Chinatown is a really good film. The characters and the strange character relations are somewhat unique. Another particularly interesting element of the film is its structure, and it is discussed in Alternative Scriptwriting at some length. I’m probably inadvertantly spoiling the film for you in the rest of this post, so if you plan to see the movie (which you should) perhaps skip over this of this paragraph. The structure of Chinatown isn’t particularly noticeable,, seemingly framed almost standardly in the three acts, but then the last act of the film illustrates otherwise, revealing to the audience something classically unexpected.

Let me clarify what I’m saying about Chinatown regarding the “expected”: Jake’s actions at the end of the film are relatively congruent with the rest of his actions in the film, and perhaps even expected. I say this since he he is portrayed as flawed character in the first two acts who is often out to save his own neck and “make an honest living”, regardless of his good intentions. However, in films that are of the restorative three act structure, “good” and “bad” morals are somewhat ubiquitous in a generlised kind of way, and “good” ultimately prevails in the third act, and the protagonist restores the mess he or she has managed to create. So although Jake acts as he always has, and says nothing at the end of the film because the people he cares about are already dead, the sense of “good” or “justice” is not embraced by him.

So, the film ends with a kind of hopeless inevitability where everything is against you, even though the structure suggests (because of the norm) that the film is going to end with good prevailing where Evelyn perhaps does not die, and Jake lives or dies fighting for Evelyn and justice. Thus, although it seems unlikely that Jake can turn this situation in his favor, we (as an audience) want him to somehow end up on top. Chinatown achieves this feat by forming a balance between the characters, their implied back stories, and their actions in the film, which essentially foreshadow the end with many glimpses of the “reality” of the situation. So, the end, although unexpected, was well crafted with the rest of the story, and not merely some sort of unexpected twist or sudden event that’s simply there to make the audience say “shit, I didn’t expect that!” Instead there was a suggestion of twisted (or different) morality as a film, a sharp bite of reality. Again, I mean that in relative terms, compared to the more standard restorative three-act structure films, like Wall Street or High Fidelity. The unlikely hero is in a situation where he is unlikely to succeed but this time he actually fails; sometimes, good intentions aren’t enough. Sometimes people with large amounts of power doing “bad” things think they’re right, or that certain things are “just that way”.

On a side note, I was rewatching Chinatown with a person who hadn’t seen the film in a long time and couldn’t remember it. So, the film ended, and this person said that they had wasted her time watching a morally bankrupt film. This person felt that filmmakers have a social responsibility to make films which have a positive impact on audiences, instead of taking the audience for an unnecessary “ride”. This person said that films are entertainment, and thus they should be entertaining without misguiding the audience just to show a morally bankrupt, unexpected ending merely to have a unique film. I don’t agree with this line of thinking because [some] films need to be thought-provoking, perhaps challenging norms and reflecting other realities or potential realities in society. If one thinks that films are just for entertainment so that one feels good at the end, then that’s fine, but can Chinatown and the filmmakers be called “morally bankrupt”? I suppose it depends on your idea of morality. I think the last thing we need are films that all have the same moral standpoint that don’t even question the naive notion of a “universal” or absolute morality. Such widespread, exact, notions of morality don’t really seem to exist in the world today. Furthermore, I don’t think all films need to show “good” always prevailing, nor do they need to show characters that care most about what many (but not all) think is right.

So what does Jake do? What’s right? What is morally acceptable? Does Jake stand up for those who are already dead, for “justice”, merely to get ridiculed and killed? Does Jake stand up for Katherine when he really knows that he can’t achieve anything against the amounts of “power” he would need to oppose. Does Jake trick Evelyn’s father and take him elsewhere in the end so that he gets himself killed or does he rely on his “backup” so that both he and Evelyn can potentially survive the ordeal? Like Jake says earlier in the film regarding his time working in Chinatown: he wanted to do good by someone, but he’s convinced that he was just unlucky.

Not everyone can be Rick from Casablanca.

Caste system . You’re not better than me.

The [constructed] relationship between love (or human connection) and religion is something I really want to explore in the script I’m currently writing.

I found Farah’s story while rummaging through Jenny’s blog in the Transient Spaces category. It’s quite sad that people can’t be together for reasons such as these, and I find it hard to understand in many ways. As much as I can intellectually understand the reasoning behind such relationship incompatibility I don’t really understand since I can’t relate to it personally. Sure I have prejudices regarding people in certain professions and often find amusement in stereotypes, but I really don’t see a person to be better or worse than me or anyone else until I get to know them. The class system is an abused system – something I want to look into and write about in a following post – and it is useless to me when determining the quality of a human being. I have a feeling that all this rubbish leads back to some sort of bogus interpretation and/or unquestioning acceptance of something written in scripture, or something said by a person of decent “authority.”

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hinduism (which I briefly scanned through) presented Hinduism as something more open-minded than Farah’s story illustrates, and my strongly Hindu friends are also quite open-minded. And moreover, any scripture that I have read doesn’t mention such discrimination. However, I have known for a long time, from stories that my parents and family have told me (and Tamil films ), that such ridiculous rules and ideas of caste and marriage between different religions exist in abundance. It makes me angry. If two people love each other and have similar values, the rest is superfluous. If anyone else thinks differently, please say so – I’d like to hear it.

Solid

Appealing

Relevant

Provoking

Original

Engaging

Unconventional

Hole-proof

Educated

Academic

Entertaining

Universal

Stylish

Hard to come up with words – I think I had words like caramel in the big cloud…

Anyway, this post is meant to be my comments on our wonderful abstracts

 Nico: The outcome of his project looks like it will be extremely creative and different to every other project. At the same time, I’m unsure what kind of work he’ll create and what exact problem it solves – although I can guesss here what he’ll do, perhaps the abstract needs a tad more clarity.

Mine: The project focuses on a form and subject matter that I really interests me and will hopefully help me in the future. The abstract contains too many generisations which either need to be clearly defined, or need to be removed.

Kris: I think the first half of the abstract is very clear in the aims of his thesis and, it’s also a very relevent project for this year (with The Departed winning Oscars etc). The second part of his abstract is less clear to me – greater understanding of foreign cultures or wider acknowledgement of the culture existence? Perhaps the wording of “general understanding” should be changed. I think the abstract is quite strong.

Sarah: Massive scope for research, and so many different avenues for an outcome. However, I just can’t see a coherent problem stated. At this time, it seems really interesting – just needs a bit more solid direction.

Michaela: Really clear and the research would be extremely useful to people at home, and also television industry. On the same note, I’m just curious how the general population will have access to the analysis! Perhaps some thoughts on how to maximise impact.

Vivian: Fantastic that this project will really kick-start her advertising career and such – such a practical outcome. My worries are that dealing with advertising as well as the economics and business of the project will be a massive task, and essentially there are so many different things to research and apply. I also worry if research will be done regarding the potential success of the project – i.e. who will come to the agency?

Sue: Well if i was writing or directing a war film, I would read this thesis – perhaps a “how not to make a war film guide.” I think this project will be huge – it needs to be more focused, because even analysing one film would mean researching history, politics, a whole lot of other theory before one reaches film.

Pheona: As a person who did media studies in high school it definitely needs some work in teaching resources. I had a great teacher who knew his stuff, but I had more issues with the structure of the course. Perhaps this project may not end up being enough unless issues with the course structure are addressed.

I think everyone is going to end up with a great thesis or project. The enjoyable class last week really helped me underline some of the things I need to clearly define first!