roman polanski | the m0vie blog

44. Chinatown (#127)

Posted on September 16, 2017 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney and this week with special guest Phil Bagnell, The 250 is a fortnightly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every second Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode between them.

This time, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown.

When a seemingly routine investigation into spousal infidelity evolves into a political scandal, private investigator J.J. Gittes finds himself navigating the dark underworld of thirties Los Angeles. Sinister conspiracies, local politics, private ownership of public utilities. As Gittes digs deeper and deeper, he uncovers the rotten foundations upon which the city was built.

At time of recording, it was ranked the 127th best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: chinatown, cynicism, Film noir, jack nicholson, los angeles, noir, phil bagnell, roman polanski | Leave a comment »

The Death of the Author: The Impact of Off-Screen Behaviour on On-Screen Antics…

Posted on August 24, 2012 by Darren

The rather convolutedly-titled Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho will be arriving soon, the director’s Vertigo was recently named by Sight & Sound as the best film of all time and the British Film Institute is running a season of the director’s films. (There’s even a nice blu ray box set being released in October.) However, this focus on Alfred Hitchcock has, naturally, brought some focus on to the less pleasant aspects of his character. October, for example, will also see HBO airing The Girl, a documentary exploring his relationship with Tippi Hedren. She has some choice words on his character.

“I think he was an extremely sad character,” she said during a panel discussion of HBO’s upcoming The Girl, which recounts her troubled relationship with the director. “We are dealing with a brain here that was an unusual genius, and evil, and deviant, almost to the point of dangerous, because of the effect that he could have on people that were totally unsuspecting.”

Of course, such accusations and allegations are by no means new, but it does raise an interesting question about those masters of cinema. Even for those of us who resist the supermarket tabloid gossip about engagements and break-ups and cute-sounding-couple-nicknames, is it ever possible to divorce filmmaking from the person either in front or behind the camera?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: alfred hitchcock, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, British Film Institute, Citizen Kane, girl, hbo, hitchcock, Janet Leigh, Psycho, roman polanski, sight & sound, Tippi Hedren, vertigo, Whoopi Goldberg | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Act of Valour

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Darren

Act of Valour is an interesting little experiment that almost undermines its own central premise. Using real-life Navy SEALs to portray fictional Navy SEALs, one might imagine that the directors were opting for a naturalistic approach to the somewhat conventional action film. On paper, it seems like an attempt to construct a film drawing on the raw experiences of people who have lived through events similar to those depicted on screen, and to harness that personality in a way that connects with the audience more faithfully than an actor giving a performance could. Unfortunately, the movie winds up feeling horribly staged, with the cast given naturalistic dialogue that sound painfully rehearsed, a blaring soundtrack and an impersonal approach to the action sequences. While it might have the right stuff at its core, the surface of the movie is almost impenetrable.

Not quite a blast...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Action film, Chuck Norris, film, Government, Jeff Fahey, Major Commands, McCoy, military, Movie, Navy, Navy SEAL, non-review review, roman polanski, United States, United States Navy SEALs, Waugh | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Carnage

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Darren

Carnage is pretty much an excuse to watch four very skilled actors ripping chunks out of one another. What’s not to like?

This means Warhol!

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alan, carnage, christoph waltz, film, God of Carnage, jodie foster, john c. reilly, kate winslet, Michael, Movie, Nancy, non-review review, Penelope, review, roman polanski, Yasmina Reza | 12 Comments »

Thinking Outside the Box: When Does Reality Subtext Overwrite Fiction?

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Darren

It happens every so often, to the extent that I’m actually quite used to it. I’ll be either listening to Michael Jackson on my headphones, or mention in passing a bit of trivia, or name the musician as one of the most impressive of all time. And, undoubtedly, there will always be someone who will retort with, “Yeah, but he was a pedophile.” And that will be that – pretty much everything that Jackson has accomplished will be a moot point. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing one way or a nother, I just feel a little bit curious as to where the line between what happened in real life can prevent or undermine an artist’s work.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: controversies, controversy, ewan mcgregor, Gary Glitter, Hangover Part II, heath ledger, john landis, Mel Gibson, meta, Michael Jackson, Movies, reality, roman polanski | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Two Jakes

Posted on November 18, 2010 by Darren

I’m going to be completely honest here, and possibly ruin my reputation as a film boffin. Until I held the DVD of The Two Jakes in my hands about ten years ago, I didn’t even know there was a sequel to Chinatown. The belated sequel languished in development hell after real life intervened – there was no way that Polanski could direct a sequel to perhaps his most famous film (at least not in Los Angeles, where it was set) and the movie that followed became caught in a tug of war between actor Jack Nicholson and writer Robert Towne, both of whom wanted a shot at directing. Nicholson won, but one can’t help but get the feeling in watching the film that the movie might have been better served with a stronger and more impartial director.

Will the bad guy get his just deserts this time around?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: chinatown, film, jacknicholson, Jerry Goldsmith, los angeles, Movies, non-review review, Raymond Chandler, review, Robert Towne, roman polanski, sequel, the two jakes, Van Dyke Parks | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Chinatown

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Darren

“You may think you know what’s you’re dealing with,” a character warns private detective Jack Gittes at one point during Chinatown, “but, believe me, you don’t.” Later on, Gittes confesses to his lover that, when he was a police officer working in Chinatown, his beat consisted of doing “as little as possible”, an anecdote that screenwriter Robert Towne reportedly heard from an officer who had actually served in Chinatown – rather than an officer involving himself in some sort of event that he couldn’t possibly comprehend, the police would actively disengage themselves from the community. That’s the core of the corruption at the heart of Polanski’s film – how little anyone actually knows about what is really happening, and how it’s easy to ignore these things rather than attempting to deal with them.

A nosey detective...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: china town, chinatown, classic noir, faye dunaway, film, Film noir, films, jack nicholson, jacknicholson, jake gittes, john heuston, los angeles, Maltese Falcon, memento, Movies, neo-noir, noir, non-review review, review, Robert Towne, roman polanski, Two Jakes, Usual Suspects | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Ghost

Posted on October 8, 2010 by Darren

The Guardian once made a point that what distinguishes British writers from their American counterparts is that they simply refuse to ascribe to simplicity would could be blamed on malice:

The conspiracy theory has become an off-the-peg solution for writing about politics in Britain – to the detriment of writing, politics and Britain. If The Wire had been made here, its hero McNulty would have discovered that Baltimore’s problems were not the result of a shortsighted political culture, or the weakness of human nature, but were the fault of one property developer in a polo-neck.

It’s an astute observation, rendering The Ghost a very British reflection on the most turbulent legacy of a recent Prime Minister.

How will Lang keep his spirits up?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: adrian lang, conspiracy, conspiracy theory, ewan mcgregor, film, Ghost Writer, hokey, Movie, non-review review, pierce brosnan, politics, Prime Minister, review, Robert Harris, roman polanski, the ghost, the ghost writer, tony blair | 2 Comments »

Can You Separate A Film Maker From Their Body of Work?

Posted on September 30, 2009 by Darren

I considered writing this little piece in a vacuum, leaving the issue the sparked it sitting like an elephant in the room – but there’s really no point avoiding it. I’ve been troubled watching Roman Polanski films ever since I read up and discovered why he had to direct The Ninth Gate from abroad. The knowledge that he had engaged in sexual acts with a thirteen year old girl has been very hard to disassociate from the man in viewing his filmography – oddly enough, it’s harder to disassociate than the grisly facts surrounding the brutal murder of Sharon Tate by the Manson family. I saw The Pianist and his rather lacklustre (Playboy financed) version of Macbeth before I found out about his flight to Europe and his seemingly eternal exile. I was unlucky enough to see Chinatown afterwards, and as great as the film was I couldn’t quite get over what Polanski had done. Am I being a little silly or is it really hard to view the work of film makers in a vacuum?