Chinatown (1974)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Theatrical Trailer Interviews-Crew-Roman Polanski, Robert Towne & Robert Evans
Rating
Year Of Production	1974
Running Time	125:08
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (69:36)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Roman Polanski
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Jack Nicholson Faye Dunaway John Hillerman Perry Lopez Burt Young John Huston
Case	Brackley-Trans-No Lip
RPI	$39.95	Music	Jerry Goldsmith

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 1.0 (96Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) Hungarian Dolby Digital 1.0 (96Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 (96Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Danish German Spanish French Italian Dutch Norwegian Portuguese Finnish Swedish Turkish English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes, frequent
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Chinatown is a classic movie. It's also a movie made in a classic style. If you squint a bit you can see Humphrey Bogart playing J J Gittes, and Lauren Bacall as Evelyn Mulwray. That's exactly what you're supposed to be seeing, too. This is a lovely piece of cinema noir, and it should say copyright 1944, not 1974. The acting style is right, the music is perfect, the way everything unfolds - spot on. Even the credits are 1940s style. This is appropriate for a film set in 1937.

    Oh, there are some differences - I don't recall a 1940s film noir with quite such a gruesome effect (if you've seen the film, you can guess what I mean. If you haven't, I'm not going to spoil it). And the plot is more convoluted, and involves some elements you wouldn't have found in a 1940s film - I do not want to be specific here, because the surprises and twists are critical. Suffice it to say that this is more detailed than a 1940s film, and that's good. And I'm not sure if we'd expect a director cameo in a 1940s piece of film noir.

    In this film J J Gittes is played by Jack Nicholson, while Evelyn Mulwray is played by Faye Dunaway. Evelyn's father is played by John Huston. All three do superb work here. The rest of the cast are good - I can't pick a weak performance in the lot of them.

    Oh, you want to know a bit about the plot? Hmm, can't say much without giving too much away. Suffice it to say that J J Gittes is an ex-policeman who used to work in Chinatown. Now he's a successful private investigator, specialising (as far as we see) in "divorce" work - he and his associates are good with cameras... He's hired to follow a man, Hollis Mulwray, who is the chief engineer for the city's Water and Power Department. He first sees Hollis testifying in front of the city council on the subject of a proposed new dam - a desperately needed dam, because of the drought that's going on. All seems simple enough - it isn't...

    As an aside - there's a moment in the film where Gittes climbs over a steel mesh fence (in Australia we call it cyclone mesh, but in the USA it's called chain link) - I thought that might be an anachronism (was that mesh used in 1937?), so I thought I'd try to find out. Turns out that that mesh was in use in the late 1800s - ain't the Web a useful tool?

    It's unsurprising that this film was nominated for 11 Oscars (it only won one, for the script). It was also nominated for 7 Golden Globes (it won 4: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor). It also won a slew of other awards - again, unsurprising, because this film is beautifully made.

Video

    The DVD is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and is 16x9 enhanced. Given that it's a true Panavision film, that's the correct aspect ratio.

    The picture is excellent, considering the age of the film - it is rather sharp and clear, with good shadow detail and no low level noise. There's some film grain, but it adds to the atmosphere.

    Colour is a little dull, but that's part of the feel - it would have been wrong for this film to be vibrantly colourful. There's no oversaturation or colour bleed.

    There are numerous tiny film artefacts, and a few slightly larger ones, but even the largest are only small blobs. There's more than a little aliasing, but it is difficult to avoid with a film set in this era of Venetian blinds and heavily chromed motor cars - it never gets too annoying. There's a bit of moire on a secretary's houndstooth dress, but it is quite minor. As mentioned above, there's some light film grain. This is not a spotless film, but I really consider this part of the film noir atmosphere - if it had been too clean it would have been necessary to add artefacts!

    There are thirteen subtitle tracks, including both English and English for the Hearing Impaired. I watched the English subtitles, and they are fine - abbreviated, but well-timed, accurate enough, and easy to read.

    The disc is single sided and RSDL formatted. The layer change lies at 69:36, and it is concealed inside a fade to black - perfect placement.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are six languages available. With my massive language skills I listened to the English soundtrack, which happens to be a Dolby Digital 5.1 effort. It's too quiet. I had to raise the level by 5dB before I could make out the dialogue, and 8dB was preferable. The original sound on this movie was mono, so this is a remastered soundtrack.

    The dialogue is clear and generally comprehensible (once you raise the volume) - I spotted no audio sync issues.

    The score is from Jerry Goldsmith. It is perfect, setting the film noir feeling effortlessly. It leaks into the rears to give us some extra depth.

    The surrounds are used rarely, but nicely. I jumped when a shot rang out from the rear (now that's effective!). The subwoofer gets little/nothing to do, but it's not missed - this is not an action movie.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is static and silent. That's a shame, because the R1 menu is subtly animated with music. They've used the same artwork as the R1, but without the animation or music.

Theatrical Trailer (3:09)

    This is a classic 1970s trailer - don't watch it before you see the movie.

Featurette - Retrospective Interviews (13:34) 

    These interviews were shot in 1999, probably for the R1 DVD. They interviewed Robert Evans (producer), Robert Towne (scriptwriter), and Roman Polanski (director). It makes interesting viewing. I had made a note early in my viewing about how the style resembled The Great Gatsby, so it was a surprise to hear Robert Evans talk about wanting Towne to write a screenplay for that.

    The R1 and R4 versions of this film are extremely similar. The R1 has animated menus, and offers a restored mono soundtrack in addition to the 5.1 mix, but it only has English captions and no other subtitles. The R4 has many more soundtrack and subtitle languages. The video quality between the two is very similar, with perhaps a slight edge in clarity to the R1, but it's a small difference. You could easily be happy with either. If you have a PAL-only system, go for the R4. If you have an NTSC-only system, go for the R1. If you can handle either, it's up to you.

    Chinatown is a classic film noir presented nicely on DVD.

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is very good.

    The extras are few, but nice.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall