Don't Make a Scene: Chinatown

The Set-up: Clues are everywhere in Chinatown. "Applecore." Jasper Lamar Crabb. Midnight visits to timed run-off's in the middle of a drought. "Middle of a drought and the water commissioner drowns. Only in L.A., huh?" 

Clues are everywhere. 

But you have to pay attention to the time-line, too. And you have to trust your instincts, as Jake Gittes does. Trouble is, Gittes' instincts don't always produce results that are, shall we say, constructive. He's a private eye specializing in matrimonial work--that is, splitting up matrimony--and he does a respectable business with un-respectable clients using his un-respectable ethics. This time, Gittes has a big fish on the line, and he knows it's going to lead someplace real big. Now, he's interviewing the last link in the chain and the one with the most gold in it. Noah Cross has a biblical name (it's used a few times in other noirs, too) and he is a retired city-father for the Great City of Los Angeles. He used to own the water that feeds that oasis in the desert. And Gittes is trying to trap him in the only way he knows how—by bluffing Cross into thinking he knows more than he does. But he's not seeing too well with all those dollar signs dancing in front of his eyes. Because clues abound in this conversation. There's the way Cross never gets Gittes' name right, and never apologizes for it when he's corrected. Because Noah Cross is powerful enough that he doesn't have to remember names or acknowledge his lesser's.

And then there's the curious matter of the dog that barked in the night. Gittes holds this interview with a big hurking bandage on his nose, from when he got his left nostril slit for hanging around a water-dumping operation that nearly drowned him. But it's never mentioned in the entire conversation, nor in the movie by anyone but cops. Maybe it's because everybody assumes everybody's got something to hide.

That's what this nice little lunch is about: both parties ask questions to find out what the other knows. Both parties play little games with each other—Cross making Gittes feel uncomfortable with the fish and the questions and the obfuscation and Gittes slamming Cross with little bits of information to cut through Cross' bull-shit. Cross even offers to hire Gittes to find the missing "element" to the story—the third person to hire him in this whole mystery, a proposition that would have Gittes triple-dipping on the same situation. Triple-dipping. Water again. It always comes back to water.

Director Polanski shoots this scene very sparely, never getting in the way of the actors, the camera movements following the players on the rare occasions that they move. Polanski only breaks up the two-shot on two occasions: to show the detail of the fish on Gittes' plate (I suspect that's a studio request); and when Cross offends Gittes by asking if he's sleeping with his daughter. At that point the two men become separated in their own singular frames, and for the first time, Gittes is dominant in the shot, being photographed from a low angle, Cross, looking up as if in supplication. Two-shots are the key. Even when Cross is being deliberately obtuse, and facing away from Gittes. The actors are the key to this, with their respective echoes to noir's past--Nicholson with his short Bogart stature, and Huston, who directed Bogart in one of the most famous noir The Matese Falcon.* There's a lot of history going on in the background of this scene--both scenario-wise, and for the film-maker's.

Like Gittes, watch for clues. Don't be distracted--especially by that 1970's-era smog layer hanging off the horizon. You'll miss a big clue if you're looking at that.

The Story: Private Investigator Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) has been following Hollis Mulwray, Los Angeles Head of Water and Power, for having an illicit affair at a time when he's opposing an important dam project. Then he turns up dead. His wife, Evelyn (Faye Dunaway), is not the same woman who hired Gittes to investigate the husband in the first place, and now threatens to sue him. Something's up, and Gittes doesn't like being played for a chump, or being threatened. He knows that there's a conspiracy to divert water in the middle of the night to play up Los Angeles' water shortage, and that Mulwray knew about it. Now, he's working for Evelyn to find out who murdered her husband, and his next stop is an interview with Noah Cross (John Huston), one of the city founders, and coincidentally, the father of his client and the former partner of the murdered man. Tight little family you got there. Things are gonna get tighter. 

Action!

Cross: Mr. Gits?
Gittes: Git-es. Noah Cross: You've got a nasty reputation, Mr. Gits. I like that.
Jake Gittes (dubious): Thanks.
Cross: If you were a bank president that'd be one thing. But in your business, its admirable, and it's good advertising.
Gittes: It doesn't hurt.
Cross: It's why you attracted a client like my daughter.
Gittes: Probably. Cross: But I'm surprised that you're still working for her--unless she's suddenly come up with another husband.
Gittes: No. She happens to think the last one was murdered.
Cross: How'd she get that idea? Gittes: I think I gave it to her. Cross: I hope you don't mind. I believe they should be served with the head. Gittes: Fine. As long as you don't serve the chicken that way.
Cross: Tell me, what do the police say?
Gittes: They're calling it an accident.
Cross: Who's the investigating officer?
Gittes: Lou Escobar. He's a lieutenant.
Cross: You know him?
Gittes: Oh yeah.
Cross: Where from?
Gittes: We used to work together in Chinatown.
Cross: Would you call him a capable man?
Gittes: Very.
Cross: Honest? Gittes: As far as it goes. 'Course he has to swim in the same water we all do.
Cross: 'Course, but you've no reason to think he's bungled the case.
Gittes: None.
Cross: That's too bad.
Gittes: Too bad?
Cross: Hmm. Disturbs me. Makes me think you're taking my daughter for a ride. Financially speaking, of course. What are you charging her?
Gittes (carefully): My usual fee. Plus a bonus if I get results.
Cross: Are you sleeping with her?
Cross: (Pause. Gittes gets annoyed.) Come, come, Mr. Gits, you don't have to think about that to remember, do ya? Gittes: (getting up to leave) If you want an answer to that question, Mr. Cross, I'll put one of my men on the job. Good afternoon-- Cross: Mr. Gits...
Gittes: Git-tes.
Cross: Gittes. You're dealing with a disturbed woman who'd just lost her husband. I don't want her taken advantage of. Sit down.
Gittes: What for?
Cross: You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe me, you don't. (This stops Gittes. He seems faintly amused by it.) Cross: Why's that funny? Gittes: It's what the district attorney used to tell me in Chinatown.
Cross: Yeah, Was he right? Exactly what do you know about me? Sit down. Gittes: Mainly that you're rich and too respectable to want to get your name in the newspapers. Cross: 'Course I'm respectable. I'm old. Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get repectable if they last long enough. I’ll double whatever your fee is, and pay $10,000 if you find Hollis’ girlfriend.
Gittes: Girlfriend?
Cross: Disappeared, hasn't she? Gittes: Yeah?
Cross: Couldn't it be useful to talk to her?
Gittes: Maybe.
Cross: If Mulwray was murdered, she'd be one of the last to see him alive. Gittes: When's the last time you saw Mulwray? Cross starts to reply, then there's the sound of a mariachi band, and some men in formation clear the bluff about a hundred yards off. They are dressed like Spanish dons on horseback. For the most part they are fat in the saddle and pass along in disordered review to the music.
Cross: Sheriff's gold posse. Bunch of damn fools who pay $5,000 apiece toward the sheriff's re-election. I let 'em practice up out here.
Gittes: Yeah. Do you remember the last time you saw Mulwray?
Cross: At my age, you, uh, tend to forget. Gittes: It was five days ago, outside the Pig 'n' Whistle, and you had one hell of an argument. I got the pictures in my office if that'll help you remember. What was the argument about? Cross: My daughter.
Gittes: What about her? Cross: Just find the girl, Mr. Gits. I happen to know that Hollis was fond of her, and I'd like to help her if I can.
Gittes: I had no idea that you and Hollis were that fond of one another.
Cross: Hollis Mulwray made this city. And he made me a fortune. We were a lot closer than Evelyn realized.
Gittes: If you wanna hire me, I still have to know what the argument was about.Cross: My daughter’s a very jealous woman. I didn’t want her to find out about the girl.
Gittes: How did you find out? Cross: I’ve still got a few teeth left in my head, and a few friends in town.
Gittes: Okay. I’ll have the secretary draw up the papers. Tell me, are you frightened for the girl, or what Evelyn might do to her.
Cross: Just find the girl.
Gittes: I’ll look into it, as soon as I’ve checked out some orange groves.
Cross: Orange groves?
Gittes: We’ll be in touch, Mr. Cross.
Chinatown

Words by Robert Towne

Pictures by John A. Alonzo and Roman Polanski

Chinatown is available on DVD from Paramount Home Video.

The Postman Always Rings (Twice)

The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946) Drifter Frank Chambers (John Garfield) blows in on the Santa Ana wind* and gets picked up along the road by a man called Kyle Sackett (Leon Ames), and gets himself dropped off at a local diner-slash-service station called "Twin Oaks" run by a genial old fellow named Nick Smith (Cecil Kellaway), who has a sign out front that indicates he could use a little help around the place. Frank can use the work, but he's not sure about it until he gets a look at the benefits, when he follows a fallen lipstick across the diner floor and sees Nick's much younger wife, Cora (Lana Turner), who shows up in a midriff-baring white two-piece number that one presumes she doesn't normally wear at job interviews for mechanics. With Nick, he's a bit of toady, but with Cora, it's a sparring match where he always ends up the loser. "The best way to get my husband to fire you is to not do what I tell you to do," she tells him once he's off work the first day. When he grabs her in a clinch later, she just fixes her lipstick and walks away...slowly. She's funny that way.

But Frank is confident. "I can sell anything to anybody," he brags. "That's what you think," she scoffs. But, a moonlight swim (with Nick's approval) starts to get Cora in a buying mood. And when Nick goes away to Los Angeles, Frank seizes his chance—there's a lovely moment when, he's tending the dining bar with one lone customer between him and trying to make his move on Cora and he stares the poor sap down until he's so uncomfortable he leaves...with a tip—closing the diner for business and giving his full attention to Cora. She finally answers the question that's nagged at him—why marry Nick? She tells him that since the time she was 14, she had to fight off a lot of guys—all of them—until she met Nick, with a ring and a proposal. "And you retired," he says. "The undefeated champ." "Not 100% undefeated," she says. And that is that.

Soon after they begin their affair—hours after, in fact, which makes you wonder if they had enough time to have an affair—they run off together. But, as Nash has the only available car, they end up bumming rides to get away, and that's just honest-to-goodness not good enough for Cora (even though it may be good enough for Frank. *CONFLICT ALERT* She doesn't want to start out their life together as bums...like Frank. Besides, if she just up and leaves, all the work she put into Twin Oaks will go waste, as Nick would surely keep it in a divorce. So, the two go to plan "B" by dialing "M" for murder: they decide that Cora will get to keep Twin Oaks if they kill Nick. Well, at least kill Nick and get away with it.

And so, they hoof it back to Twin Oaks, waiting for Nick to come back. He does, conveniently weaving from from too much drink in the city, but not conveniently enough that he's killed drunk-driving all the way from Los Angeles. The plan is for Cora to clobber him in the bath-tub, so he falls and drowns. But, Fate, in the form of passing cars, busy-body motorcycle cops, and a darn cat manage to escalate the dread and foil the plot. Nash only get conked on the head by Cora, but a black-out-by-cat keeps the plot from being completed, and he ends up in the hospital, undrowned, with no memory of it happening at all. The speculation is that it's from his "fall" in the bathtub, but I'd make a case for him being "so drunk last night."

When Nick comes back to Twin Oaks, he decides to sell the place and move him and Cora to Canada with his sister, and that's something that Cora just won't do—so to prevent it, Frank and Cora stage a car accident, hitting Nick over the head—again—and the crash to explain the injuries that killed him.

Nick does die, and Frank is injured, but the District Attorney trying the case is the same Kyle Sackett who drove Frank into town, and, thinking that it's all too coincidental, separates the two lovers and gets a statement from Frank when he only files charges against her. The two turn on each other, and it's only through the machinations of Cora's lawyer (Hume Cronyn) that she only gets a manslaughter charge for being the driver of the vehicle.

Cain's sordid little story is given a veneer of M-G-M glamour throughout, making the affair between Frank and Cora much more romantic than it should be—after all, chicanery and murder are what bring the two together and what will ultimately drive a wedge between them. Everything looks clean and tidy and Frank is one of those lucky mechanics for whom grease never seems to stick, not even under his fingernails. Turner is always photographed in the best possible light and a shimmering gauze in close-up's. One may almost get the impression they're innocent of murder or deception. But, Cain's story ultimately catches up to them and anything illusory becomes tragic reality, when Fate comes a-knocking again and disturbs any complacent slumber and the dreams it may contain. The postman will always ring twice, just to shatter any misconceptions.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (Bob Rafelson, 1981) Cain's story was remade in 1981 with no pretensions by playwright (and ultimately director) David Mamet (his first screenplay), who takes the romance out of it, and with the more low-key direction of Bob Rafelson, makes the circumstances a lot more tawdry. The major difference is that the 1946 M-G-M version is a "PG" version, slouching towards a "PG-13" (if such a thing existed at the time), whereas the 1981 Warner Bros. version is a tumescent "R," where the participants are desperate people, unattractive in body or spirit. The disparities between the people involved are seen in a much harsher light. The novel's depiction of Nick Papadakis ("The Greek") is brought out with more emphasis on his ethnicity and the casting of John Colicos makes one wonder why this version's Cora—in the depiction of Jessica Lange—would "settle" for this particular man for any reason other than being sold to him or by any others means beyond some kind of blackmail.

One even wonders why she would find Jack Nicholson's drifter a more attractive alternative. Not that the actors' ages make that much of a difference—Nicholson was only 43 at the time of filming; Lange was 31. But, Nicholson was only 10 years younger than Colicos, and although a great actor and (sure) a star, he was beginning to get doughy, his hair thinning, and progressing from his younger, angular good looks to a young middle-age. Would a beauty like Lange's Cora risk everything for him? One wonders.

The story proceeds the same, but back in Cain's original era of the Depression years: Drifter. Twin Oaks. Older husband. Male lust. Female need. Clinch. Affair. Murder. Ring-ring. But, there's nothing romantic about the Frank-Cora affair in this one. The two start out just as bitchy as the 1946 version, but when Nick leaves town, there's no embrace and kiss—it's a lunging, violent sex-scene that starts out as a rape, with the major indication that Cora wants it as badly as Frank does ("Come on!") is she clears the bread-table—loaves, dough, bread-knife, flour (one worries about yeast infections)—with a clumsy wave of her arms and it's a big dusty fumble with a lot of flailing and almost comical moans of exertion. 

Ya know...like sex turned out to be rather than what you imagined...

But, it's not enough that Rafelson and Mamet strip away the romantic veneer that played such a part of the M-G-M version, they've also added a sado-masochistic kink to the affair, with a lot of roughage and slapping—Cora spits in Frank's face at one point and there's a disgusted curl to her lip when she says "You're scum, Frank. I knew that when I met you. You'll never change." This is "trading up?"

One gets the impression that this is what she wants and it's what she thinks she deserves and is resigned to her fate. She's certainly not as ambitious as Turner's Cora. She just "settles" for slightly higher increments. And Nicholson's Frank isn't a go-getter drifter, he's just a snake, who'll turn any situation to his advantage. It does make his turning on Cora once Nick is killed a bit more understandable, psychologically. He thinks he's the master of his fate, and a white trash Master of the Universe, who, if he knew about Ayn Rand, would cling to objectivism as an excuse for what is basically selfish self-interest. Maybe he and Cora have more in common than originally thought.

It made me think less of a human drama than of zoology—we're dealing with much more primal instincts that crouch deep in our alligator brains. Cora calls Frank an animal when she sees him drinking milk out of a bottle instead of a glass and one can see their relationship as more bestial—the male lion lords it over everybody while the female is the more practical of the sexes. But, it's a completely different power dynamic than from the '46 version, which has more to do with entymology. In that one, Cora is the queen bee, giving the illusion that the men are more than mere drones...and potential victims. 

"Aren't we ambitious?" Garfield's Frank cracks at Turner's Cora when she talks about her plans for Twin Oaks. Of course she is, and at a level far higher than the men she encounters. And higher than Lange's Cora in the Mamet-Rafelson version.

But, Nature is red in tooth and claw. And, far more powerful than the machinations that preoccupy the creatures that plan and scheme and rut in The Postman Always Rings Twice. It can unravel any scheme that chooses to beat Fate.

* Raymond Chandler wrote about the desert winds that blew into Los Angeles: "On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen."

Do the Right Thing

Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)

"Now, watch and I'll show you the story of Life..."

It's been 22 years since Spike Lee launched his "Our Town" in Bed-Stuy, with Rosie Perez's aggressively pneumatic dance to Public Enemy's "Fight the Power." Twenty two years since the critics came out of the screening at Cannes saying that Lee's movie would foment race riots throughout the Summer, rather than cause the orderly lines around the block it did. Twenty two years since Lee debuted his movie about a particularly special day in the battle between Love and Hate: the hottest day of the Summer, the best day that Sal's Pizzeria ever had, the day Da Mayor (the late, great Ossie Davis) did another heroic thing in his life.

The day the music died.

And the worst day that Sal's Pizzeria ever had.

And someone's responsible—the least responsible member of the community.Do The Right Thing is Lee's version of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" (but not with slices of middle-American white-bread life) and everyone (but everyone) thinks they're the Stage Manager. It's Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" with attitude, as all the characters have one aspect that defines their personality and, like the strip, something radical has to happen in order for them to break out of their self-inflicted stereotypes.* And maybe grow up.

The diverse, huge cast and series of one act diversions is a culmination of something Lee's been saying since the beginning and folk of all types have been mis-reading. It's not about black versus white versus Latino versus Korean versus Jewish. It's "us" against "them," cop versus citizen, young versus old, man against woman, and this particular pizza, forged in the heat, can be sliced all sorts of ways, but probably not equally. Because when it comes to hate, there's no such thing as fair.

Except your fair share of it.

What it is is the age-old tribal struggle of the pissing match between privilege and entitlement and who thinks who's got what. Everybody marks their territories with lines of death that no one can cross. And on the hottest day of the year, those lines get mighty stinky.

The last words of Lee's previous film, School Daze, are the first ones in Do the Right Thing: "Wake Up." In the previous film, they are hollered by Dap (Laurence Fishburne) in frustration and desperation, a protest. In DTRT, it's the reveille of Mister Senor Love Daddy (Samuel L. Jackson) at the start of his shift on We Love Radio, but the context is the same. Become awake. Become aware. Don't sleep-walk. Look alive. It's a warning, but still a wake-up call.  Open your eyes, people.

The wandering begins along the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant color-filtered through Ernest Dickerson's floating lens.  Ugly attitudes have never been so beautifully filmed, approaching M-G-M Technicolor in its vibrancy and beauty.  The crowds ebb and flow, clash, curse and break apart, some wander like vagabonds, while others, acting as a Greek chorus, stay planted and observe and trash-talk. Locations vary between street and stage, at time, sometimes appearing to be aflame with color from the heat...but the constant music (like the American Graffiti soundtrack) emanates from boom-boxes and radios and the nearby station, mixing genres and styles—a polyglot of aural wallpaper, something for everyone. 

Do the Right Thing might not be Lee's most accomplished work—I think that might be Malcolm X, for its breadth and depth—but, it is the one that shows his love of movies. Take for example, the bling-knuckled demonstration by Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn)of Love and Hate, taken with few differences from The Night of the Hunter:

The Mitchum soliloquy ends with the old woman saying "I ain't ever heard it better told," whereas Lee's Mookie, after an uncomfortable pause, sums it up dead-pan comically ("There it is, Love and Hate") and non-committally (as he is wont to do until the end). Mookie is the fraying thread that holds the film together, despite his lack of ambition and any sense of active responsibility—Lee habitually plays characters in his films that are morally problematic (as opposed to M. Night Shamyalan's parts in his own films). He pairs him up with John Turturro's Pino (racist with no dolby and nor squelch and no backbone), when Sal treats Mookie's sister (Joie Lee) as a treasured customer. For both Mookie and Pino, the kindness crosses the line, is suspect and turns the heat up a bit on their attitudes. It's the one thing they agree on, but for different reasons (Pino, because she's black; Mookie, because she's family).

That complexity belies the simple tale of Love and Hate, pointedly, and Lee's entire film offers a tragic counter-point. It's never sure who to bet on in the fight, as both sides will take rounds and both sides will sustain damage. And we might not even know when the fight is over.

But I ain't ever seen it better told.

In 1999, The Library of Congress inducted Do the Right Thing into The National Film Registry, just 10 years after its debut, and the first year it was eligible.

* One character—Danny Aiello's top-lined Sal—is consistently inconsistent, due in part to Aiello's ad-libbing  sections of Lee's script, which Lee allowed him to do, perhaps to build dramatic tension about what the man is going to do.  We'll look at a key scene—and how it differs from Lee's script in this Sunday's "Don't Make a Scene."