Ep. 78: Chinatown with James Naremore

We are so pleased and honored to welcome back to the show, writer and film historian, Professor James Naremore. As is the author of the seminal book on the film noir genre -- More Than Night: Film Noir and Its Contexts -- Naremore is more than equipped to tackle today's Sight and Sound entry: Chinatown (1974). Naremore, along with host, Lady P, discusses how the film creates an amalgam of Classic Noir homages along with an infusion of Nixon-era paranoia and cynicism. Lady P and Naremore also talk about how well the style and themes of the film hold up today, and they make a series of feeble excuses for why they are able to still enjoy the film in spite of the obvious parallels between the film's villain, John Huston's Noah Cross, and the offscreen criminal behavior of the film's director, Roman Polanski.

To justify her love of the movie, Lady P makes an attempt to reclaim Chinatown as a Faye Dunaway film. Let us know if you buy into that reasoning in the comments below.