¶ Intro / Opening
🎵 Music
¶ Welcome to Stamper Cinema: Chinatown's Legacy
And welcome to another episode of Stamper Cinema, the film discussion podcast where you choose it, I watch it, and we discuss it. As always, I'm your host. My name is Andrew. Thank you very much for joining us today. And let me begin with a little bit of an apology. It's been, I don't know, maybe a month or so since I've released one of these episodes, but to be perfectly transparent.
Life has been freaking bonkers. Uh in a good way in some respects, in annoying ways in other respects. But don't need to waste your time. The point is We've got an episode today, and we've got many more episodes to come. And the episode we're covering today is gonna be You know, regarding one of the greatest American films ever made, the 1974 masterpiece, Chinatown. Now, if you don't know it, It was directed by Roman Polanski, written by legendary screenwriter Robert Towne, and stars the
iconic I mean like in all caps iconic Jack Nicholson. Uh Chinatown is a film that has only grown more powerful uh dare I say, more unsettling and more revel relevant with time. Now at first glance You know, it looks like your classic detective story. It's about a private investigator, a mysterious woman, political corruption, murder, secrets.
But the film goes deeper and darker and becomes, you know, very film noir. In fact, kinda like a neo noir. Uh,'cause well, one thing, it's in color. But it takes place in the thirties and It's for that and many other reasons why Chinatown is completely immortal. And what I like about this is it's not a story about a hero saving the day. It's a story about the systems, about power, about wealth protecting itself, quite frankly, at all costs.
The tale is old as time, quite frankly. And it's about people trying to do the right thing in a world that doesn't reward morality, right? In many ways, this film, not to be super bleak, but I mean the film is kind of bleak, the film Feels like Death of optimism is, you know, the American dream, which I don't know, it's it's messed up, right?
And yet the film is completely memo uh mesmerizing. Uh screenplay is considered one of the greatest of all time. Roman Polanski does an amazing, amazing job, uh with a very kind of like restrained and precise, you know, um Genius. Uh I I'm I'm losing words because I'm I'm I'm trying to
¶ Guest Introduction: Filmmaker Craig D. Forrest
I'm trying to get to uh our guests, which we've got an amazing guest, as you're about to find out. We've got Craig Forrest, who's an award winning television director, documentary, film mark uh filmmaker. global vagabond, right? I mean, um and he's gonna tell us a little bit about his his novel Night Train to Cairo. This this is a juggernaut of an episode and I'm so, so freaking excited to to talk ab you know, to talk uh to Craig, to talk Chinatown.
And, you know, we'll I mean we'll probably talk a little, uh, Roman Polanski. Uh we're gonna get into some Robert Town, we're gonna talk a little Jack Nicholson. But um yeah, you're in for a real treat. So let's just dive right on in. Again, Craig, thank you so much for for hopping on the podcast. How are you doing?
¶ Craig's Global Odyssey: Night Train to Cairo
I'm doing absolutely great. I live outside of Paris and uh but in the north uh not too far from the Belgian border, uh and up here north of Paris, it gets a little cold and rainy and chilly uh every now and then as we're uh doing this interview, Andrew. Uh we get a little snow and I I'm a Californian, so it you know, I grew up when it was snow, it was the kind of pretty snow that you didn't ha you didn't have to drive through.
So I'm doing great. I I really am. Thank you for uh inviting me to the podcast. Always love talking about film. This will be fun.
Yeah, I'm really excited. Obviously, you know, uh in preparation I did a little background on your resume and it's pretty extensive. I mean, you've been uh whew, you I'm I mean, I covered it in the in the intro itself, but Uh if you wouldn't mind just getting giving our listeners a little background on you and how you got into this industry of, you know, um directing television, documentaries, uh, traveling, etcetera.
Yeah, it's it's it's an interesting journey. I I I I'm not here to tout a book, but it I put it all down mostly so I would remember it. It's sort of like a diary of like, where did I go? What happened and Well and uh why did why did I go there? What were the uh repercussions or the experiences I had in a uh a book called Night Train to Cairo? Does that sound like a film or what? It does. Night Train to Cairo.
I was literally on a night train to Cairo when I was 16. And my mom and dad were pa uh my dad was a pastor. Uh and it was one of those Bible lands trips. Let's get 20, 30 people together and go to Israel. And this one was interesting. It was Israel, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Greece. Italy. Oh, when am I missing? London and all and all of that. I'm sixteen. I'm going, whoa. And I didn't know Andrew to be um afraid. It was just
It was almost like a Middle Eastern or European trip, Disneyland to me. Oh, we're going over to Tomorrowland now. Oh, we're gonna go see the pyramids of Giza or Lux and all of that. So why I say all that is it opened the world to me when it comes to uh travel. I I mean, I'dn't I'd only been to Canada in Mexico. I grew up in California.
And I'd only been to Canada'cause my my family is uh my dad's family probably are Canadians and my and we would go to Mexico now and then, but never more than Tijuana. Mm-hmm. So this is like the whole oyster. We got the whole oyster in about three weeks, twenty one days or so, with twenty, twenty five of us. And that opened up my world to travel.
And that changed my life. I've I've never I I write about this in the book. It changed my life. It's like this is a door I've never and a corridor. I have never been, I've never opened that door, walked through that door, or walked down this corridor before. And from then on, over the course of time, I've traveled a hundred and sixty countries, one six zero.
And the next one uh is probably Pakistan uh or or so will be one hundred sixty one. And that led me into international documentary filmmaking. Maybe talk about that in a minute or so.
¶ Travel Tales: Bermuda, Nepal, and France
Yeah, that's uh pretty pretty remarkable. Out of curiosity, uh just curious if you've ever been there, I Um, I've done I've done some traveling myself, nowhere near a hundred and sixty, but uh the listeners that have been on this sh uh that, you know, follow the show know that I'm from Bermuda originally and just out of curiosity, in your in your travels, if you've ever been to Bermuda.
Oh my goodness, you picked up one of the countries that is definitely on my bucket list. Hey. Yeah, I've been on a does that make you a British citizen?
I have dual citizenship.
There you go. So does Michael Douglas.
Yes.
Yeah.
He's from yeah, he's from Bermuda.
Because it was his grandfather who was the governor of Bermuda and uh he and Catherine Zeta Jones a few years back when they were, you know, just having kids and such, where do you wanna live, honey? And he goes, Let's move to Bermuda because that just seemed convenient. And uh I've always wanted to go there. And uh ever since I think it was uh the deep.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That I've always wanted to go. But Bermuda is not on the way to anywhere. You you just it's it's very much a des it's it's not it's not typically a Caribbean cruise. 'Cause it's out east of North Carolina or the Carolinas. Mm-hmm. So I've always wanted to go there. That's very cool. Bermuda. I I gotta get there.
Yeah, you do. You do. It's uh it's great, it's small, uh, but I love it. It's it it's home, it'll uh you know, I've I haven't lived in Bermuda in many years, but
It's
very much a a part of, you know, m myself and very much, you know, part of my family and everything. But just curious, I mean, obviously you've traveled all over. Just so that'll be maybe one sixty one or, you know, sometime before before one seventy five.
For Bermuda to be one sixty one. Another one that's on my my list absolutely is the Nepal. And I have all my filmmaker friends. uh that are doing workshops and uh and Kathmandu. And isn't that a great name, Kathmandu? Where are you back from? I'm back from Kathmandu. Oh wow, that's just you know, the little
curved knives and you're thinking Indiana Jones and the bar scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Uh I I gotta get there as as well. So let's make Bermuda one sixty one and let's make Nepal one sixty two.
¶ Living in France and Media Mentoring
Love it. I love that. Um okay, so you're you're living in France near near Belgium. Like how did you like I mean, obviously you've traveled, like how long have you been living in France?
We've lived uh coming up in a few months, we will uh Rebecca and I have been married uh twenty two years and met met twenty three years ago. a year of uh courtship and and uh and dating and then we got married on a yacht a yacht in Newport Beach, California. which was absolutely a beautiful wedding and fun and such. So we have lived in France for almost three years, but uh she and I have
come through France because we have friends here for Christmas or uh even Thanksgiving's as well. We had a Thanksgiving in Strasbourg that was phenomenal overlooking the square. uh with all the the hundred foot Christmas tree and ice skating down in in the uh in in the square. Oh, for for tw for twenty-two years of of our marriage coming and going. So we decided to move here because I do a lot of media teaching.
and and film film TV teaching and mentoring. And this was easier to go to other parts of the world from outside Paris. been all the way from California crossing oceans. So we've been here almost three years. A couple more months it'll be it'll be three years. And I've been to Paris. I stopped counting because now I live near Paris, about an hour away by train. Oh, 35, 40 times in my travels. So I just stopped counting. I figured, I live in France, why, why uh keep put another knot?
on the tree or another in like like like a a prisoner in a cell. How many how many days do I get out of here? So I stopped that we we like it here. We have great friends in Europe and I do a lot uh I've been a trustee of a charity, a media charity in England. uh in London. So it's much easier for me to just take the Eurostar train, Andrew, uh from Paris, Garden Nord. And I can be in London in five hours, uh door to door.
And it's easier to do that than to be taking flights. I I we we really like living here.
Wonderful. I love that. Um, so European born, or not European born, born uh you're in the state. Yeah, born in California, uh lived along, you know, lived in Canada, traveled all over currently in in France.
¶ Academic Film Journey: Redemptive Storytelling
Um, let's talk film for a second because of the fact that, you know, I know that you I can't remember if you said you were you had a master's or a doctorate in film studies, but
Where does it have a film? Yeah, I have a master's in film studies and I have a doctorate in ref uh redemptive filmmaking. How does someone yeah, a doctorate, I got to create my own doctorate. And they said, how do you want to do it? I said, okay, I want half of this and half of that. And they said, okay, let's do it. It was a small seminary in uh Virginia. And I wanted to look at how in the world. Is it that film has someone that was doing great, lost their way, and found redemption somehow?
And there's plenty, plenty of films. I won't go into it because we're going to talk about one of my favorite films as well very, very soon. Um, Rocky. He's down and he finds redemption at the end. He wins. He wins the the fight and he gets Adrian. Adrian. He gets Adrian or Braveheart. You know, he he's just goes back to his family farm. Uh his literally his cottage in rural Scotland. And uh he he gains his life at the end by losing his life at the end. And he instills bravery, brave heart.
into uh Hamish and and uh Robert the Bruce and such. So I have a doctorate in redemptive filmmaking, uh Doctorate of Fine Arts, and then uh masters in film studies. And that just worked for me. I, yeah, I I I like that. And I just I have loved film since my teenage years.
¶ Rocky and Screenwriting Prowess
I love that. Um, speak uh a lot to my heart. So I have a master's in dramatic writing, but my focus was on particular like was screenwriting and uh I went to I went to school in Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon and
Yeah, famously.
Great theater school. Um, I was brought in as you know the only screenwriter that year. So I got to kind of like create my own. film track as well. So I got to figure out like these are the type of classes I want uh to kind of you know focus on. But I love that redemption um art. You brought up Rocky and I was thinking like did he win? Like I think I I know he won in the second one, but like
Did he like Against it was against Apollo Apollo Creed. Yeah. Yeah, Apollo Creed won the uh uh it not he didn't get best actor, but uh it won best picture. John Abelson was the uh the director of that. And and one of the things, if we're talking, and this is fun, this is absolute joy to me. Um, it's almost like sitting at the pub over a a a couple of pints or maybe more than a couple of pints. Um he Sylvester Sallone wrote the screenplay for Rocky, but he would not give up.
the situation or the the push. He would not give up the push from the studios to have another actor be Rocky. He said, if you're gonna do this film with my screenplay, I'm Rocky. And ninety percent of them said no. And finally somebody said yes. And now that's how we got Rocky. Uh, and that's that's in the in the pantheon, great word, pantheon of films from the 70s. Uh, and that is a great redemptive film.
¶ The Allure of Film Noir: Genre Origins
Yeah, I love it. Um, so this movie that we're about to talk isn't I mean, this one's a lot more bleak in terms of an But uh so that brings us to our kind of like our focus for today, which is the wonderful film, uh, Chinatown. So Craig, thank you very much for making the recommendation. Any time to go back and uh watch this film again is definitely
uh a treat, uh, which is a weird thing to say about a movie that just has a such a very, very down and sour outlook, but just one of the great films. So why did you want to talk about Chinatown today?
You know what? In fact, uh for for the audience across the world, when uh Andrew and I were talking to each other. Um, I I I first thing I said in the message was forget about it, Jake. It's Chinatown, which is the final line of the film. And uh for anyone that has not seen Chinatown, we're not gonna I don't know, Andrew, it's up to you whether we give away the ending or not, but it's a a classic tragic.
Ending. I'll leave it at that. And you know, if they if it unspools, great word, if it unspools that we do talk about it. Uh, then you go, oh, now, now I really want to see it. But the r reason I brought it up is because I love film noir. And if and any of you out there that are film aficionados. Fil Noir really started in the forties and and and it comes from the French in the fifties, the French cinema, Nouvelle Vague, which was uh in in French cinema that means the new wave.
They looked at the films of the of the nineteen forties. Now we're getting into film studies. We're getting into real deep film studies. And such. And we can talk about screenwriting as well with Robert Town, because that would be right down your your alley uh with dramatic arts uh with Carnegie Carnegie Mallon, a w a well respected school. But um
Film Noir was were almost always in the forties. The beef pictures. You would go to a film in the forties, and back then no TV yet. So what would you do? You had radio.
Newsreels
And you would have um a film. And in it you'd have a cartoon, you'd have the Marx brothers, you'd have whatever it is, you'd have a B film that would be like an hour, hour and fifteen minutes, maybe, or an hour. And then you'd have the major film, Jimmy Stewart, James Cagney, whatever yeah, whatever that was. So Film Noir is where a lot of directors, writers that wanted to be directors, or editors that wanted to be directors got their break and was all sketchy. It was dark. It was shadows.
Um Maltese Falcon is a great example. Maltese Falcon, great example of film noir. There's there is a femphatol. There is a woman and she's dangerous and you shouldn't go anywhere near her like a moth to a candle or a flame. If you get any closer, you are going to burn up. And that's what's gonna happen. And there's detectives and there's the inner monologue I was
I got a I didn't like I didn't like Abigail, but I knew that I had to follow her in in my car. And as I got closer to and then boom a gunshot. And go, oh no, where did that come from? Yeah, that's film noir. And it w they were dangerous films. And it was like light my cigarette. Yeah, you know you know how to light my cigarette and you know, match me. Then you know, that kind of stuff. It was it was actually very s some of the dialogue.
in the interplay at uh Andrew were very, very sexy and uh and and gra you know gravitating and and you just know don't you know don't go and follow this woman she is a poison to you
¶ Neo-Noir Evolution: Citizen Kane to Chinatown
So, and it has been said that film and we're gonna get to Chinatown because in Chinatown is film noir, but shot in the 1970s. Okay, like twenty almost twenty years after film noir sort of fades away, it comes back. in this film. So it has been said and written uh by aficionados and film literature type people that film noir started with Citizen Kane.
with uh Orson Wells, early 1940s, and the great cameraman, Greg Toland. Oh my goodness, created his own cameras and deep focus, which means that somebody in the back of the frame, you could still see them in focus. But the person at the front of quote the stage, you could see them as well. That hadn't been done as well. So you could do staging in in the sense of that somebody far in the back, you could see them talking. They weren't out of focus.
And the person at the front, you could also see them as well. You know, person at the front's bigger, but the person in the back is is smaller. But they both interplay. And you could also say that film noirs ended Write this down to everybody with a touch of evil, with Orson Wells in the mid 19, I think 1954, 1955. I might might be off a year. With Charleston uh Charleston Heston.
playing the Mexican on the border with with Janet Lee with the longest tracking shot at that time done at the beginning of a film. Oh, I I love it. It's all shot in Venice, California. And the reason it was shot in Venice, California, is because Orson Wells, who was the director uh and the bad guy in Uh A Touch of Evil, did not want the executives from I think it was Universal or Warner Brothers, one of the two, way up in the valley.
to be able to come to the set and tell him what to do. So he shot it at night, knowing that they were gonna be in bed anyway, and he could do what he wanted. True story. A touch of evil. Absolutely. Fabulous. Now, do you want to uh start talking about Chinatown?
¶ First Impressions of Chinatown and Polanski
I mean I figure Chinatown's just naturally like um gonna happen. Uh I mean I'm just enjoying going through this history. I mean now we're bringing up like uh film noir, like one of my favorites is like what was like Night of the Hunter, uh which is you know just another
What a strange film. Mm-hmm. Oh, oh, uh by Charles La Law.
The only movie he ever made, right?
Yeah. Robert Mitchum got the what the truth and whatever on his knuckles. That is a strange, brilliant film, Night of the Hunter.
Yeah. Uh now regarding this one, obviously, you know, you covered this film noir. It's kind of also you know, it it's Uh yes, I I I don't want to spoil it because in in certain elements it's definitely film noir and then other elements There's definitely deviation uh from that. And
uh just you know kind of like thematic elements at play. But there's definite major call outs to the the genre, just especially when he's talking about, you know, about his blinds and everything as far as like uh not messing them up. Um but man, such a great, great ride. Now, obviously Uh well maybe not obviously. I'm just assuming you saw this probably when this came back uh when this came out back in the seventies. Like what was your initial thought with the first time you saw this film?
Well, my problem is is I took a girlfriend to it. Uh yeah, we we I had seen it already and then I took a girlfriend named Bonnie. I was in college at the time. And I said, Hey, let's let's just sneak over to the next theater, you know, in the multiplex and go in here and and we came in and you know, you could just walk down the corridor and walk in and you already had a ticket for the other film.
And we sat and I I enjoyed it. And then it had the ending and she, oh my. And I don't know what happened, but she sort of like sort of fell in love with me because he didn't want a bad ending in life. So let's let's date Craig and such. When I I saw it when it first came out. And I didn't know anything about Roman Polansky as a director. Uh uh fabulous, fabulous director.
uh a little strange in his ways and that would be film history and such uh uh uh but he was fun he is a phenomenally gifted director. Rosemary's Baby, I later saw with Mia Farrow. Oh my. Now there's a dark film. Yeah, and and such. That's you could do a whole episode and maybe you will with somebody else about Rosemary's.
It's a great one.
I saw I saw it. I saw it originally and this is the this is the time. This is nineteen seventy four. And you probably weren't even born yet and that's
Quite almost, but still a few years later.
¶ Jack Nicholson's Defining Performances
Okay. This in the early seventies, for anyone that's paying attention to uh film history and when things come out and how things are shaped, in in nineteen seventy-four, right at that time was the Godfather, Godfather two. Uh and the thing that put uh Jack Nicholson on the map was Easy Rider, uh directed by Dennis Hopper. And most people forget that. And that that film, Dennis Hopper uh directing.
was one of the the money pits. Uh money not money pits, but money making machines for him because he had a percentage of the gross and the thing went absolutely crazy because young people wanted to see Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper on motorcycles and on the back was uh was Jack Nicholson and that put Jack Nicholson on the map. All of a sudden
Jack Nicholson is someone you want in your film with a football helmet instead of a a typic a typical motorcycle helmet back then. I don't think back then anyone w uh had n typical motorcycle helmets. He just had it on the on the back of the chopper. And that was cool. And then he did uh Nicholson did five easy pieces. And here's another one that if you just w sketch it on your little to-do list, um, called The Last Detail. the last detail both five easy pieces
uh Bob Raffelson if I remember right. And um The Last Detail. I have never heard so many F bombs in my life in the early seventies with uh the last detail of two guys with m military per police in the Navy taking a a prisoner to get to to prison and was Randy Quaid. Yeah. Randy Quaid back then. I'm I'm going back into
No, I'm loving this. I mean, uh so Craig, uh
That's that's what put Jack Nicholson on the map.
Absolutely. And just like another little like sidebar. Um yeah, the last detail, even now, well maybe not even now, but back uh so I moved to the US and I joined the Navy. Uh so like the last detail was basically required viewing, uh if you've ever served in the Navy.
Really?
Yeah, like every every every sailor I know has uh has has seen The Last Detail. It's it's it's great. It's it's such a it's such a great film.
¶ Crafting Chinatown: Script, Director, Ending
Love love last detail. And so, um in maybe maybe maybe we we get to uh if okay by you, we we get to to Chinatown. And um My lovely wife Rebecca. was saying, what are you going to talk on the podcast about? Chinatown. And I gave her some of the details. She goes, ugh. She's ugh. I don't want to talk about that. But really, this is typical. This is the detective. If this would have been shot in black and white.
in the nineteen forties, it still would have worked. Mm-hmm. It still would have worked. And it would be even more edgy. uh because it was black and white with wash shadow. But it was the nineteen seventies. You want to shoot in color. And they muted the colors because you really wanted to sense as an audience. And and Polansky uh wanted. I think it was was it John Alonzo was the cameraman? I can't quite remember.
Oh I've got that for ya. Um
Who is it? Is it John Alonso? I think so.
Do you wear it? John Alonso.
Yeah, yeah. I had a good guess. Conrad Hall did Godfather. He was called the Prince of Darkness. Because his films in The Godfather was so dark, he goes, Oh man, I shot these way too dark. What was I thinking back then? But you know, you win an Academy Award and you go, Oh, I'm brilliant. Hey, my price just went up double. You know, you want it dark, I'll shoot it for you, dark, kinda kind of a thing. So so in all of that. Um Chinatown. Oh, it was the
The m Evans. Evans from Robert Evans. Robert Evans. Robert Evans um just really fought at Paramount Pictures. He was the head of head of production. He he had this script from Robert Towne, and it's considered town T-O-W-N-E, Robert Towne, who later on became a script doctor. You had a problem with your film. Hi, fix this film at a hundred thousand, you know, fifty thousand dollars a day. I'm not making that up. Mm-hmm. Fifty thousand dollars a day kind of stuff.
And it's considered uh Chinatown the best script ever written. by a lot of film historians and such and I've seen the first I don't know ten ten pages. And there's not a mistake in it at all. It it's taught in screenwriting classes Andrew USC and and all.
And so Chi he Robert Evans wanted someone to give a different take or viewpoint to Chinatown than your typical commercial uh Hollywood filmmaker and he chose Roman Polanski who had gone through concentration camps as a kid in Poland as a Polish Jew. And thought, I think in this memory in the 1970s, we're really getting into European filmmaker type. type directors and such. And and Evans felt two story.
That uh Polanski would give a view of American society and crime and femme fatal and such that an American director might miss. That might sanitize or might make uh or direct the film in an in a different interpretation. Good term, interpretation. And that's what Polansky gave. He looked at and man did he have fights with everybody on sets. He had fights with Robert Town where they're almost throwing typewriters at each other. I'm not making that up.
But um including the ending. The ending. Robert Town wanted one thing and um Polanski wanted another and he held to it Polansky held to his guns. This needs to be a bad ending because that is what this story uh I'm gonna say deserves or th this is the track it goes down to and it's gonna go off the cliff at the end.
Yeah, I mean
He fought for that.
Yeah, and it it it works. I'm I'm like I
Yeah.
I'm trying not to obviously like spoil the ending, but like because the ending is so Pivotal end.
I don't mean...
You know, like two this entire film and
All the little thread, right? All the little threads get tied up in about five minutes. It's called denouement. And you may know this from it from drama dramatic arts. Denouement in French means that all the little threads are tied up at the end and you go, Okay. And then And then the one uh detective says, Forget about it, Jake. It's Chinatown. And then
¶ Jake Gittes' Perspective and The Two Jakes
Yeah. Uh one of the other like deviations is like a lot of other film noir, you have that kind of like narrative structure, you know, like uh which
Completely. Because the it's really typical. You're right. Uh Andrew, the the inner mog monologue of I I tal I alluded to it a little bit earlier in our talk. But I knew I she was she was too pretty for me not to not to get in the car and follow her. I knew she was dirty, but I had to have her. I just had to have her, you know, that red lip red lipstick and the cigarette and and this is this uh
Chinatown is very much like that. But I don't think if I look back on it and think about, I don't think they had an inner monologue. But and this is important to anyone watching Chinatown. es que The audience is learn the oh and so important. The audience and viewers are learning. The story just as Jake gets or get it.
uh is learning it at the same time. It's almost like you're standing next to Jack Nicholson in his character and learning things and you're going, oh, I didn't know about that. Oh, I didn't know about that. Oh, we got to go over here. So It's like Polansky and the scriptor Robert Town are dragging the viewer along at the exact same pace as the protagonist, Jack Nicholson, the detective Jake Git.
Yeah.
And you become involved.
Yeah, absolutely. And even though there isn't that like that inner monologue that you're getting, to your point, we are only in uh Jake's perspective. So we are learning everything as he knows.
Yeah.
And I had never ever seen the the follow up film, the the two jakes, but I was watching the the preview, like the the trailer yesterday after watching this. It was like, you might also check this out. And I'm like, well, I I've heard of it. But I've never seen it and then I watched it the like the trailer and it's a two and a half minute trailer.
And all it is is Jack Nicholson doing like inner like monologue. And I'm like, no, I don't I don't know about this. I it just it just didn't hit right from the the Chinatown that I saw into its follow up and I guess based on the not quite overwhelming success of the two Jakes. They they they never did the potential third film that Robert Town had considered.
called clover leaf.
Clover leaf.
Yeah. And the reason one of the reasons why the second one, the two jakes, didn't work, is because Jack Nicholson uh demanded that he direct it. And it just didn't work. Just it was good, didn't work.
¶ The Noir Trilogy Concept and Roger Rabbit
a sexy femme fatal Madeline Stowe. Uh back then. Yeah. Yeah. It just didn't they were gonna do a third one and it didn't work. I would also make the case and I'm still trying to find the other film that would fit. Chinatown was nineteen thirties, late nineteen thirties. And LA confidential.
I mean a lot of people in LA Consider.
Russell Crowe and such, yeah, was nineteen fifth seven LA in nineteen fifties. And I'm sure somebody could is gonna write you, hello out there in film world. There's gotta be in the middle of that that potential trilogy, there has to be a 1940s. film that would fit right into that donut hole. Thirties, forties, oh, and then maybe two jakes was the nineteen forties and I'm just I'm I'm forgetting it. I I don't know.
Not to be silly, but it it's it's such a great, great film noir, uh that uses color in a different way. But maybe Hugh uh Hooframe Roger Rabbit might be a forties uh film noir.
thought about that. I was on the set of Roger Rabbit.
Were you really?
Yes, when it was the trolley car and Bob Hoskins running. And I didn't nobody, you know, when somebody's shooting a film, you don't know what the film is. Because it hasn't come out yet. And I was doing some editing on Kwanga Boulevard out uh across the street from Renmar Studios, which was Desi Lu back in the day, where they shot all the I Love Lucies.
and Dick Van Dyke and such. And I walked out and said, hey, they're shooting a film. I went on and I watched the trolley car and such, but I didn't know it was Roger, Roger Rabbit. You know, that is not that is That is actually a great idea that who frame Roger Rabbit, even with its uh its zaniness in a sense, because of cartoon characters, might be the middle of that trilogy.
It could be. I mean, when you look at what the what the overarching like plot is of this one kind of like about water. This one is literally about like transportation. Uh that's what that movie at the core of what, you know, Roger Rabbit is really about. Um I know this is a conversation about Chinatown, but uh I I can't help but watch whenever I watch a film noir, because that was my
Introduction to the genre was Roger Rabbit came out when I was, you know, I would have been like nine, ten years old. So that would have been the first film that I saw.
Did you like it?
I love it to this day. Uh it's one of my all-time favorites, which is why
Very it's is it's brilliant.
It really is.
It's brilliant.
¶ Jake Gittes: Arrogance or Naiveté?
All right. But um I wanna be respectful of your time but also respectful for this film because it I I this is what happens when I start talking about a movie because I can talk about many other other films. Um but you've hit a couple of the bullet points that I wanted to talk. One was about Roman Polanski. You had also covered Jack Nicholson. Uh I do have a question just on what your thoughts are. You know. Is is is Jake arrogant or is he just like naive? Because
You know, he's basically like outmatched at like every opportunity in this film. He's always a step behind everything. And and you know, even his grand solution in the end, that even that is kind of like foiled. Uh so I'm just kinda curious what your thoughts are about his character.
What a great question. And I was immediately, as as you were beginning to explain that question or ask that question, I was thinking, uh, is he arrogant uh or is he naive? And is this a game of checkers where uh, you know, you think you're you've got this figured out and then someone uh does boom, boom, boom, and they just took away this or to the or the game of chess.
sorta which is much more cerebral, like I'm gonna go over here, but then you don't see that something's I think it's more like chess. He doesn't see it coming. He does it's it's it's like the uh It's kind of a... It's the idea of on the unpeeled onion, that the more you unpeel it, you begin to discover things that you didn't know after you got past the layers.
uh until until you get to the middle and you go, oh, that's what's here. That is Chinatown. Because everything from a brilliant performance by John Houston. You may think you know what you're talking about, mister Gates, but you don't. Are you sleeping with my daughter? And and such. Um
Which like sidebar, Jack Nicholson was dating Angelica Houston at the time.
Tell us that story. Uh yeah. And and um Oh gosh, uh Kevin Pollack.
Kevin Hall.
Yeah. Yeah, tells the story of walking back to the trailer uh on A few good men. Are you sleeping with my daughter? And then you realize that he's really sleeping with Angelica Houston. He goes, and the tournament, now, now that's surreal. That was surreal. And just my Jack Knuckleson. Um, he is both arrogant because he think he's got it all figured out.
But he's naive uh and delusional in in the sense he he doesn't have it figured out at all. He's walking through in different different aspects of um The Water Commissioner, the relationship between John Houston and Fade Dunaway's characters. and all that, and a and a a young girl that's part we're not giving away too many plot points here. It's like each place, each spot that he goes into this is deeper water being siphoned off.
To the San Fernando Valley. I have a friend of mine that I went to film school with who's now passed away, Jeff Callaway. He didn't know it, but he was working on Chinatown. in the early nineteen seventies running cables out uh at at the orange groves and stu and he never put it on his uh resume. He got ah I just running cables. I don't want to make myself greater than than I was.
All of these different aspects, the water, the power, the mayor, the woman, the dad, all of these are like um different. Bing, bing, bings. And as it unfolds, like we were talking about earlier, is that Jake is learning the detective, the protagonist. sort of an anti hero in a way. Is learning things. Former cop, now he's a detective. He's he's learning things. Uh and the and the the gal that that get
Killed and uh she was an actress, and all of this. He's going up against the police, he's learning things. At the same time as the audiences, and that's brilliant. Now, was that Polanski? No, that was Robert Town. Robert Town did that. But how does that but uh but who put that together like a painter? doing a portrait or doing a landscape, that was Roman Polanski. He was absolutely brilliant in that film. And that, man, that was he Jake was arrogant.
He thought he had this thing down and he finds out as he gets in it for love and literally as we would we would know, you and I and any viewer for danger with his nose. and blood involved and people dying uh unexpectedly, uh, that he is in he's in over his head and he doesn't know it. He's drowning. until the end and he just doesn't know it. Mm-hmm.
¶ The Art of Filmmaking: Script Meets Director
Craig, you've literally I mean, you're obviously very well versed at this because I mean so many of the questions that I've had, just even your natural like conversation kind of addresses them. Uh, because the the most recent question I was gonna ask you is do you find this to be more of a screenplay driven film or a d a director driven film? But you just literally nailed it, you think it's very much balanced between the two.
It's both. And and I I've said this before. I'm I'm a documentary filmmaker, which means that that in my career of uh next year will be fifty years. Five zero. I can't believe that. Started when I was twenty one and uh or twenty and and I'll be um uh seventy real soon. Um In in documentary filmmaking, you want to tell a real story of someone's authentic life.
But in dramatic film, which is what you were set up for at Carnegie Mellon, uh to write screenplays and to to look at film as literature that can be written. And then it's meant to go up on the screen. You The actors play those parts. Uh scenes are created to tell that story, not documentary style, but film style, cinematic style. And in all of that. There was truly a balance between, I've said it, it's really hard to mess up a good script.
It's really hard to mess up a good script. You have to have too many people. It's like the kitchen. Too many chefs spoil the broth. And if you just have a great ingredients, a great recipe, that's the script. And the ingredients are the actors and the scenes. And then a great chef, you're gonna get a great meal. But if you have se ha if you have seven chefs in there,
The the wonderful French dinner, steak dinner, you know, whatever it is, is gonna get messed up because too many people are giving their advice. And that's the problem with motion picture studios. Um even now everyone has notes on how to do it. A great script, a great director, a great cast,
And it all worked together. I'll give you another one we won't we'll labor it. Casablanca. Casablanca should never that's film noir actually. Casablanca should never have been a success with all the screenwriters. The Epstein brothers. Ah and and all of these guys. Never, but each of them gave a part of love the term, the mosaic that meant something. And it just
It it's like alchemy. It's like everything that went into the test tube or the petri dish, it all worked out. And it worked out that way with Chinatown.
¶ Chinatown's Historical Roots: Water Corruption
Thank you very much. One final question, just obviously, you know, tying into your you know experience and you know documentary filmmaking and whatnot. The the water conspiracy in in this film is rooted in real Los Angeles history.
Yeah.
So I'm just kind of curious, just a within your background, how do you feel the film portrays, you know, kind of this I don't know what's uh maybe I say like systemic corruption. You know, what what are your thoughts on that from just from your lens of someone that's maybe done like documentary style work?
Oh wow, because um it it's a play uh in Chinatown was a play on um Mr. Molholland. uh famous for Mulholland Drive and such. The the power, the the tug of war of power, because if you know, a lot I lived in Los Angeles for 30 years. uh from age, oh gosh, twenty-five to fifty-five, something like that, uh, or so. And it was a t it's a took a war between City Hall
water and power because LA is a desert. Southern California is a desert. To make it work, you've gotta have water. And so Chinatown Chinatown is a great example. of that tug of war, like whoever controls the water. controls the city in many ways and the city is filled with corruption. And uh Hollis Moholm uh whatever th the name is, I'm sorry, for the wife of uh uh excuse me, the husband.
of a general. Whereas uh City Hall believes that no, we control the water, we tell the people what they need. There you go. You could say that today, Andrew. about Pacific Palisades going down in a fire. You could. You could say, you don't control rebuilding your own land that you own. We will give you the permit yeah, that's a discussion for another hour. on whatever news channel you want. And that is either pure or it's corrupt. That's the way that goes. But to get to your question.
What was talked about in the film in the nineteen seventies and it was set the film was set in nineteen thirties has not gone away. Corruption, politics,
Food.
Climate. nuclear, all of that is still the great tug of war. uh in our society today, dictator well, not dick there won't be dictatorship so much in in Chinatown, but politic. It was it's it's it was about it was about politics. And politics isn't going away any time soon. China, for anyone out there, go get and and Andrew would agree with this. What do it on a Saturday night?
Rent
Chinatown. But whatever you do. It's a great it's it's sort of a popcorn movie, but it's it's not that kind of popcorn movie, okay? Go get a bottle of wine and and pour uh you know, a good good glass of red for both of you, right? and turn off the phone because you don't wanna be um D to break your concentration uh in the middle of it. And and can I add uh add this as as I know our time is is is uh coming to a close.
I consider That a good or even great film is a film that every time you see it again. You sense and see something you didn't see before. And you'd agree with this. I know you would. You see something before that you didn't notice. because the carpet, the mosaic, uh, the chemistry was so thick. That you missed it on the first time. I think seeing it a second time is tougher because you know it's coming. The first time is the surprise.
Uh it's like going to Disneyland. The first time is like you're all in awe, but each time you go to the favorite parts of Disneyland that you always want to get back to. I think Chinatown's like
¶ Final Recommendations and Future Discussions
Craig, I think that's the best way to close this on out. Um any any final any final words, but I've really enjoyed our time. Anytime you want to come back talk any other film, I'd love to have you. This has just been an absolute delight. So thank you so much.
You are so welcome. I I have a film. Oh, this is a blast. You know, I I was going to go look at trivia notes and all that, but the trivia notes are all up here and you gave some good ones about And, you know, are you sleeping with my daughter, Mr. Gitz? You know, it's it's a it's a fame uh a famous backstory to all that. There's another film I'd love to talk about sometime. Um, called Local Hero. Local Hero set in Scotland with Bert Lancaster and Pete Reedert.
And it's the the taking over of a Scottish village coastal fishermanstown by an oil company in the eighties. Uh it's called Local Hero. It's the one and and for all of you wonderful people out there, it's Al Gore's favorite film. Al Gore's favorite film. I'm not making that up. That's awesome.
Yeah.
And I have seen that film 15 or 20 times. I wrote part of my master's thesis on Scottish film. My master's thesis was on Scottish film. On Local Hero. And again, it's one of those that when you see a film, it's got so many layers and little nuances to it. Uh that you may not have picked up. uh the time before and local hero uh forty years ago now would be a great revisit uh on on a future uh interview. And thank you for inviting me.
I've had so much fun. Uh I'm ready to open a bottle of French wine and uh and go watch Chinatown with my wife.
I'll I love that for you. Um, you know, it'll we have a little bit of a time change. So I'm still a few hours uh away from a bottle red, but I have a feeling it's in my future as well.
There you go. Well, welcome to Europe where we're always ahead of New York and LA, and that's the way that goes. And remember, remember everybody, forget about it, Jake. It's Chinatown.
Ladies and gentlemen, Craig Forrest.
Thank you, Andrew.
Again, thank you so much to Craig for hopping on the show. If you're still listening uh to to us at this point, please do me a favor, like, listen, well you already listen, like, review. Tell your friends, check out the show notes because I have contact information where you can find out more about Craig Forrest. I'll have links to his work. Of course, I always include links to Stamper Cinema. But I think that about wraps it up.
And what amazing episode, right? I I'm so excited for you to uh let me know what you thought. So that is gonna do it for this week, but don't worry, we got another episode coming out next week and it's gonna knock your socks off. But until then, thank you very much for listening and we'll see you next time on another episode.
🎵 Music