Film Weir's Pessimism In Chinatown Film Noir

Chinatown also reflected the time period in which it was made. Released in 1974, the movie was made in the final years of the Vietnam War and after the Watergate scandal. These two scandals, one focused on the disingenuousness of the government in reporting the war effort, mixed with the lack of purpose in actually fighting the war, and the other dealt with a spying campaign that tried to undermine democracy essentially, which lead to distrust of the government. You get that sort of distrust within the movie as I established earlier with Noah having officials and the police in his pocket, as well as immunity from prosecution. This makes the film sort of an artistic cultural critique of the current culture at the time, where people just lost

Chinatown is no exception. Already, if you bring in the aspect Roger Ebert talked about in regards to film-noir’s pessimism and the idea that the audience can sort of tell the movie will not end happily, then coming into the film you can just tell exactly where the film is headed. The ending scene essentially involves Gittis failing miserably and being left helpless while seeing Evelyn get shot and killed, and her daughter taken away. This ending created a very depressing emotional response, because despite knowing all the motifs and themes of a film-noir movie, I still didn’t expect an ending that was so dramatic as that, because Gittis’ plan seemed to be working for once, and the worst I expected was a Casablanca style ending, where Evelyn and her daughter run away. Instead, I was left feeling very bummed out and sorry for Gittis where all he could do is watch in agony as the worst case scenario occurs. The very last cut of the film involved Gittis’ co-workers telling Gittis that there is nothing he can do, emphasizing that pessimism, which after that moment you buy in as an audience, because you just saw the whole plot unravel before your eyes. I’d say it’s even relatable in some ways to people's’ lives, although not as dramatically, where plans just fail so bad that it really is, as they say,

For example, he was able to escape the police multiple times Specifically during the scene where they attempt to apprehend Gittis in what is claimed to be Evelyn's house, however is simply a client's house. This confidence sort of helps emphasize the effectiveness of the ending where you think it will somehow all work out, or at the very least, not as badly as you come to find out. This creates a feeling of being let down as a viewer as that confidence Gittis possesses seems to vanquish at the very end of the