logo-cropped

Nottingham’s independent bookshop | 14a Long Row, Nottingham NG1 2DH | 0115 8373097

Chinatown

Michael Eaton
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (BFI Publishing)
Published: November 14, 2024
ISBN: 9781839028151
96 pages, 60 colour illus
Country of publication: United Kingdom

£12.99

Directed in 1974 by Roman Polanski from a script by Robert Towne, Chinatown is a brilliant reworking of film noir set in a drought-stricken Los Angeles of the 1930s. Jack Nicholson stars as J. J. Gittes, a private eye who, despite his best intentions, can bring only disaster on Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), the enigmatic woman he has come to love. Gittes’s investigation into the death of Evelyn’s husband exposes a chaos of political corruption and sexual violence lurking beneath a glittering, sun-bleached surface.

Michael Eaton’s compelling study situates Chinatown in relation to a history of fictional detectives, from Sophocles to Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock. In an absorbing account of the film’s narrative development and visual style, he traces Chinatown’s relationship to the pessimism of American cinema (and, by extension, the wider culture) in the mid-1970s, and the source of the film’s narrative and visual impact.

In his afterword to this new edition, Eaton considers Chinatown’s 1990 sequel The Two Jakes and also the movie’s changing fortunes in the years since its release.

Postage is calculated at 10% of your order value, minimum £1.00, up to a maximum of £3.00. There is a free postage option at checkout if you are housebound/shielding, on low income, or need help with postage costs for any other reason.  Your order will usually arrive within 2-3 working days.