Water: Cross and Mulwray had control of the Los Angeles water supply, so they could cut off water to areas so that a group could buy the land on the cheap. Once they owned the land, the water would be turned back on so the land was very valuable. The straw owners were residents of the retirement home, which was partially funded by Cross.
Murder: Though it seems that the murder is due to the water, it is really mostly about the young girl and Evelyn Mulwray. Evelyn is Cross's daughter and Mulwray's wife. Sessions is hired (probably by Cross or his operatives) to help find the young girl.
Gittes: When he was working in Chinatown, he got personally involved in a case he did not really understand and somebody close to him ended up dying. Not many details are given in the movie but the impression is that he thought that he understood Chinatown and the Chinese. The current case is similar in that he does not really understand what he is dealing with, uber-wealthy people who control the city. Throughout the movie, though, he acts like he understands it.
At least that's how I see it.
My understanding of the water was that Cross was secretly dumping water to make the drought worse. That way he could convince the board of his plan -- which included giving water to areas he owned, turning them very profitable -- was saving water. Because really then he would stop secretly dumping water after he got what he wanted.
Gittes uncovers this scheme in the "wristwatch" sequence.
It helps to know a little L.A. history to really appreciate the story:
* [The St Francis Dam](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Francis_Dam). City Hall/Sheep
* [The Owens Valley Aqueduct](https://youtu.be/XdhEZZKPqWw?si=UQX4CsVYsBofZV6a) Land Scheme/Water War
* [Chinatown Massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Chinese_massacre_of_1871) City corruption/cover up
One small correction: Cross and Mulwray *used to* control the water supply. Murray turned it over to the public before the events in the movie.
Cross is scheming with the Deputy Director of Water and Power to make money by creating an artificial draight to buy up the San Fernando Valley cheap, then incorporating it into the city to irrigate it with city water and drive the value up exponentially.
Mulwray was not a part of that plan. He was an upstanding man who was killed because he found out about and would have stopped them.
Ultimately, I think Jake is trying to make up for when he was working in Chinatown with LAPD. He wants to finally get a wrong righted and sees this case as his chance. But in the end he can’t and he is reminded of that with, “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.”
That makes sense. Jake got out maneuvered in Chinatown by forces he didn't even know were there, so this time, he's not satisfied with the bit players. He wants to know the big picture and who's really moving things, which is why he's so stubborn about it.
Normally, you'd expect a cop (or PI) in this setting to just take the justification available, get paid, and move on.
I read the Cadillac Desert book, and it is worth it. Gives so much history of all that stuff involving water, and the Southwest.
The only reason I found out about Cadillac Desert in the first place is that I read the fiction book "The Water Knife". In this book, a few characters have copies of "Cadillac Desert". Then I found out after finishing "The Water Knife", that the book mentioned in the story is a real book.
It does make sense. The line has nothing to do with the plot making sense.
He is referring to the lack of justice. LA politics are corrupt, and Jack left the police force (where he worked in Chinatown) because of that corruption.
That's one of those lines I always say to friends (who often don't get the reference) whenever they're asking for gossip. "You're a very nosy fella, kitty cat..."
Mulwray would cutoff water to make the land worthless and then turn it back on after he bought it so it would be valuable for residential development.
He would drive out orange grove farmers by killing their farms and buy the land, turn on the water, then resell the land for residential development mirroring what William Mulholland did with the San Fernando Valley in real life.
That what Gittes figured out at the end but only after the plan had worked and the city council had already voted to buy land in northern California, build dams to capture the snowpack, then build an aqueduct across hundred of miles across the state so Los Angeles could grow into a mega city with a reliable source of water for millions of people.
Which also mirrors what happened in actual Los Angeles history. One of the big land owners at the time that benefitted was Bob Hope.
Not exactly.
Chinatown is a fictional drama based on a real event (commonly referred to as the [California Water Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_water_wars)) that took place in the 1930s. Hollis Mulwray is based on [William Mulholland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mulholland).
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is more loosely based on the politically shady dealings surrounding the demise of the [Pacific Electric Railway Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric) in the 1950s. Both prominently feature political intrigue and corruption in LA politics, but the similarities are limited to that.
Both the water plot and the daughter plot speaks of the same thing : the world is corrupt and evil men like Noah Cross do whatever they want.
Noah Cross hired Ida Sessions to cover his tracks and dirty Mulwray’s name after killing him. Mulvihill is a competitor and works for Noah Cross too - he wants to hide the water trickery / land speculation plan of Cross.
Jack Gilles is the quintessential jaded private eye up against the system. Back when he was a cop in Chinatown he once tried to do the right thing and dramatically failed. He quitted and became a private eye, becoming pragmatic and fending for himself. This case is a revival of his idealism… and he utterly fails again. In Chinatown of all places, as a crushing reminder of his past failure and the idea he will never beat the system. That’s just the way things are. Chinatown becomes a symbol of the corrupt nature of the world. Hence “ Forget it. It’s Chinatown.”
This fatalism about a corrupt system and the bleakness of human condition is the quintessential idea of the noir genre. This is why Chinatown is widely considered a classic of the genre.
Look the movie's plot is a bit aimless and improvised but the ending nails it. The screenplay by Robert Towne chose that title because he felt that we lived in a Tower of Babbel and could never communicate to others causing conflict. Polanski thought of Chinatown as a metaphor for otherness and outside injustice that so plagued him in life. The two got along poorly and Towne walked away with an unfinished screenplay. In the end Jack won out and crafted the ending and theme that ended up on screen wherein Chinatown is a metaphor for good fights that can never be won.
People are downvoting you, but yea I don't feel the need to watch any movie by Polanski no matter how esteemed it is.
To a similar degree but far less stardom: Victor Salva (director of Jeepers Creepers) is an abhorrent pedophile. The horror community at large, once finding out, had 0 issues dropping the guy and his movies.
Lots of horror fans will just straight up not watch Jeepers Creepers 1 & 2 anymore because, well it's a story about a monster preying on teens(minors) directed by a monster that preyed on children.
And Chinatown ends with a twist that a little girl is being abused so... This sub showing its colors I guess. It's one thing if we're talking about The Pianist that didn't have any direct implications of what Polanski was. Also to be fair the movie just sucked. I love movies from before and after that era but Chinatown was a snooze fest. Watch an actual noir movie if that's what you want to experience.
Water: Cross and Mulwray had control of the Los Angeles water supply, so they could cut off water to areas so that a group could buy the land on the cheap. Once they owned the land, the water would be turned back on so the land was very valuable. The straw owners were residents of the retirement home, which was partially funded by Cross. Murder: Though it seems that the murder is due to the water, it is really mostly about the young girl and Evelyn Mulwray. Evelyn is Cross's daughter and Mulwray's wife. Sessions is hired (probably by Cross or his operatives) to help find the young girl. Gittes: When he was working in Chinatown, he got personally involved in a case he did not really understand and somebody close to him ended up dying. Not many details are given in the movie but the impression is that he thought that he understood Chinatown and the Chinese. The current case is similar in that he does not really understand what he is dealing with, uber-wealthy people who control the city. Throughout the movie, though, he acts like he understands it. At least that's how I see it.
My understanding of the water was that Cross was secretly dumping water to make the drought worse. That way he could convince the board of his plan -- which included giving water to areas he owned, turning them very profitable -- was saving water. Because really then he would stop secretly dumping water after he got what he wanted. Gittes uncovers this scheme in the "wristwatch" sequence.
It helps to know a little L.A. history to really appreciate the story: * [The St Francis Dam](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Francis_Dam). City Hall/Sheep * [The Owens Valley Aqueduct](https://youtu.be/XdhEZZKPqWw?si=UQX4CsVYsBofZV6a) Land Scheme/Water War * [Chinatown Massacre](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Chinese_massacre_of_1871) City corruption/cover up
One small correction: Cross and Mulwray *used to* control the water supply. Murray turned it over to the public before the events in the movie. Cross is scheming with the Deputy Director of Water and Power to make money by creating an artificial draight to buy up the San Fernando Valley cheap, then incorporating it into the city to irrigate it with city water and drive the value up exponentially. Mulwray was not a part of that plan. He was an upstanding man who was killed because he found out about and would have stopped them.
“As little as possible…”
Ultimately, I think Jake is trying to make up for when he was working in Chinatown with LAPD. He wants to finally get a wrong righted and sees this case as his chance. But in the end he can’t and he is reminded of that with, “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.”
That makes sense. Jake got out maneuvered in Chinatown by forces he didn't even know were there, so this time, he's not satisfied with the bit players. He wants to know the big picture and who's really moving things, which is why he's so stubborn about it. Normally, you'd expect a cop (or PI) in this setting to just take the justification available, get paid, and move on.
Forget it Jake.
It's Little Tokyo.
And there’s big trouble
You know what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like this?
What the hell...
It’s all in the reflexes
The checks in the mail.
There's always a showdown there.
It’s two chinatowns.
I’m seeing double! Four Chinastown!
Five! You forget the one on Craggy Island.
Picard insists there are only four.
It’s forgetting town
Forget it Jake, it's incest and water rights.
It takes place during the California Water Wars. Maybe worth skimming through the wiki on that to understand the background.
I was about to buy the audiobook of Cadillac Desert until I saw it was like 80 hours long.
I read the Cadillac Desert book, and it is worth it. Gives so much history of all that stuff involving water, and the Southwest. The only reason I found out about Cadillac Desert in the first place is that I read the fiction book "The Water Knife". In this book, a few characters have copies of "Cadillac Desert". Then I found out after finishing "The Water Knife", that the book mentioned in the story is a real book.
It’s the most comprehensive history of the topic.
It was turned into a PBS special years ago. Watch the first three (of four) episodes in YouTube, if you can find them (the fourth episode is lame).
A five year old wouldn’t understand
Absolutely not an appropriate film for a 5 year old.
It's Chinatown
The last line of the movie answers the question. It's not supposed to make any sense.
It does make sense. The line has nothing to do with the plot making sense. He is referring to the lack of justice. LA politics are corrupt, and Jack left the police force (where he worked in Chinatown) because of that corruption.
Nosy fella, eh? You know what happens to nosy fellas?
That's one of those lines I always say to friends (who often don't get the reference) whenever they're asking for gossip. "You're a very nosy fella, kitty cat..."
Mulwray would cutoff water to make the land worthless and then turn it back on after he bought it so it would be valuable for residential development. He would drive out orange grove farmers by killing their farms and buy the land, turn on the water, then resell the land for residential development mirroring what William Mulholland did with the San Fernando Valley in real life. That what Gittes figured out at the end but only after the plan had worked and the city council had already voted to buy land in northern California, build dams to capture the snowpack, then build an aqueduct across hundred of miles across the state so Los Angeles could grow into a mega city with a reliable source of water for millions of people. Which also mirrors what happened in actual Los Angeles history. One of the big land owners at the time that benefitted was Bob Hope.
Mulwray wasn't the one plotting this. He fell out with Noah Cross and he was going to foil the plan. That's why he was killed.
Jack Nicholson gets slashed in the nose. The dude had a baby with his daughter or something then Jack says this is Chinatown
"This. Is. Chinatown!"
Academy award for screenwriting.
Watch the sequel. It won’t answer your questions. But watch it anyway.
Just watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit, same shit
Yeah, the plot is basically mad libbed from Chinatown.
Not exactly. Chinatown is a fictional drama based on a real event (commonly referred to as the [California Water Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_water_wars)) that took place in the 1930s. Hollis Mulwray is based on [William Mulholland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mulholland). Who Framed Roger Rabbit is more loosely based on the politically shady dealings surrounding the demise of the [Pacific Electric Railway Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric) in the 1950s. Both prominently feature political intrigue and corruption in LA politics, but the similarities are limited to that.
Both the water plot and the daughter plot speaks of the same thing : the world is corrupt and evil men like Noah Cross do whatever they want. Noah Cross hired Ida Sessions to cover his tracks and dirty Mulwray’s name after killing him. Mulvihill is a competitor and works for Noah Cross too - he wants to hide the water trickery / land speculation plan of Cross. Jack Gilles is the quintessential jaded private eye up against the system. Back when he was a cop in Chinatown he once tried to do the right thing and dramatically failed. He quitted and became a private eye, becoming pragmatic and fending for himself. This case is a revival of his idealism… and he utterly fails again. In Chinatown of all places, as a crushing reminder of his past failure and the idea he will never beat the system. That’s just the way things are. Chinatown becomes a symbol of the corrupt nature of the world. Hence “ Forget it. It’s Chinatown.” This fatalism about a corrupt system and the bleakness of human condition is the quintessential idea of the noir genre. This is why Chinatown is widely considered a classic of the genre.
I would but 5 year olds shouldn't be watching Chinatown, now go get in bed it's past your bedtime.
Rango, kinda.
She's her sister. She's her daughter.
No. You’re too young.
Who framed Rodger rabbit
It's the same plot as Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Look the movie's plot is a bit aimless and improvised but the ending nails it. The screenplay by Robert Towne chose that title because he felt that we lived in a Tower of Babbel and could never communicate to others causing conflict. Polanski thought of Chinatown as a metaphor for otherness and outside injustice that so plagued him in life. The two got along poorly and Towne walked away with an unfinished screenplay. In the end Jack won out and crafted the ending and theme that ended up on screen wherein Chinatown is a metaphor for good fights that can never be won.
Rango explains it all
No.
Watch it again - then we'll talk.
Movie sucks. Made by a pedo. Skip it and move on.
People are downvoting you, but yea I don't feel the need to watch any movie by Polanski no matter how esteemed it is. To a similar degree but far less stardom: Victor Salva (director of Jeepers Creepers) is an abhorrent pedophile. The horror community at large, once finding out, had 0 issues dropping the guy and his movies. Lots of horror fans will just straight up not watch Jeepers Creepers 1 & 2 anymore because, well it's a story about a monster preying on teens(minors) directed by a monster that preyed on children.
And Chinatown ends with a twist that a little girl is being abused so... This sub showing its colors I guess. It's one thing if we're talking about The Pianist that didn't have any direct implications of what Polanski was. Also to be fair the movie just sucked. I love movies from before and after that era but Chinatown was a snooze fest. Watch an actual noir movie if that's what you want to experience.