Chinatown Essay Example

Throughout the movie Chinatown, a film noir like atmosphere is portrayed. This is one of the first pictures that used this style of film in color format. Even though it was not black and white, and the producer could not utilize the use of shadows as much, it was still one of the best film noir movies ever made. Many other techniques were used to capture the gloomy mood that this genre of film attempts to convey. Chinatown was successful in its attempt to formulate a film noir movie in part because it followed the design of previous films of its kind. The most obvious of these films that Chinatown followed was The Maltese Falcon. It was understandable that Chinatown was a film noir movie because there were many instances used throughout it that related to The Maltese Falcon. First of all, Jack Nicholson, the leading role in the movie, was a private detective by profession. He also had a partner and associates that helped him with each case. Just as in The Maltese Falcon, a woman asked the detective to spy on her husband. Even though the circumstances were different in this movie than its predecessor, it was still understood what was trying to be depicted. There was also the request for iced tea in the movie by Jack, as well as the same figures of payment used as in The Maltese Falcon ($5,000 and $10,000). One of the last notable similarities in these movies was that as the viewers, we saw an individual's name being taken off of a door as a result of their untimely death/murder. But, there were also certain techniques used in Chinatown that formed the basis for these types of film. First of all, most of the characters in the movie smoked. There was a good use of camera angles to depict the somber mood. There was always a sense of suspicion between the characters, as if they could not trust one another. As the audience, we never discovered the whole truth until the end of the film. A private detective was used to create a sense of deception and