Roman Polansi was born in Paris in 1933 and returned to Poland with his parents three years later. During the World War, his father was taken into a concentration camp by the Nazis, and his mother died there. Lonely and helpless Polanski was adopted by many Polish families. This horrible childhood environment has made Polanski form a deep-rooted pessimistic view of the world, and the shadow of evil forces will always loom over his heart. It is generally believed that one of the obvious characteristics of Polanski's films is the tendency to worship the devil and the psychological manifestations of pervertedness, which are closely related to his murderous childhood experience.
Polanski received formal art education in post-war Poland, including painting, sculpture and pattern design, and studied at the Luz Film School for five years, graduating with honors. However, he only made one film in Poland, "The Knife in the Water", and then returned to his birthplace, Paris, before moving to Hollywood. His home in Hollywood was robbed in 1969, and his wife Sharon Tate was brutally murdered. This case shocked the entire United States, leaving Polanski with new psychological trauma. Make his works closer to the theme of death. "Macbeth" filmed in 1971 is a naturalistic representation of demonic power, "What?" filmed in 1972 "A narration of modern Alice's roaming in the world of sexual perversion. "Chinatown" became a sensation after it was made public, and its top-selling results were comparable to his most commercially successful film, "Rosemary's Baby" (1968). The success of "Chinatown" is mainly due to the play and Nicholson's performance, but Polanski's characteristic and meaningful visual world still cannot be ignored.
When Polanski read Town’s script for the first time, he was not satisfied. He thinks that Tang En is good at writing brilliant lines, but the script is seriously lacking in visual expressiveness. Polanski had never before made a screenplay written entirely by others; he had always adapted it himself or co-written the screenplay with others. When he found that Tang En was unwilling to make any further changes to the script, he spent two months rewriting it on his own, although he did not list it on the credits. He thinks that most detective films are too complicated and even difficult to understand, so he rationalized the plot designed by Towne and deleted some characters. The most significant change is that he limited his perspective to Gites alone, but This subjectivity is not to replace the eyes of the protagonist with the camera lens, but "what the director sees when Gites sees".
There is an interesting phenomenon in the Western film industry: some film directors who are innovative and have a strong artistic pursuit but have to obey commercial requirements often take advantage of the opportunity of the producer to relax supervision after making a blockbuster film. , In the next film, let it go by itself and enjoy the "creative freedom", which is greater than the "art addiction", resulting in serious losses. Polanski's "What? "So the producer Evans suffered a great financial loss. When filming "Chinatown", Evans visited the scene from time to time to prevent Polanski from "acting improvisation on artistic impulse." He asked Polanski to abide by the genre rules of detective films-the formulaic operation from initiation to closure, and to ensure the powerful charm of the genre with a brilliant ending with the truth revealed and retribution. But the trouble is that Polanski did not produce the final version of the final part after the start of the filming. He insisted that the end of the film should be determined by the "wish on the spot".
Polanski has been carefully pondering the ending problem when making the film. Tang En's original ending is to let Evelyn escape from Noah's clutches. Polanski rejected this wording because in his opinion, in this social environment where evil forces rule everything, the good overwhelming evil and the weak to escape death can only be a deceptive fantasy. He asked the artist to build a street in Chinatown and let the ending scene be performed in Chinatown, because Los Angeles is in fact becoming a lawless sinner like Chinatown. The conversation between Sicobar and Eskoba clearly shows it). Polanski believes that the end of the film should be like "the finale of the opera"-all the actors are on stage again. He didn't decide to let Evelyn be killed by the police until the live shooting, Noah snatched Catherine, and Gites watched all this, helpless. According to the convention of Hollywood detective films, the ending should be the reconstruction of social order after the subversive elements have been eliminated. However, in Polanski's hands, the winner is violence and greed.
The foundation of "Chinatown" is very solid. Although Tang En’s script was rewritten by Polanski, the character Gites is undoubtedly Tang En’s creation. The ability of the script to win the Oscar is closely related to the unique and vivid artistic image of Gites. "Chinatown" is not particularly commendable in terms of narrative skills. On the contrary, because Polanski is passionate about the visual effects of the film, he occasionally inserts uniquely toned and beautifully shaped shots that show the suburbs of Los Angeles in the 1930s. Pulling up slows down the rhythm of the action, making the narrative a bit slower. The setting of suspense and the solution of layering bamboo shoots are nothing new. However, the private detective, Gites, undoubtedly gives people a sense of freshness. The first impression Gites gave was that he was full of air, behaved recklessly, and spoke vulgar but articulate. However, as the plot develops, we find that he is quite clever, but also extremely naive, always cleverly trying to find answers to some questions that he doesn't fully understand. In Tang En’s words, “He is a reckless, cynical but very naive person.” When Evelyn discovered that he was so ignorant of Noah’s power and the corruption of the city government, she couldn’t help but shout, “You really are A fool!" When we saw him almost cut off his nose because of his "nosy", when we saw him being shot and beaten several times and still marching forward, the explanation we heard was always "I can't be for nothing. He is accused". Until the end of the film, Gites was still puzzled by Noah's behavior. He asked Noah, "Why are you doing this? Is there anything else you can't afford?" "Future, Mr. Gites, future," Noah replied. Since Gites did not realize that the fight to defeat Noah actually involved the future of Los Angeles, he could only feel at a loss for the gloomy answer of this gangster who was trying to control the future fate of Los Angeles.
Nicholson, who played this unforgettable role, was beginning to become popular at the time. He won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1973 for playing the leading actor in "The Last Details". Nicholson and Tang En have a classmate. Tang En’s script was originally written for Nicholson, so he paid close attention to Nicholson in character design. Polanski also appreciates Nicholson. As early as 1968, when he filmed "Rosemary's Baby", he deliberately used the young actor, but Nicholson was not well-known at the time. In this collaboration, Polanski gave Nicholson annoyingly telling the play, and gave him a demonstration performance, but when Nicholson found that Polanski was very let go of other actors, let them feel it. When performing the performance, resentment came back in my heart, and even quarreled for a while. But the facts have proved that their cooperation has been fruitful. Nicholson's grasp of the characteristics of the characters has reached the level of subtleties. There is almost always a smile on his face, even when his nose is injured and gauze is on his face, it is a seemingly deep but superficial smile, a smile that seems to be flattering but often inappropriate. After watching too much, people finally realized that this is a kind but naive, ignorant but confident, trying to be cunning but very ignorant of current affairs. He has no shortage of witty and humorous responses, but he always reveals clumsiness in chic, and dullness in tact. As a detective, his reasoning and judgment always sound reasonable but wrong, and can only touch the surface without grasping the core. The level of sophistication achieved by Nicholson's performance is obviously inseparable from his thorough understanding of the role.
Polanski once said that "Chinatown" is "not his important work." He made this film, which was called "the total Americanization of Roman Polanski" by Yaque Winston, just to prove his " "Bank acceptance capacity" is nothing more than.
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