The ending of Chinatown was, umm, well, ......different?

Watching Nicholson having his nose bandaged for 1/2 the movie was memorable

I liked the ending. Two films The Vanishing and the Bitter Stems had unhappy endings. Nice for a change.

quote:

Originally posted by Johnny 3eagles:
The ending of Chinatown was, umm, well, ......different?

I'll say iconic and useful to recall throughout any number of things one runs across living on this planet.

Without giving anything away-

Robert Towne's script had an upbeat ending originally. It was director Roman Polanski who insisted on- and fought with Towne over- changing the ending to what we see in the film. Though Towne was against this change, he admitted later that Polanski was right, and I think there's no doubt about that, absolutely none. It's a film close to perfect in my book.

Towne called the ending he crafted at Polanski's insistence "The tunnel at the end of the light."

The ending lines up perfectly with the line from Nicholson when asked by Dunaway what he did when he worked for the district atorney's office in Chinatown: "As little as possible," he said, because you never really knew the score in Chinatown. The film shows the consequences of Nicholson's character not adhering to that policy.

So, tonight is the final night for this series of films. They should do this again soon, but leave Ben Mankiewicz out of it next time. His contributions to the dialogue are juvenile: "Robert Mitchum said 'The N-Word' in The Friends of Eddie Coyle!"

Freakin' jackass. It's a hardboiled seventies American crime film, you schmuck. You know what you can do with your bullshit virtue-signalling. And stop slobbering on Eddie Muller as if he's the only guy out there who is knowledgeable of the subject of film noir. That fawning is supposed to take the place of astute observations about the subject at hand, I suppose. Go do a bit of research on these films before you sit down to tape the segments.

Let's see- starting off tonight with Ridley Scott's Blade Runner from 1982. I have a hard time with classifiying science fiction films as neo-noir. These are make-believe worlds. While, in the classical noir period, there were some films in the canon which were set in the past (Experiment Perilous, Blood on the Moon) most films noir were set in the present. This includes all of the films initially cited by French critics in 1946 as being seminal films of the style.

Nevertheless, it's a chance to see a re-cut version of a good film.

Next, Mona Lisa from 1986. Michael Caine again, and Bob Hoskins. I can't recall seeing this film.

Lastly, Tequila Sunrise, 1988, notable for being not only written by the above-mentioned Robert Towne, but also directed by him. Not bad, but I can take it or leave it.

After reading this thread, I watched Chinatown.

I saw the movie once before. Can't remember exactly when but I think when it was playing in theaters (mid 1970s?). What I remembered though was that I was completely confused. I didn't really keep up w the evolving story line.

So I watched it tonight and really paid attention.

There is something about this movie that shouts "class". It was like going back in time.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
They should do this again soon, but leave Ben Mankiewicz out of it next time.

He often comes across as an arrogant know it all hack! He was only given this gig because of what his last name means to film history (Herman - Grandpa, Joseph - Uncle)!!!