To premise my opinion I'll mention that as far as classic "best ever" films are concerned, I am generally unimpressed. I think that the advancements in film-making make it difficult or impossible to really appreciate the majesty of these films unless one was alive when they were released. I can say that this is true about the original Star Wars trilogy that when viewed through the eyes of someone that is young right now, and completely unaware of the films' legacy, they would probably think they were boring and poorly made even though most of us know that the opposite is really the case.
I got bored with what Netflix had on offer recently an decided to consult a list of the best films ever made and Chinatown was ranked in the mid-20's on said list.
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Since it starred a young Jack Nicholson in his prime I figured there was no way that this one could go the wrong way with me but after watching it, I gotta say that I just don't get the hype nor why it is featured so high on a list of best films of all time.
Perhaps it was very difficult to film since it is based in the 30's but was filmed and released in the early 1974. It may also be some sort of preferential treatment that is being shown to director, Roman Polanski, as this is frequently done for many directors. I felt the same way about watching several other classic "best" films one the most noteworthy being Lawrence of Arabia. While I can appreciate how momentous the filming of that film might have been, the acting is a bit wooden and the story is actually quite boring. I feel the same way about a lot of what happens in Chinatown.
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It's over two hours long as well
The story here is of a private detective named Jake (Nicholson) who gets hired to investigate a suspected affair, as seems to be his forte in his profession. The affairs ends up containing a lot more devious things than someone just cheating on their spouse and Jake ends up getting wrapped up in a lot of it - in many instances against his own will where his very clients are lying to him and making his job more difficult.
There are plenty of problems with the actual presentation as well such as telephone calls that are crucial parts of the story that are entirely too quiet for anyone not sitting in a dead quiet theater wouldn't be able to hear at all. Without a subtitle track I had no choice but to ramp up the volume to near maximum on my TV just to be able to hear what was being said.
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There isn't a lot of action and almost all of the fight scenes are pretty comical with their very poor execution of choreography and inserted sounds when a kick or punch sound-effect comes into the mix. This story is very dialogue-driven and that is fine and to be fair most of the dialogue is meaningful without a bunch of dreaded filler to simply get the runtime up.
In the end I went back and watched it again because I fell asleep on the first run. I re-watched in order to try to figure out what it is about this film that makes people so "gaga" about it and the reasoning for it being ranked above things like Apocalypse Now and Gladiator, both of which I believe to be superior films in every way.
Thinking back on Chinatown I think I would groan if someone were to tell me that I had to sit through it again with them, ever. It just isn't very entertaining. Maybe there is some film-school stuff in there that I am too much of a pleb to understand, but for me, I don't really see anything historically meaningful, or even subtle hints eluding to things like class warfare or societal issues.
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In one particularly funny sequence that is most-likely famous to some degree, Jack Nicholson has to repeatedly slap Faye Dunaway in order to get some information out of her. These slaps seem to genuinely make contact with her face and I wonder how many times they had to shoot that in order to get the final take. The acting in this scene on Faye's part isn't very good so I'm thinking maybe they only did it a couple of times. It does appear to be one continuous take as well, which is impressive I suppose.
Should I watch it?
I hesitate to tell anyone that they definitely shouldn't watch this but at the same time I really don't think that the people of today are going to find this entertaining enough to actually sit through the whole thing. I suppose if you wanted to go down a nostalgic trail of Nicholson's past then go ahead. I do think that if you were going to do this that you would be much better off watching One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest though, because that is a much better film that is actually really good.
If you are a film nut and want to see what the world considers to be one of the best things ever made then I say go ahead and watch Chinatown. However, if you are in this film game for pure, raw entertainment, I think that this one will let you down as much as it did me.
Chinatown is not currently on Netflix. You can watch it on HBO Max and of course, there are torrent options as well.
