Chinatown [Paperback]

Directed in 1974 by Roman Polanski from a script by Robert Towne,Chinatownis a brilliant reworking of film noir set in a drought-stricken Los Angeles of the 1930s. Jack Nicholson stars as J. J. Gittes, a private eye who, despite his best intentions, can bring only disaster on Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), the enigmatic woman he has come to love. Gittes's investigation into the death of Evelyn's husband exposes a chaos of political corruption and sexual violence lurking beneath a glittering, sun-bleached surface.

Michael Eaton's compelling study situatesChinatownin relation to a history of fictional detectives, from Sophocles to Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock. In an absorbing account of the film's narrative development and visual style, he tracesChinatown'srelationship to the pessimism of American cinema (and, by extension, the wider culture) in the mid-1970s, and the source of the film's narrative and visual impact.

In his afterword to this new edition, Eaton considersChinatown's1990 sequelThe Two Jakesand also the movie's changing fortunes in the years since its release.

Acknowledgements
'Chinatown'
Afterword to the 2024 Edition
Notes
Credits
Bibliography