Making a Movie About Making the Movie "Chinatown"

"Big Goodbye" is a well researched book and insightful about how Chinatown was produced. I don't readily see how it translates into a dramatizing - for one thing, who would play Nicholson and not seem to be doing a SNL impersonation? And frankly I'd be more interested in the 3rd movie of the Chinatown Trilogy. But Affleck has become a solid director with good instincts, so maybe
Ben Affleck to Write, Direct Making of 'Chinatown" Movie for Paramount

 

' Chinatown ' is a fantastic movie. Jack Nicholson at his best . Faye Dunaway at her best .Roman Polanski at his best.
Not a minute wasted in a tight film.
Could this movie be made today ? Not a chance.

 

Isn't that the truth!

 

The story is full of distinctive figures who might be difficult to cast convincingly — not just Nicholson but also Faye Dunaway, Roman Polanski, Robert Evans, John and Anjelica Huston... all pretty unique individuals.

 

Yeah, and they'll probably get ET's Henry Thomas to play the Nicholson role as was done in The Shining sequel, "Doctor Sleep". Some "creatives" just can't leave well enough alone.

 

IIRC much of the book dealt with the scriptwriting (and a companion of Robert Towne who maybe didn't get the screeenplay credit he deserved). Interesting reading for someone like me who holds the film in such high regard, but I don't see how that translates well to visualizing, much less a strong feature film narrative. Maybe they have a new take on it

 

To a younger generation of cinemagoers, Chinatown is not that well-known a film.

I recently spoke to someone who calls himself a ‘dramaturge’. His reference points were all current filmmakers (including Pixar animations). I asked him a question about Robert Towne. Turned out he’d never heard of him (or of Chinatown).

 

I hope the "making of' movie can explain the plot surrounding diverting water. I've seen Chinatown so many times I still get confused over salt water bad for glass.

 

I haven't watched it for a long time but i always thought that the plot around diverting/dumping water was by Noah Cross [Huston] wanting to make the land he was after buying in California parched/worthless to grow Oranges on etc by claiming there wasn't enough water to irrigate the land and only enough water for people to drink ........ because they were dumping it by night.
His son in law discovered what he had been doing and so was killed.

 

I watched chinatown a few months back again (always loved that movie) and was astounded on just good it still was/is, it hasn't dated much as many or indeed most movies from the 70's have.

 

Maybe it's the way you worded it but I still don't get why Cross would buy land he planned on going to the trouble of dumping water just so he could claim the land worthless for farming. In the movie I had to pay close attention to Gittes rifling through municipal documents and photo ops with the son in law which really didn't tell me anything. It seemed more of a distraction from the real problem of Cross' screwed up relationship with his daughter.

I still like the movie but the details of the plot was a bit tough to follow much like LA Confidential. But that's what makes me want to watch both of them in order to see if I spot something I missed that explains it all.

 

The land Cross and his cabal was purchasing was then going to be incorporated into the City of L.A. "You can bring the water to Los Angeles, or bring Los Angeles to the water".

In reality, that's very similar to what actually happened. L.A. is very tenuous enterprise in many respects.

 

Mullray was killed/drowned in his garden pond by Cross and his men [unknowing to them it contained sea water] Bad for the glass/grass which it had strayed onto.
His reading glasses were found in the pond.
His body was taken away and put into fresh/drinking water at one of the reservoirs making it look like he slipped, banged his head and drowned there.

I still think it was Cross's plan to devalue the surrounding land through lack of water and purchase it cheaply.
I should imagine he had people on his payroll at the water authorities helping him achieve his aims of 'water for his land and non for others'.

 

It seems to me as their screwed up relationship was just added as shock value.
To me the film is merely about the 2 most precious commodities ............ land and water.

 

Chinatown stands alone.

 

Not a wasted frame. Every aspect of the film is superlative. The devastating cynicism that informs final sequence is well earned.

 

Bill Hader as Robert Evans???

 

Nicholson was perfect for Chinatown; not so perfect for The Shining.

 

Face replacements for all the recognizable actors, I bet.

 

I was kinda' being humorous with the "Salt water bad for glass" as a line in the movie spoken by the Asian gardener and parroted by Gittes until he goes over to the pond and SEES THE GLASSES that points to where Mullray was murdered. Obviously the Asian Gardener's pronunciation of GRASS as GLASS is kind of a weird happenstance and a bit prophetic considering the moment when Gittes puts two and two together to actually see Mullray's glasses in the salt water pond.

It's also just odd kinda' humor as screenwriting goes. Just goes to show how unique this movie really is. Just that one line got me to think that much about it.

 

i got john huston covered

 

And the score is one of the best. In the last year I must have listened to that score 30 times, studying it, trying to work out what Goldsmith did and how he did it. It's both avant garde and romantic, an incredible achievement, especially given the short amount of time in which he wrote and recorded it.

 

I'm against it. The Big Goodbye is not a disciplined history of the
production process. There are extensive interviews with the crew
and even workshops taught by the filmmakers intended for Guild-
student use only that were not consulted. The book uses none of
the production documents that are available in repositories. It's
been a long time since I've looked into this but another book, a
production history, could be written that would expose how
incomplete and inaccurate The Big Goodbye is. I like Afleck, he
is immensely talented. While he will probably make a solid drama
out of the book there's no way it can be accurate, germane, truthful
or fair. The content isn't there. The film can only be belittling.

I agree that Chinatown is a work of art and a masterpiece that
shines brilliantly as the decades pass. It's a hard diamond of a film.

 

Thanks for that perspective. If true, too bad, as Chinatown deserves better. Which Guilds have the material, and is it available to the public?

 

It's not available to the public, no.