Forget it Jake its "Chinatown"

Jake Gittes' (Jack Nicholson) swagger, guile, intelligence and integrity equals nothing against his victor's vast wealth and devious schemes. I can see why its now a template for its genre, from which all other conspiracy thrillers draw from, and pay homage to. Subsequently, any viewer will experience a sense of deja vu over certain scenes, sequences, music, costume, dialogue. Even so, its undeniably an inventive film which somehow retains its freshness. I'd like to see if Hollywood could produce something as seminal in this decade: a film that is entirely original and that can dominate cinema for decades. I've previously seen Curtis Hanson's 'LA Confidential', which is an excellent film, and Brian De Palma's 'Black Dahlia', an implausibly bad film from a talented group of people. The former, as good as it is, just doesn't match the artistry of 'Chinatown', or even the tightness of Robert Towne's story. 

What i've taken away from it, in a cinematic storytelling way, is the changes from still shots to handheld ones. At each point it was done it made me want to lean in; it created a sense of alarm, and as such it was used effectively to change the tone of the scene it was used in to further the story. From an interview with Roman Polanski, I found that he always shot Jake from the back to help tell the story in a first person narrative, the way that Raymond Chandler wrote his crime stories. 

I want all my films to look like this: whatever camera this was shot on, i'm using it if I ever direct a feature. For everything to fall into place as perfectly as it does in 'Chinatown' makes it a real rarity, and it deserves its masterpiece title.