History Film / Chinatown

** Evelyn Mulwray is likewise an attack on the concept of the FemmeFatale. A beautiful elegant woman who is cold and aloof in public is obviously some villainous slutty vamp rather [[spoiler:than a deeply vulnerable victim of abuse trying to hide her suffering from a uncaring world and society. Evelyn literally has no one to turn to in the patriarchal America of her time, and the great effort that she goes through to help herself and her daughter/sister comes undone precisely because of the misogynistic assumptions that even the hero Jake Gittes' shares and upholds]].

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler:One of cinema's most iconic and unforgettable examples. Noah Cross not only gets away with it, but the Hero is left alive, powerless and stunned, and he gets to watch the villain grab his next victim in full view and disappear, fully aware that he's so low in the totem pole that the villain doesn't even have to kill him, like he did Hollis Mulwray and others]].

* AmbiguousTimePeriod: While the film is nominally set in 1937 (i.e., on the early side of ChandlerAmericanTime), its portrayal of Los Angeles plucks bits and pieces from multiple eras (as noted in [[http://www.rouge.com.au/11/chinatown.html this article]]). The water rights problem was an issue of the [=1910s=] and [='20s=], while Gittes makes reference to "Okies" (an insulting word for Dust Bowl-era migrant farmers from Oklahoma) and we see a large portrait of [[UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt FDR]]. From the aforementioned article:

Maybe you even get close to the truth]].'']]

** The first thing shown after the titles is a closeup on a series of black-and-white photographs (albeit far more sexually explicit than anything shown in the [[UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode Old Hollywood]]), and then the camera pulls back to reveal cinematographer John Alonzo's lush amber period glow, which looks a bit like old Technicolor but is much richer.

* HellishLA: Depicts early 20th century Los Angeles as a Crapsack World full of bigotry and DomesticAbuse in which there is a massive conspiracy going on to "control the future" through the city's water supply. [[spoiler:And, at the end, they win.]]

* CoitusEnsues: Jake and Lillian Bodine have sex after she hears her husband killed by Jake Berman on tape.

[[folder: Chinatown]]

[[folder: The Two Jakes]]

* AmbiguousTimePeriod: While the film is nominally set in 1937 (i.e., on the early side of ChandlerAmericanTime), its portrayal of Los Angeles plucks bits and pieces from multiple eras (as noted in [[http://www.rouge.com.au/11/chinatown.html this article]]). The water rights problem was an issue of the [=1910s=] and [='20s=], while Gittes makes reference to "Okies" (an insulting word for Dust Bowl-era migrant farmers from Oklahoma) and we see a large portrait of [[UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt FDR]]. [[http://www.rouge.com.au/11/chinatown.html From an article on the film;]]

* QuestionableConsent: In-universe. While Evelyn claims that she had an [[spoiler: abusive, but consensual, sexual relationship with Noah, the audience and other characters understand that it was rape because she was too young to consent. She doesn't see it that way because of Noah's manipulative behavior.]]

* ArmorPiercingSlap: [[spoiler: The REAL]] Mrs. Mulwray gives Jake Gittes one. He shocked to realize he'd been duped [[spoiler: by a fake Mrs. Mulwray]]. Later, Jake gives several of these to [[spoiler: the real Mrs. Mulray asking her for the truth about her relations with a young woman named Katherine]].

** A gay nightclub's occupants are all arrested and taken down.

* KarmaHoudini: Noah Cross died of old age, rich and powerful despite all the horrific evils he committed.

* BelatedHappyEnding: [[spoiler: Katherine Mulwray/Berman managed to outlive her abusive father/grandfather as well as inherit a fortune from her now-deceased husband.]]

* DeliberateValuesDissonance: Jaker Berman killing his wife's lover is considered "temporary insanity" to enough people that no one considers it strange that he might be walking around and carrying out his business after doing it.

!!This movie contains examples of:

* AspectRatioSwitch: From Academy ratio to widescreen after the opening credits.

* StealthPun: After following Mr. Mulwray to a series of reservoirs one of Jake's employees comments that he has "water on the brain", meaning literally he's thinking about water but which is also an antiquated name for hydrocephalus, a condition in children that can cause retardation. Jake smiles in response but the pun is never acknowledged in dialog.

* {{Symbolism}}: During a scene where Jake and Evelyn are making out, Jake points out a black mark in the green part of Evelyn's eye that's apparently a flaw in the iris. The flaw in Evelyn's eye symbolizes the flaw in the system itself — Evelyn's a good character, but she's personally experienced the corruption bred by greed and by the hunger for power. Her father is stealing the city's water, and he's had a child with her through incest. From a distance, everything probably looks okay — but when you look closely, something's off. That's been Jake's experience throughout the whole movie. He sees that Hollis' death isn't a suicide and that he's been set up…after he learns that the woman who hired him wasn't really Evelyn. These inconsistencies eventually reveal an even more corrupt and evil state of affairs than Jake could've realized. [[spoiler:The flaw in Evelyn's iris initially suggests that there's something wrong with her—like maybe she's in on her father's scheme. But in reality, the flaw lies in the family she comes from, specifically in her monstrous father]].

* {{Symbolism}}: During a scene where Jake and Evelyn are making out, Jake points out a black mark in the green part of Evelyn's eye that's apparently a flaw in the iris. The flaw in Evelyn's eye symbolizes the flaw in the system itself — Evelyn's a good character, but she's personally experienced the corruption bred by greed and by the hunger for power. Her father is stealing the city's water, and he's had a child with her through incest. From a distance, everything probably looks okay — but when you look closely, something's off. That's been Jake's experience throughout the whole movie. He sees that Hollis' death isn't a suicide and that he's been set up…after he learns that the woman who hired him wasn't really Evelyn. These inconsistencies eventually reveal an even more corrupt and evil state of appears than Jake could've realized. [[spoiler:The flaw in Evelyn's iris initially suggests that there's something wrong with her—like maybe she's in on her father's scheme. But in reality, the flaw lies in the family she comes from, specifically in her monstrous father]].

* AmbiguousTimePeriod: While the film is nominally set in 1937 (i.e., on the early side of ChandlerAmericanTime), its portrayal of Los Angeles plucks bits and pieces from multiple eras (as noted in [[http://www.rouge.com.au/11/chinatown.html this article]]). The water rights problem was an issue of the [=1910s=] and [='20s=], while Gittes makes reference to "Okies" (an insulting word for Dust Bowl-era migrant farmers from Oklahoma) and we see a large portrait of [[UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt FDR]].

* DomesticAbuse: Curly the client who meets Gittes in the opening scene is revealed [[spoiler:to have beaten his adulterous spouse. When Gittes redirects Lopez and Escobar to his house, the door is opened by his wife who sports a prominent black eye. When Curly introduces Gittes, his wife [[NiceJobBreakingItHero sneers in anger that she knows]] exactly who he is]].

* SuprisinglyRealisticOutcome: [[Spoiler: The police eventually put the pieces of the puzzle together only slightly slower than Gittes. But are powerless against Cross who has the power and influence.]]

Fun fact: the film was co-financed by Bob Guccione, publisher of the famous pornographic magazine ''Penthouse''. It was nominated for 11 UsefulNotes/{{Academy Award}}s (winning for Best Original Screenplay), seven UsefulNotes/{{Golden Globe|Award}}s (winning for Best Picture, Actor, Director, and Screenplay), and six UsefulNotes/{{BAFTA}}s (winning for Best Actor, Director, and Screenplay, with Nicholson and Towne earning their awards for both this film and ''Film/TheLastDetail''). A lesser-known--and much less well-regarded--{{sequel}}, ''The Two Jakes'', was directed by Jack Nicholson and released in 1990.

* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:Noah Cross. Not only is he responsible for the murder of Hollis Mulwray, he also raped his own daughter, and at the end of the movie he's acquired custody of his daughter/granddaughter, and gets off completely scot-free. And Jake Gittes can do absolutely nothing about it.]]