CHINATOWN
d. Roman Polanski, 1974

11 January 2009

It is often rewarding to see a favorite, oft-viewed film with someone who had never seen it before and is likely to respond to it favorably. My brother had never seen CHINATOWN. After rectifying the CHINATOWN situation, it became known that he had also never seen THE LONG GOODBYE, which was watched the next night.

With CHINATOWN, I'm at the point where watching it again means drifting along to the internal rhythms and appreciating the subtleties of the foreshadowing. This time I focused on Faye Dunaway's stammering every time Evelyn Mulwray says the word "father."