ABSTRACT
The Los Angeles of Chinatown is in the grip of a drought, which, like the plague in Thebes, is an external manifestation of an inner disaster. Chinatown will explore this territory of incestuous longings, and subtly contrast it with actual incest. J. J. Gittes knows that if he brings a woman to Chinatown she will be killed, and this is the compulsion he is condemned to repeat. Chinatown is also a place where Gittes has previously brought about a tragedy, an experience from which he has learned nothing. Chinatown plays interesting tricks with this dialectic by presenting the detective, who appears initially to be as sophisticated and cynical as he believes himself to be, as in fact unable to see the crucial truths that are in front of him. It is this failure that forcefully and painfully confronts Gittes at the climax of the film. Gittes, however, has to live with what has happened, and with what he has, in part, brought about.
