Chinatown

The Craft of Creating a Vivid, Compelling Mystery

Chinatown has a deserved reputation as a great film. Part of what makes it a great story is the overall structuring of the story and the way each of its moments are vividly presented. Each moment operates to draw the viewer deeper into the story while advancing the story smoothly and with subtle precision. It is this underlying effect of movement, of the audience being drawn into the story and moved -- moment by moment -- forward via clearly presented story ideas, plot questions and character issues that makes the telling of this story so vivid. How the story moves toward the resolution of the story's plot -- the murder of Mulwray and the water issue -- and the fulfillment of its deeper story about morality in a corrupt world -- demonstrates how a story's movement along different levels can be designed to be compelling and dramatic. By making each moment of a story dramatic, the storyteller creates a compelling, dynamic, satisfying story journey.

The film opens with credits and melancholy, mournful music. The style of music cues us to a time for the story, the 1940's, and also cues us to the terrain the story will cover. Every element of a great film communicates a sense of purpose.

The story opens with the sound of a man groaning while he looks at some photos of a man and woman having clumsy sex in the woods. This immediately pulls us into the question, who is the man? Why is he looking at these pictures? This is a subtle point, but every element of this movie is carefully crafted. To put something into a story that communicates no sense of purpose (even if that purpose is only revealed later) is to stall a story's movement.

We pull back from the photos to see Jake (Jack Nicholson) in the background. This cues us that he's an important character in the story, that we see him before we see the man looking at the photos. It's also a set up to draw us into the question, who is Jake?

We are then offered a close up of Curly. This gives the audience a sense of who he is, and, from his reaction to the photos, who he is in relationship to the woman in the photos. At this point, then, we have an answer to the first question of the story; the audience in a subtle way has been moved to discover this answer. This process of raising questions and offering answers can be recognized within scenes, across scenes, around the introduction of character issues and their resolutions, around questions that are only answered later in the story.

Curly, overcome by feeling, throws the pictures into the air and grabs the venetian blinds. Jake commiserates with him with cool detachment.

All right Curly, enough's enough. You can't eat the
venetian blinds. I just had 'em installed on Wednesday.

This dialogue gives us a sense of what kind of man Jake is. Because he's wearing a cream-colored suit, the scene also suggests Jake likes to project a 'clean' appearance. It also suggests in a sly way that Jake's getting through life now unmarked by the 'mud' he handles. That speaks directly to the promise of the story.

Curly moans that his wife is no good. Now we know for sure what we were looking at in the photos. It's another small point, but audiences like to have a sense of what they are looking at, even if it later turns out to be something else, or have a different purpose than they suspected.

Jake offers Curly a stiff drink and supports Curly's belief that his wife is no good.

What can I tell you, kid? You're right. When
you're right, you're right, and you're right.

This is clever dialogue, and in a subtle way it echoes through the story, when Jake finds himself in a situation where he struggles to discover what is right. He also will come to discover that someone else has looked at him with the same cool detachment he had for Curly. So the dialogue here has a purpose in this scene and a larger purpose in the story.

Curly talks about killing his wife and his idea of the unwritten law that he wouldn't be prosecuted. Jake responds,

I'll tell you the unwritten law, you dumb son of a bitch. You
gotta be rich to kill somebody, anybody and get away with it.
You think you got that kind of dough? You think you got that
kind of class?

This exchange foreshadows the story's coming events.

Curly is ushered into the outer room, mumbling about begging off paying the fees until after his next fishing boat haul to catch albacore tuna. Jake's door is labeled "J. J. Gittes & Associates, Discreet Investigations." This accomplishes three things. It tells us 'where' we are in a quiet, unforced way. Note first the story is set into motion, then the detail about the place of the scene and who Jake is. This dialogue also, in an unforced way, sets up something that will be used later for the plot that revolves around Curly. When Jake tells Curly he can pay when he has the money, it also tells us something about Jake.

I don't want your last dime. What kind of
guy do you think I am?

He also tells Curly to call him Jake, not Mr. Gittes. It's another small touch that tells the audience something about Jake within the flow of the story.

This opening scene both introduces the story through the dialogue and action -- about morality in a corrupt world and how Jake deals with it -- and has also begun to advance us along the story's plot line, that Jake is a detective for hire.

In another room are Walsh and Duffy, Jake's associates. They introduce Jake to his next client, Mrs. Mulwray.

She prefers to speak to Jake alone, which gives him a reason to introduce his associates and explain why they must stay. It also echoes with the theme in the story of trying to hide the truth while on the surface offering it. Another point, it tells us Jake is a successful private investigator, that he can afford to hire assistants.

Mrs. Mulwray asks Jake to investigate her husband's alleged affair with another woman.

Note that Mrs. Mulwray has a problem that she wants resolved. On the surface, her request is clear and direct. Jake attempts to dissuade the lady-like (another irony) Mrs. Mulwray from pursuing the case.

Let sleeping dogs lie. You're, you're
better off not knowing.

This dialogue again speaks to a deeper issue in the story. The question here deepens to become, would Jake have been better off not knowing what he eventually learns? And through Jake the question reaches out into the audience. As Jake is our guide in this story, the audience is drawn in to wrestle with the same question, would all of us be better off not knowing what this story will reveal? Are we better off not knowing the details about some of the events that shape our lives, and therefore free to not have to make decisions about what we know?

On the surface Jake's dialogue also suggests again that Jake is a moral man. It's an example of how a storyteller 'names' what their story is about while they set their plot into motion.

Mrs. Mulwray insists Jake help her.

I have to know!

This tells us something about Mrs. Mulwray, but it's another line of dialogue that reaches out into the audience. This desire to 'know' leads to many discoveries of both wanted and unwanted information.

Mrs. Mulwray identifies her husband as Hollis Mulwray, the well-known chief engineer of the city's "Water and Power" Company. In an unforced way, this introduces another significant character in the story, and also sets up the audience to anticipate the introduction of that character.

Jake suggests the investigation might be more expensive than it's worth. Mrs. Mulwray insists that expense is no problem.

Money doesn't matter to me, Mr. Gittes.

This tells us something about her, something that also echoes later in the story. Again, the dialogue has a point in the scene and a purpose in the deeper story.

Jake begins his investigation by listening to public hearings discussing a project - a proposed Alto Vallejo Dam and Reservoir. Proponents and opponents of the dam present their cases at the city council meeting.

This information sets up a significant feature of the plot, although it appears to be merely a background detail. The storyteller, however, would know the importance of this information and how presenting it in an offhand way doesn't draw unnecessary attention to it. It also suggests that full force of the dilemma over the water issue in L.A. This aspect of the story, then, projects a clear sense of something being at stake over the story's outcome even if the water issue and what people are willing to do to secure water seems mere background.

Bored listening to a speech about how "Los Angeles is a desert community" needing irrigation projects, Jake reads the Racing Record.

When Mulwray is called to speak, he speaks against the project because of a past dam disaster.

Well, it won't hold. I won't build it, it's that
simple. I'm not going to make the same mistake twice.

Mulwray's opinion is greeted with boos and protests. This scene tells us that Mulwray is a moral man, willing to stand up for what he believes is right. The dialogue also echoes with the sentiment about 'not making the same mistake twice,' an issue the story develops and plays out.

A farmer from the dry valley herds his sheep down the aisle of the public hearing, demanding to know why Mulwray is denying water to his livestock and crops.

You steal water from the valley. Ruin their grazing.
Starve the livestock. Who's paying you to do that, Mr.
Mulwray? That's what I want to know.

Mulwray looks down and doesn't answer. If he answered the question, he would foreclose an avenue of the plot. By not answering, the audience is drawn in to want to know the answer to the question.

This material here is presented as a background detail, but it's actually a central question in the story's plot. By introducing the question around a visually interesting situation -- the farmer interrupting the meeting with the sheep - - the meeting is made visually interesting. It is also the nature of a plot that it operates around generating questions that engage the attention of an audience. Desiring answers, the audience is drawn deeper into the story.

Once this scene has introduced the information necessary to the story and plot -- the city needs water, but Mulwray will only meet that need in moral ways -- the scene is over. It's advanced the story along both its story and plot lines and generated new questions.

Jake trails Hollis, who walks in a dry riverbed and speaks to a Mexican boy on horseback.

This sets up the question, what is he talking to the boy about? What's he doing?

In passing, note the sound of the fly buzzing around Jake. This small detail operates to make the scene more vivid. By creating a story world with a vivid sense of purpose AND detail, a story's audience is drawn more deeply into that world. It appears more 'perfect' than life. Details alone, however, do not communicate a sense of dramatic purpose. The fly is a very minor detail in the sweep of the story, but it adds another small note to the story.

Next, Mulwray gazes all night long at the ocean from a coastal beach, where water mysteriously runs out of a run-off channel.

Again it sets up the question, what's going on here? Another question, will Mulwray spot Jake? That small moment of drama when Mulwray turns and almost sees Jake helps keep up the dramatic tension in the scene. A scene with a quality of dramatic tension operates to engage the attention of its audience. Scene that lack dramatic tension on some level are an invitation to the story's audience to tune out. More often than not when an audience tunes out of a film, part of them never returns.

Note the speed and clarity of these scenes. They communicate no unnecessary information. They have a purpose, they fulfill it, the scenes are over.

Jake returns to his car and finds a notice from the Citizens' Committee to Save Los Angeles on his car's windshield about the drought-stricken city's water supply. This reinforces one point about what's at stake in the story's plot, although that isn't fully clear to the audience yet. Jake crumples up the flyer and throws it away. Again, the purpose of the flyer was clear to the storyteller, and what purpose has been served by introducing that information. The storyteller wants the audience to not lose track of the water issue.

Jake takes a watch from his car and sets the time. This sets up the question, what's the purpose of the watch? Again the audience is being drawn forward. Shown something, then given the answer in the next scene. Struggling storytellers explain things in a way that undercuts this process of introducing a story's elements in a way designed to draw the audience deeper into the story's world. They make statements about things. This undercuts a story's movement because when one is through with a statement, one has no reason to keep going.

Jake sets the watch under the wheel of Mulwray's car.

If the storyteller were to find some way to explain why Jake was putting the watch under the tire, the story would lose that one small beat of a revelation. This story never misses a beat at creating this flow of revelations. It's part of what makes the film so pleasurable.

Next scene, we cut to the broken watch next to an unbroken one and Jake's comment.

Jeeze, he was there all night.

That suggests the water ran all night.

A voice speaks off screen.

I had to go back three times to pick up
the watch.

Another small moment, but note how it's designed to pull us into wanting to know who the speaker is.

The speaker talks about where Mulwray went that day, to three reservoirs.

Jake reads the paper, unconcerned, while this information is imparted. He doesn't understand yet what he's hearing.

Jake's assistant Walsh thinks Mulwray is obsessed with water.

The guy's got water on the brain.

Walsh shows other investigative evidence to Jake - candid photographs of Mulwray in a heated argument with another man [Noah Cross], hearing only the mention of the words "apple core". And Duffy has located Mulwray with a young woman in a rowboat in Echo Park.

Jake repeats the phrase 'apple core.' This seems unforced, but it also is a cue that the information is important and needs to be heard by the audience.

The audience is also set up to wonder, who's the man in the photo Mulwray is arguing with? It's again this natural process of foreshadowing the full entrance of a main character.

Jake is unhappy about the pictures Walsh has taken. He explains that this business requires 'finesse.' This will echo again when Jake finds out who is being finessed here. Jake also sounds out of sorts. He then gets a call about "they're being in a rowboat in a park. Again, we're being drawn forward to want more information. We're given enough information to cue us to what's happening and orient us, but not enough to stop the forward momentum of the story. Within the context of the initial question -- is Mulwray having an affair -- Jake now seems ready to make progress.

By advancing the story toward a seeming answer to a simple question, is Mulwray having an affair or not -- the storyteller offers the story's audience a sense of being able to track the meaning of a story's events. Struggling storytellers often create revelations by withholding information from the audience. It creates boredom. Offering too much information, on the other hand, stalls the story's audience from being drawn through the story. Each mistake undermines creating a quality of movement in a story.

Jake takes clandestine photos of Mulwray hugging and kissing the unknown blonde girl in the El Macondo Apartment's patio. Note the girl speaks in a foreign language, which raises both a question about who she is, but also where she's from.

During the scene, Jake dislodges a tile that makes a noise, drawing Mulwray's attention to Jake's position. Again Mulwray almost sees Jake. This small moment operates to keep dramatic tension in the moment.

We now seem to have an answer to the question, was Mulwray having an affair? This is important again because it allows the audience to track where they are in the story. Audiences don't like being confused. Surprised, amazed, yes.

In the next scene, Jake's photo of the couple appears on the front page of a newspaper; a scandal has engulfed Mulwray.

How this happens -- how the photographs went from Jake to Mrs. Mulwray to the newspapers -- is not within the dramatic purpose of the story; so those scenes do not appear. They would only delay the advance of the story.

A barber tells Jake that he's "practically a movie star" with all the publicity he generates. This dialogue speaks to different levels. While Jake appears to be sitting pretty, he is also, unknown to him, an actor in someone else's drama. An unwitting one. In a subtle way it also suggests that Jake might be overreaching himself, setting himself up for a fall. On another level, Jake has reached these heights (in the story) through being a dynamic character. It's hard to create a story around characters who aren't active (in movement) in some way. If they aren't in movement, it's hard to create drama around an anticipation of an outcome to their actions, feelings or thoughts.

A mortgage broker gets on Jake's case about what he does for a living. So as soon as we have this build up for Jake, it's attacked, undermined.

Jake reacts with anger. This suggests that he cares about who he is and what people think about him. Jake,

I help people out. I don't kick them
out of their homes when they're in
a desperate situation.

This dialogue echoes later in the story when Jake discovers that what he's doing is helping to evict people from their homes. Jake,

I make an honest living, understand?

Jake also doesn't understand how the pictures got into the papers so quickly. This is another small mystery the story will resolve. Again it's presented as a background detail.

Jake's commitment to the truth will be tested in the story, and also his moral sense when he finds out to what ends he's been used. This scene suggests that Jake will react to that information with passion and vigor. Stories need to be populated by characters who both react to events and seek to shape a story's course and outcome. Otherwise, passive characters communicate to the story's audience that the story only moves because the storyteller makes it happen.

Note also how again this scene suggests Jake is a moral character. A story about morality needs characters who react to this issue. In weakly written scripts, one is presented with a succession of characters who neither communicate a clear sense of dramatic purpose nor a sense of why the storyteller choose them to populate their world. A story about morality could, of course, have a significant character indifferent to that issue if that somehow impacted the story. But characters who create no deeper impression that being hired hands created to move a storyteller's plot around often fail to suggest that they are in movement, in movement because issues important to them are being challenged, because how they feel about a story's issues compels them to react to a story's events. Because issues they have feelings about are under attack.

The scene ends with the barber saying something about the Chinese and sex, a humorous story. But we don't hear the story, which pulls us into the next scene while also foreshadowing another aspect of the story.

We cut to Jake entering his office anxious to tell the same joke to his associates. He asks the secretary to leave because he won't tell the joke in front of her. Again, in his world, Jake acts to a moral code.

As he builds to the long, drawn-out punch line, Jake doesn't realize that he has another female client behind him listening to the entire joke.

So there's this guy, Walsh, do you understand? He's
tired of screwin' his wife...

Walsh,

But Jake.

He's trying to tell Jake that someone is in the office, but Jake won't listen. Jake says,

You're always in such a hurry.

This is a quick set up for the punch line when Jake finds out the woman is in the office. Jake is a dynamic character who can rush headlong in life when he's feeling passionate.

Jake turns and meets the client - who is not amused by his joke.

Jake is clearly upset with himself because he's violated a rule from his moral code. He's also embarrassed because the woman in his office is a stunning beauty. She asks,

Do you know me?

This pulls both Jake and the audience in to want to know the answer. One would achieve a different effect by having her announce right out who she is. She continues,

Have we ever met?

Note how this draws out the dramatic tension of the moment. It is the job of the storyteller to build the tension in moments, to allow the drama of each moment to play out and escalate. This makes the moments in stories pleasurable for a story's audience. Jake,

Never.

Woman,

You see, I'm Mrs. Evelyn Mulwray.

This is a sudden punch to both Jake and the audience. This might be referred to as plot point one, a point of no return for the story. But on a deeper level of meaning, it twists apart everything Jake and the audience think they 'know.' This kind of twist can be very, very pleasurable when well done. It's well done here. It works because everything that has come before this moment was done in a vivid, clear way that seemed direct and to the point. Just like Jake, we accepted the earlier Mrs. Mulwray was who she said she was. Her character rang 'true' because every other element of the story is designed to ring 'true.'

She continues,

I see you like publicity, Mr. Gittes. Well,
you're going to get it.

We now have a twist and pay off for the set up in the previous scene about Jake being a publicity hound. By raising the issue in the previous scene and then paying off on it here, the pay off has a greater impact. These kind of set ups and pay offs can be placed throughout a story. They heighten the impact of a story's advance.

She turns to leave, which raises the question, what's she going to do? Note also the pay off here around Jake being presented as a moral man. On one hand, the audience has been set up to feel he's undeserving of this fate. On the other hand, he has shown himself to be a bit full of himself.

Lastly, and most important, we know Jake will react to what's happening here.

Jake pleads his innocence, that she shouldn't get tough with him. She,

I don't get tough with anyone.
   (beat)
My lawyer does.

Wonderful dialogue.

This twist in the story means both Jake and the audience now desire to know more, i.e., the audiences desires to be moved to discover what's going on here. The storytellers here (this story starts with a great script, but every aspect of the film is well-done) have set up a story with a plot that draws in the audience to want to know more, to NEED to know more. Any time the storyteller can set up such a need in the audience, they have set up a key design element of creating dynamic, engaging stories.

Befuddled, Jake goes to visit Mr. Mulwray in his office, but Mulwray is not in. Pretending he has an appointment, Jake snoops around the office and opens up Mulwray's desk drawer, finding nothing of interest - bank checks, neatly organized records, and a leather case. Jake opens up a large ledger book, reading a scrawled, enigmatic note,

Tues. night - Oak Pass Res. 7 channels used.

This sets up the audience to want to know more about what this means. Again, we learn things as Jake learns them. The audience is allowed to be a participant in the story. It's another element that makes a story enjoyable for an audience.

Hollis' chief deputy, Russ Yelburton enters. Yelburton ushers Jake out of Mulwray's office.

This sets up the question, what's going to happen next?

Russ,

I wonder if you'd care to wait in my office?

Jake goes with him.

In his own office with walls adorned by large game fish, photographs, and a painted symbol of a fish [the flag of the Albacore Club], Yelburton is convinced that the scandalous stories about Mulwray are groundless.

Jake excuses himself, but on the way out he takes a supply of cards from Russ's desk. This sets up another question, what's he going to do with them?

In the hallway by the elevator, Jake runs into Claude Mulvihill, the city's sheriff, whose own personal water supply has been shut off.

How'd you find out about it? You don't drink it. You
don't take a bath in it. They wrote you a letter. But
then you'd have to be able to read.

Wonderful dialogue.

Mulvihill approaches Jake, but Jake manages to defuse the situation. It then comes out Mulvihill is employed by the Water and Power Company to protect against numerous threats to blow up the city reservoirs. Yelburton explains why there is protest.

Well, it's this darn drought. We've had to ration water
in the valley and the farmers are desperate. Well, what
can we do? The rest of the city needs drinking water.

Jake exits with a comment about Mulvihill as a rumrunner never losing a drop, so he should be able to help the city. This simple comment operates on different levels. It suggests where Mulvihill is in terms of morality. He's corrupt but in a moral way. It also sets him up as a character who will later interact with Jake again.

Jake drives to the Mulwray mansion, tended by at least four servants, a chauffeur, a butler, a housemaid, and a gardener. In the rear of the estate is a fish pond and fountain. The Asian gardener mumbles: "Bad for the glass," but it sounds like he's saying it's bad for the grass. Something shiny in the bottom of the pool attracts Jake's eye, but he is not able to fish out the object before Mrs. Mulwray approaches.

Although what this means isn't revealed, because of the careful construction of the story in every detail, the audience is cued to the importance of the glass by the nature of their discovery. The audience, like Jake, is again being set up with a need to gain understanding.

While sitting down to tea, Jake confronts Mrs. Mulwray, determined to convince her that he had nothing to do with the publication of the incriminating photos or stories. She appears dangerous and threatening to him - but almost instantly and to his astonishment, she offers to drop the lawsuit. Jake isn't about to be put off.

Jake,

I'm not in business to be loved, but I am in
business. And believe me, Mrs. Mulwray, whoever set
your husband up set me up. LA's a small town, people
talk. I'm just trying to make a living. I don't want to
become a local joke.

One point of this dialogue is to communicate a deeper sense of who Jake is. The events of the story, then, have been designed to evoke this type of dialogue. By evoking this type of dialogue, the deeper issues of the story are voiced in a way the audience can assign meaning to the story's events. What's happened here has wounded Jake's sense of who he is. He must react.

Mrs. Mulwray offers to drop the lawsuit, but this is suspicious to Jake. And being suspicious to Jake, the audience is being drawn in again with him. Jake,

I don't want to drop it. I'd better talk to
your husband about this.

Mrs. Mulwray,

Why?...Hollis seems to think you're an
innocent man.

This speaks to the issue of what kind of man Jake is, but also to his desire to project a certain kind of persona. It speaks to another issue. If Hollis thinks Jake is innocent, who does he think is guilty? Jake,

Well, I've been accused of a lot of things
before, Mrs. Mulwray, but never that. Look. Somebody's
gone to a lot of trouble here and lawsuit or no
lawsuit, I intend to find out. I'm not supposed to be
the one who's caught with his pants down. So unless
it's a problem, I'd like to talk to your husband.

Mrs. Mulwray,

Why should it be a problem?

Jake,

May I speak frankly, Mrs. Mulwray?

Mrs. Mulwray,

Only if you can, Mr. Gittes.

One purpose in this story for Mrs. Mulwray is to jab forcefully at Jake's sense of who she is. This kind of dialogue by its nature is pointed and barbed and a joy to hear when well done. Knowing that Jake's image is important to him, the storyteller brings in a character to attack his image.

Jake,

Well, that little girlfriend. She was pretty in
a cheap sort of a way of course. She's disappeared.
Maybe they disappeared together.

Jake's assessment of the girl will echo in a profound way later in the story. So the storyteller is setting up the audience here as well as Jake.

Mrs. Mulwray,

Suppose they did. How does that affect
you?

Jake,

It's nothing personal, Mrs. Mulwray.

The audience knows this isn't true. It's very personal for Jake. Audiences like to be 'in the know' in this kind of moment. It's part of the pleasure of a story.

Again, if Jake weren't obsessed, he wouldn't be such a dynamic character. If he appeared to be the kind of man willing just to forget the whole thing, the story would collapse. That's the danger of trying to tell a story with passive characters. It's something that generally only the most skilled of storytellers can accomplish, while the stories of struggling storytellers are often full to the brim with passive characters sluggishly reacting to events.

Mrs. Mulwray,

It's very personal. It couldn't be more
personal. Is this a business or an obsession with you?

This raises the question for the audience as well. It asks, why is Jake obsessed with this?

Mrs. Mulwray suggests that Jake look for Hollis at Oak Pass or Stone Canyon Reservoirs, where he frequently wanders during his lunch times.

This is the longest continuous scene to this point in the story. Its length is sustained by the dramatic tension of the dialogue; the dramatic voltage that passes between these two characters. Long scenes composed of dialogue with weak, dramatically unfocused exchanges tend to collapse into unpassable goo. Every exchange of dialogue in this scene is taut with tension and speaks always to a deeper purpose in the story. Great writing, acting, direction, lighting, editing, etc.

Using one of the business cards he lifted from Yelburton's office, Jake is allowed admission by police guards into the Oak Pass Reservoir. There, he meets former partner detective Lieutenant Lou Escobar, who used to work with Jake in Chinatown. Loach is Escobar's assistant.

When Jake wants to light a cigarette, he's told he can't. Escobar,

I'll see that he doesn't burn himself.

This plays on different levels. Has Escobar helped Jake not get 'burned' before?

The set up of the scene, however, pulls us into the question, how do these men know each other? Then it provides the answer.

Compared to the others, Jake now wears his flashy, expensive suits and his gold cigarette case, as Escobar notices. Escobar,

Well, sometimes it takes a while for a man to
find himself. Maybe you have.

This raises the question, what happened that Jake needed to find himself? Note also that Escobar frames it as an open question. It's still an open question, then, whether Jake has really found himself.

Loach,

Going through other people's dirty linen.

Jake,

Tell me. You still puttin' Chinamen in jail for
spittin' in the laundry?

Loach,

You're a little behind the times, Jake.

Escobar,

They use steam irons now. And I'm out of
Chinatown.

Jake,

Since when?

Escobar,

Since I made Lieutenant.

Jake,

Congratulations.

This again naturally inserts the idea of Chinatown back into the story. We moved a step closer to understanding the 'why' of the title. The real revelation is still unseen in the distance, but this small step communicates that that revelation will come.

It also suggests that Escobar found a way to go along in Chinatown, while something in Jake's moral code wouldn't allow him to follow the same path.

Jake says that he's looking for Hollis Mulwray, that he'd like to talk to him.

Escobar,

You're welcome to try.

Here again we have a line of dialogue that draws us forward, that sets us up for a small payoff, that, in a way, is unexpected. Escobar continues,

There he is.

At that moment, Hollis's body is pulled dead from a fresh water reservoir.

Note here the timing. We see the body just as Jake and Escobar see it. It's not simply on the shore of the reservoir. In this small detail -- as in every other detail in this story -- the moment is designed to be more dramatic.

We also transition here into the deeper story. Who killed Mulwray? Why did they involve Jake? Because these questions are clearly presented, the story's audience is oriented to the direction of the story. Because Mulwray was the water commissioner, some of mundane information presented now takes on added dramatic weight.

This is another turning point for the story. The first was the appearance of the real Mrs. Mulwray. Now we have the dead Hollis. What seemed simple to both the audience and Jake grows in complexity. But we start from that seemingly simple, opening movement of the story around finding out whether Hollis, the water commissioner, is having an affair.

We then cut to the coroner and Mrs. Mulwray. Escobar suggests the possibility that Mr. Mulwray might have taken his own life.

After identifying her husband's body, Mrs. Mulwray is elusive, troubled, and frightened during questioning by Escobar about her husband's alleged affair with the young girl that was reported in the newspaper. She pretends that she had indeed hired a detective, and Jake backs her answer.

Note the timing of Jake's entrance here. Escobar is pressing Mrs. Mulwray for the details of when and how she hired Jake, and Jake steps into the frame to answer the question. Beautiful timing. Even written on the page, this would come off as great timing.

Note also how Mrs. Mulwray who a few scenes ago was dismissive of Jake now needs his help. This was part of the design of the story. It adds a quality of movement to the relationship between Mrs. Mulwray and Jake. They start out at odds, now are forced together, at least for this moment.

The audience is also drawn deeper into the question, who is the young girl?

Escobar wants the name of the girl seen with Mr. Mulwray. Jake doesn't know it.

At her car when leaving, Mrs. Mulwray thanks Jake and promises to pay him.

I just didn't want to explain anything.
I send you a check?

Jake,

A check?

This goes back to the opening scene with Curly. Jake's morality means he won't just accept money from Mrs. Mulwray and go away.

Mrs. Mulwray,

...To make it official that I've hired you.

She drives away before Jake can answer. It's clear, however, that Jake is not going to back away from his investigation. Everything we know about Jake tells us that. But what's he going to do to move forward? The audience now must pay attention, must keep their senses focused on the screen.

©2000-2024 Bill Johnson

Chinatown Part Two