Chinatown (1974) (Guest: John Walton) (episode 31)

Chinatown (1974) is a neo-noir crime thriller, directed by Roman Polanski from a screenplay by Robert Towne. Based loosely on the Owens Valley water wars in Los Angeles from the early twentieth century, the film follows private investigator J.J. (“Jake”) Gittes (Jack Nicholson) as he pursues a series of leads that take him into the dark underbelly of power and corruption in 1930s Los Angeles. A woman claiming to be "Evelyn Mulwray” initially hires Gittes to follow her husband Hollis, whom she suspects of infidelity. Gittes discovers that Noah Cross (John Huston), the father of the real Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), had Hollis, his former business partner and head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, killed. Hollis had learned of Cross’s plan to force famers in the Northwest valley to sell their land by cutting off their irrigating water and purchasing it through dummy syndicates on the cheap with the aim of developing the land into valuable Los Angeles real estate. Gittes also learns that the young woman he falsely suspected Hollis of having an affair with is Evelyn’s sister and daughter—the product of Evelyn’s rape by Cross when she was fifteen. While Gittes ultimately unravels the mystery, he is unable to stop the powerful Cross from achieving his goals or prevent the tragic fate that awaits Evelyn. My guest to talk about this venerated New Hollywood era classic is Emeritus Professor John Walton of the University of California, Davis.

Timestamps:

0:00    Introduction
3:37     Chinatown's historical and literary elements
6:28     How the film adapts historical events and figures
12:13    The private investigator in film and popular culture
18:09   Jake Gittes and the power structure
24:27   “Either you bring the water to LA, or you bring LA to the water”
28:17    The private eye and the police
32: 56  The mystery and impenetrability of power
35:00  How Chinatown affects perceptions of the water wars
38:43   Public law affecting water allocation and management
40:05  The formalities of law and the power structure beneath it
44:15   “The Defects of Total Power” 

Further reading:

Brownstein, Ronald, “The 1970s Movie that Explains 2020s America,” The Atlantic (June 20, 2024)

Hoffman, Abraham, Vision or Villainy: Origins of the Owens Valley-Los Angeles Water Controversy (1981)

Kahrl, William L., “The Politics of the California Water: Owens Valley and the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 1900 – 1927,” Hastings West-Northwest J. Envt’l L. & Policy, vol. 6, nos. 1 & 2 (2000)

Libecap, Gary D., “Chinatown: Owens Valley and Western Water Reallocation – Getting the Record Straight and What It Means for Water Markets,” 83 Texas L. Rev. 2055 (2005)

Walton, John, “Film Mystery as Urban History: The Case of Chinatown,” Cinema and the City (M. Shiel & T. Fitzmaurice, 2001)

Walton, John, The Legendary Detective: The Private Eye in Fact and Fiction (U. Chicago Press (2015) 

Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember.
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