Chinatown Analysis

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Chinatown, a 1970s film, is inspired by the Southern California water history (Valle). This film has many elements of film noir. Film noir, is a point-of-view, tone, mood, and style of a film created during World War II. It reflects the tensions and insecurities of a particular time period, usually showing the loss of innocence, bareness, and the paranoia of an event (“Film”). The criminal and greedy perspectives of the characters are clearly seen, like the character Noah Cross, reflecting society’s evils. Also there is no happy ending in Chinatown. For those viewers who don’t know the history of Southern California, this might just be another detective film, but it is more than that, it has numerous themes that can be dissected. The film constructs racial, gender, and class identities. Gender is set to a certain image in this film. Jake Gittes has everything in front of him to solve the murder of Hollis Mulray, but he has a hard time putting it all together and when he does it is too late. Also what I noticed is that men are being cheated on by their wives. The men are victimized a...

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