Chinatown, A Peak into Corruption

Roman Polanski’s renowned film Chinatown calls attention to the role of corruption and reflects the corruption of Los Angeles in the 1930s and 40s. Higher up and millionaire Noah Cross controversially and illegally diverts water to dry farm lands outside of Los Angeles for self-prosperity. Meanwhile, Private Investigator Mr. Gittes searches for the killer of Mr. Mulwray who opposed new water department policies and later he finds out Cross killed Mulwray to keep him quiet about Cross’ plans in the hill country.

            In Mr. Gittes’ investigation he trespasses on the Department of Water and Power land to find out about the inner-workings of the department. He discovers the department is secretly dumping water at night. Two gang looking men approach him and threaten to cut of his entire nose off if he returns. (Upon further research I found that Polanski cameos in a role as one of the threatening thugs.) While the men do not permanently scar Mr. Gittes they violently cut his nose forcing him to have to wear a large white bandage for the majority of the movie. This bandage is visually distracting throughout the movie, which symbolizes the glaring violence of corruption that cannot be escaped. The bandage also serves to reflect Gittes’ personal improvement on the case. By the time the bandage is removed he begins to find out more details in his case.

            In the infamous scene when Gittes slaps Mrs. Mulwray repeatedly to gain information about the woman, we learn she secretly hides the woman her husband had an affair with. More twisted, this woman is Mrs. Mulwray’s daughter and sister. Noah Cross, Mrs. Muwray’s father, raped his daughter at a young age producing an incestual daughter. The idea that Mr. Cross, someone with so much power and influnce, is so personally corrupt reflects the larger city of Los Angeles. In the hierarchy of power and money many leaders were corrupt and this trickles down through their families like it does to Mrs. Mulwray. The widespread dispersal of profanity affects the larger community creating the sense of citywide corruption by the end of the movie. This message is supported by the darkness and Film Noir style of the picture.

            The film ends with the murder of Mrs. Mulwray as she tries to escape the police and more importantly her father who wants custody of their daughter. After the police shoot her driving away her head falls onto the steering wheel honking the car horn making for an overly dramatic ending. This last scene takes place in Chinatown, or the “red-light district,” and as Gittes tries to help the daughter one of his men tell him “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown!” His partner is telling him that Gittes cannot change the way things are. He is commenting that no matter what Mr. Gittes does corruption will continue and that Chinatown is everywhere. Mr. Gittes is only one many but he represents the helplessness of everyone.     

For more Film Noir titles: http://www.imdb.com/genre/film_noir

Brazil: Where hearts were entertaining June

“Brazil,” by Terry Gilliam, is a 1985 science fiction noir film about the dystopian society of the future. The film follows the story of Sam Lowry, a government employee working at the Department of Records, a massive government bureaucratic organization that keeps records and track of all individuals in the "Brazil" society. The story revolves around the character Archibald Harry Buttle, who is mistaken as the terrorist engineer Archibald Harry Tuttle (played by Robert De Niro) and killed in custody. Jill Layton, a neighbor of Mr. Tuttle, tries to report this mistake to the Office of Information Retrieval (which is highly reminiscent of the Gestapo from both their uniform and tactics), but is instead marked as a terrorist herself for insisting the government made a mistake. Sam Lowry becomes obsessed about this woman because he keeps seeing her in his dreams, and as such he finally accepts a promotion to “The Department of Information Retrieval ” in order to get her classified information as well as clear the charges against her. However, Sam Lowry gets detained due to abusing his power, and is tortured at the end of the movie. The movie ends with him going crazy during torture and imagining that he escaped and lived a happier and simpler life in the countryside.

Although this film is primarily a critique of bureaucracy, the film also gives us a unique perspective on how the physical features of city actually reflect both the levels of corruption and inefficiency within a society. Near the beginning of the story, Sam Lowry goes to a fancy restaurant with his mother, and one of the noticeable features in the restaurant is the number of unsightly ventilation tubes snaking above the tables (as seen below).

Later in the movie, Tuttle explains that only the Central Services are allowed to work on ventilating systems, and as such the sloppy ventilating system visible in the restaurant is the work of Central Service Employees. This brings up an important idea that looking at a the physical characteristics of a city, especially the parts that the government runs, one can actually tell the efficiency of the government and the society as a whole. Thus, Just looking at the restaurant, one can already see the visible levels of bureaucratic and inefficient that plague the government. Another example of how the physical features of a city reflect its efficiency is shown when Sam goes to Jill’s apartment building. The camera first shows a propaganda poster, and the camera pans out after this shot to show a dirty and impoverished community, a reflection of the government’s inefficiency and the inequality rampant in the society(something which the masses are visibly displeased about, as shown in the pictures below).

Notice what is written over the H in Happiness on the picture below:

Notice the change as the camera shot above pans to the shot below:

The idea of using physical features to understand city works not only with the cities of “Brazil” but also with actual cities. For example when you look at a street in Austin, you can tell the presence the local government has in an area by observing subtle features like trash bins or street cleanliness (aka does the city of Austin Garbage Department regularly come by?) to more overt features like the nearness of police stations. Terry Gilliam uses these same techniques and features in his movie “Brazil,” albeit on grander scale than one would find in the real world.

Washer Mockumentary

Well we got no choice
All the girls and boys

Makin all that noise
'Cause they found new toys.

- Alice Cooper