems to be little information available about the details as yet, but you owe it to yourself to purchase a copy. This is one of the greatest of all films--it's entertaining, enlightening, and emotionally resonant in a way that few works of art are--it's right up there with Greek tragedy. Seriously.

Rien à signaler, excellent film

At the time, I liked noir, I still do and this is good. In its own right a great movie. This was very affordable at the time I got it.

parfait

One of the great films of the 70's which was the best decade for Hollywood films. A very good quality blu ray with good, interesting extras at a great price. Recommended