Chinatown (Special Collector's Edition)
by Roman Polanski
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DVD details
Actor: Faye Dunaway, Jack Nicholson, John Hillerman, John Huston, Perry LopezDirector: Roman Polanski
Brand: Paramount
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed); Portuguese (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Restored, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 131 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-11-06
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Paramount
DVD Reviews of Chinatown (Special Collector's Edition)
DVD Review: Is it possible? A deep and subtle film noire.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of my favorite Polanski films, which is saying a lot. Unlike the two-dimensional characters that you get in the FN genre, these characters are realistic, troubled, and flawed. Nicolson is the best: a PI because he had to leave the police force, he is deeply angry and cynical. But in his heart, he does want to help. He is skilled as an investigator and smart, but gets in way over his head. Dunaway, the femme fatale who is the only person with a clear idea of diong good, also defies simple labels. Their performances are amongst the finest of their careers, so good they have to been seen and savored more than once. Huston is also good as a sleazeball, but even he adds aspects to the character that make the role unforgettable.
This is one of the films that is so interesting and moving you can watch it at each phase of your life and find nuance you missed. Recommended with the greatest enthusiasm.
DVD Review: Chinatown
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this movie because I was taking a college course in film. I had not seen it yet but had heard of it. Now it is one of my top ten. Aweseome.DVD Review: "Forget It, Jake. It's Chinatown." Classic Line. Great Storyline That Remins Of Great Noir Thrillers From The 1930's & 1940's.
Summary: 5 Stars
Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway & John Huston star in "Chinatown," a movie filled with intrigue, suspense and drama. All these ingredients make for great cinema and "Chinatown" delivers on all cylinders. Huston's role is really more of a cameo, but he acquits himself well as always. Classic film. Ironically, Nicholson's character says a line which would be said to him by Lieutenant Daniel Kafee (Tom Cruise) in "A Few Good Men": "I want the truth!" This film SHOULD NOT have been rated R, but PG. It only has mild language, some violence and brief nudity. Minor note: Look out for Roman Polanski in a cameo.DVD Review: THIS IS WHAT FILM IS SUPPOSED TO BE
Summary: 5 Stars
The mid-1970s saw a spate of "government conspiracy" films, all with liberal themes that emanated from Watergate. None of them were about Kennedy stealing the 1960 election. Hmm.
"Chinatown" (1974) may be the best screenplay ever written. A historical look at 1930s Los Angeles, it actually condensed events from the 1900s with events that, uh, never happened but made for good drama. Written by L.A. native Robert Towne, directed by Roman Polanski, produced by Evans and starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunnaway and famed director John Huston, it told the story of how Los Angeles became a metropolis. In Towne's version, Huston "owns" the L.A. Department of Water & Power with a character based on actual L.A. City engineer William Mulholland. Mulholland had orchestrated the political deal which built the aqueduct that brought water from the Owens Valley into the L.A. Basin, allowing millions of Southern Californians to keep their lawns green to this day.
The Mulholland character is "sacrificed" at the altar of greed, embodied by Huston, who secretly buys the San Fernando Valley, knowing that once the water deal is set, it will be incorporated into the city, making him a gazillionaire. It is rather cynical, although nobody suggests the L.A. "city fathers" were boy scouts. The same old theme is that capitalism and American political power are corrupt. To make sure the audience is convinced the corruption is beyond redemption, Huston is in the end found out be an insatiable, incestual monster. He plays the role so well it brings up minds-eye imagery of his real daughter, Angelica. The film is utterly beyond any criticism, regardless of political colorization. For decades, film students and screenwriters have studied it. It spawned an artistic quest to lace the screen with symbols, metaphors, backstory, and twists.
"Chinatown" seems to be the apex of the American film period, the mid-1970s. The period from 1960 to 1979 is unparalleled, but the backstory of the people who created these classics is a telling tale of why the genre leans to the Left. In the 1960s, film schools became popular. Four schools emerged, and have held their place as the place to learn the craft. In Los Angeles there was the USC School of Cinema-Television. Their first big alumnus was "Star Wars" director George Lucas. UCLA combined their film school with their drama program, so as to bring actors, writers, directors and producers together. Coppola went to UCLA along with a future rock star named Jim Morrison, who would form The Doors with another UCLA film alumnus, keyboardist Ray Manzarek.
DVD Review: 4 stars out of 4
Summary: 5 Stars
The Bottom Line:
Watch Jack Nicholson act as well as he ever did, watch Roman Polanski channel his wife's tragic death and a script by Robert Towne into a piece of cinematic art, watch one of the few color noirs worthy of the name: above all else, watch Chinatown.
Description of Chinatown (Special Collector's Edition)
Landmark movie in the film noir tradition, Roman Polanski's Chinatown stands as a true screen classic. Jack Nicholson is private eye Jake Gittes, living off the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-war Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite (Faye Dunaway) to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together for one, unforgettable night in...Chinatown. Co-starring film legend John Huston and featuring an Academy Award?-winning script by Robert Towne, Chinatown captures a lost era in a masterfully woven movie that remains a timeless gem.Roman Polanski's brooding film noir exposes the darkest side of the land of sunshine, the Los Angeles of the 1930s, where power is the only currency--and the only real thing worth buying. Jack Nicholson is J.J. Gittes, a private eye in the Chandler mold, who during a routine straying-spouse investigation finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a jigsaw puzzle of clues and corruption. The glamorous Evelyn Mulwray (a dazzling Faye Dunaway) and her titanic father, Noah Cross (John Huston), are at the black-hole center of this tale of treachery, incest, and political bribery. The crackling, hard-bitten script by Robert Towne won a well-deserved Oscar, and the muted color cinematography makes the goings-on seem both bleak and impossibly vibrant. Polanski himself has a brief, memorable cameo as the thug who tangles with Nicholson's nose. One of the greatest, most completely satisfying crime films of all time. --Anne Hurley
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