Had never heard of Egri. A seminar I once took, which distilled Robert McKee's analysis of story structure, has afforded me many lovely, knowing insights into film. Other names the seminar mentioned were Joseph Campbell and Victor Popov.

"Chinatown" is my favorite movie of all-time. "Godfather" is in the top 5 too, but "Chinatown" is becoming more underrated every year. It's not mentioned as much as it used to be. Had it been set in NYC, it would get more play, but no one knows/respects L.A. history enough.

Robert,
I read once that Chinatown had at least 3 endings. Are you aware of the other ones and do you have an opinion if they might have been superior?

Jake,
Having watched Chinatown several times, whenever I go to LA I always "see" the city through the "eyes" that film offers. (In June for Ariel's zt'l lecture, I spotted the Pig 'N Whistle for the first time.)

Jeremiah:

Yes, I know of Campbell and Popov. Egri's work is infinitely more far reaching. I should mention that it's clear that Field soaked up Egri's ideas and then distilled them into his method with some very smart modifications.

Jake:

"Chinatown" is an absolute masterpiece. It might be the masterpiece of our time. Polanski and Faye Dunaway both privately told me that Towne's original ending was quite conventional and "happy." Polanski insisted on the tragic ending. Towne was dead-set against it. Felt it would hurt the film at the box-office. Polanski persisted, and rewrote the ending so that the "flaw" in Mrs. Mulwray's eye gets paid off dramatically — with a bullet.

The moral of the story is: audiences don't care if the ending is tragic as long as it's organic to a great story. In my experience, audiences hate happy endings that are patently false.

"Chinatown" was the last film that Roman directed in America.

I once used the "there's a flaw in your iris" line on a woman in college. Let's just say it worked a little better than my editorial writing.

Hollis Mulwray is one of the best non-contrived Christ figures in all of cinema. He is literally sacrificed for the sins of the people. John Huston as the heavy was the casting coup of the 70's, if not the whole 20th cent.

Towne was pretty dopey to want a happy ending. The sequel was so bad, I might even say that Godfather III was better.

To my mind, a movie is only as good as its screenplay. If the writing's no good, it doesn't matter who the actors are. And given what it takes to get a movie greenlighted these days, and the amount of money they throw at them, I wonder at how there can be so many bad or really mediocre films out there. I remember watching Oceans 12 - could barely make out the dialogue...there was no plot - and wondering how all of these stars with their agents and handlers couldn't figure out that it wasn't any good.

btw - give me the happy endings. I (mostly) go to movies for entertainment and escapism. If I have to cry (as in A Beautiful Life) then I do, but I'd rather not.

MH

Mata Hari:

No matter how good the script is if the actors are lousy the film is going to stink. Believe me, I've seen some fine scripts die because of disastrous casting. But of course, a great cast cannot save a dog of a script — in spite of what most stars believe regarding their awesome powers and charisma.

As for happy endings: they go where they are organic to the material. Tacking on a happy ending just for the sake of, well, happiness, never really works. "Chinatown: was a huge hit, as was "The Godfather," and oh yeah, "Romeo and Juliet" — all major downers.

I am not sure I agree that Chinatown is becoming more underrated as time goes on. If another film as perfect as that one has been made since, I don't know what it is. Most people who I know who appreciate film appreciate that. And however good "The Pianist" was, Polanski's Oscar of a couple of years back was in truth at least as much for Chinatown.

Jake and Jeremiah are right that the film is very much about LA, though. (Robert, if you were wondering why I spent some of my time driving around the Inland Empire and the Mojave Desert when I was in California recently, to some extent what I was doing was examining the bleakness of the terrain on which the cities of southern California were built. And Chinatown is about that, of course, amongst other things).

Michael:

Well, I mean underrated in that it isn't talked about as much in the general news media. Perhaps because of the terrible sequel Nicholson himself directed. I read that originally, Chinatown was supposed to be a trilogy about the history of LA from 1930-1960 or so, clearly the key years in that city's core development from boom town to major U.S. city.

The history of L.A. is extremely rich, and I submit to everyone here that the truly great book and or movie about its history from Spanish mission times until now has yet to be written a la the book Gotham about NYC, which is one of the best.

Michael:

I never wondered why you were driving around the Inland Empire and the Mojave. I mean, you come to LA what else do you do but cruise.

That's America in general, really. Getting behind the wheel of a car and going for a drive is one of the great pleasures of the country. California is a particularly nice state for it.