Polaanski Chinatown Themes

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Polanski: Thematic and Stylistic
Day after day, we exist in society without without realizing its corruption. We are blinded by the American dream. That thing that’s been promised to every person that manages to come to the west, but they still haven’t obtained it. It’s smoke and mirrors in it’s purest form and Polanski decides to tear that shit down. Roman Polanski introduces Neo-Noir through his 1974 film Chinatown. It ventures away from the classic narrative and uses a non-narrative narrative. This rips away our world view, that we believe exist, and starts showing the truth to our reality; the American dream doesn’t exist. The film consists of counter narratives to prove that corruption exist in the world of JJ Gittes; our world. These …show more content…

His job as a P.I. puts him in a position of constantly making moral decisions; seeing if people chose to believe the reality of their lives. He has to decide what is right and what is smart. In the beginning, when we are introduced to Gittes, Mrs. Mulwray (or so we believe) asked him to investigate on whether Mr. Mulwray was having an affair. He made the moral decision to investigate Hollis Mulwray with the burden of the chance of breaking up a family. Later on in the film, Gittes is faced with moral decisions or traditional values. You begin to see him starting to value money over morals, because that keeps him investigating the case. After Gittes discovered who the real …show more content…

Polanski doesn’t allow any of his characters to live the American dream unless they are corrupted. If you notice Mrs.Mulwray had the American dream until she really wanted her own American dream...and she couldn’t even get that. Really exposing the truth of society and the hierarchy of it all. The American dream is never achieved by any main character in the film. As Mrs. Mulwray tried to escape California with her daughter in a car, Cross and his goons (the police) tried to take her daughter away from her. Mrs. Mulwray refused and drove away and was shot in the eye in front of her daughter. Polanski starts and ends the film using the thematic device of the presence of crime and violence as social criticism. Also, Polanski closed the last scene using stylistic devices. The scene’s very abstract and obscure angles add more fuel to the fire. We really feel the interpretation of how society is in our world. After the death of Evelyn Mulwray, the camera pans out with a view of Chinatown with a dark, noir

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