SEMINAR MEMBERS RESPOND
 Corey Robin
On Chinatown
Dec 1, 2008
This discussion is the best we’ve had so far. All of us, more or less, talking to each other, staying on point, with lots of strong, substantive disagreement. I hope we can continue in this vein.
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SEMINAR MEMBERS RESPOND
 Tina Harris
On Chinatown
Dec 1, 2008
The line from that I just can’t seem to get out of my head (and one that others have mentioned) is that of Noah Cross to Jake Gittes:
“You see Mr. Gittes, either you bring the water to L.A. or you bring L.A. to the water.”
Gittes: “How are you going to do that?”
Cross: “By incorporating the valley into the city. Simple as that.”
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SEMINAR MEMBERS RESPOND
 Ilgin Yorukoglu
The Blinds of Chinatown
Nov 26, 2008
Chinatown is an exceptional Hollywood film set in Los Angeles and exploring the city’s real historical and geographical specificity. LA has some stereotypical images, either the images of beaches with high palm trees, the Hollywood sign, beautiful women with long hair and short skirts and men with tight muscles and loose-fitting shorts; or those of horrible earthquakes and other disasters, race-riots, and gang wars all of which, though, are almost always dehistoricized and translated into the language of entertainment.
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SEMINAR MEMBERS RESPOND
 Agnieszka Kajrukszto
On How I Prefer to Watch Movies than to Write on Them....
Nov 26, 2008
I really like the film. I like the colors, the mood, the sadness, the desperation, and the suits. Not so much the gendered world of tough men and vulnerable victimized women who get punched around and then die at the end. (But it is the only ending appropriate for this film!)
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SEMINAR MEMBERS RESPOND
 Michael Busch
On Chinatown
Nov 25, 2008
In the gathering storm of argument swirling around Ashley’s post, Corey makes a point that I think drives to the heart of Polanski’s intent behind Chinatown. He asserts that “The challenge of the film is its suggestion that knowledge doesn't emancipate. Knowledge destroys, as it does in ancient Greek tragedy: it gets your eyes gouged out (or your nose sliced through).”
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SEMINAR MEMBERS RESPOND
 Mehmet Kucukozer
Insidious Capitalism
Nov 25, 2008
Chinatown is about the horrors of unbridled capitalism and Noah (conquering the waters) Cross (of fish symbolism fame) is the human manifestation of that. Roman Polanski was hired to bring out this theme. As one of the producers stated, Europeans see America differently, and, certainly, what else would a Frenchman see?
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SEMINAR MEMBERS RESPOND
 Patricia Delia Mathews Salazar
Chinatown: On Despots in the West
Nov 24, 2008
I was first going to comment about the changing ways in which truths appear before Jake Gittes. My strongest memory of this film when I first watched it over two decades ago was, of course, the scene where Jake slaps Evelyn forcing her to confess and she responds, “she’s my sister […] she’s my daughter [until she says] she’s my sister and my daughter.” She then asks Jake if it’s too tough for him to understand. This question she asked was also meaningful to me.
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SEMINAR MEMBERS RESPOND
 John Brenkman
Primal Power
Nov 24, 2008
Roman Polanski welds together in the figure of Noah Cross Marx’s best and Freud’s worst idea.
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SEMINAR MEMBERS RESPOND
 Andrea Khalil
On Chinatown
Nov 21, 2008
This is a really good movie. I watched it, and then I rewound the cassette tape and watched it again. If it weren’t late at night, I think I’d watch it a third time. The film is tight and so carefully put together in a way that so few films are.
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SEMINAR MEMBERS RESPOND
 Lee Quinby
Truth Sleuth
Nov 21, 2008
Although, as David Harvey points out, Chinatown is premised on LA’s water debacle of the 1920s, the film incorporates the moral cynicism and ambiguity of its own era’s version of political corruption and scandal, another kind of “water war:” Watergate. But what stands out in that regard is a contrast of investigative prowess and truth sleuthing. By 1974, the year the film was released, the public had been made aware of the illegal activities, widespread corruption, and cover-ups of the Nixon administration. And although the film was made prior to the culmination of that scandal, in a contrast to Noah Cross’s hold on “the future,” Nixon was forced out of office. Even though I agree that Chinatown is a visually arresting and captivating film, it is hardly an inspiration for political struggle. Further, as I said in my comment on his post, I disagree with Harvey’s characterization of Jake’s admirable tenacity or his investigative prowess. Throughout the film, defeatism runs as rampant as LA’s diverted waters.
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SEMINAR MEMBERS RESPOND
 Moustafa Bayoumi
On Chinatown
Nov 20, 2008
David Harvey’s brilliant post on Chinatown certainly makes me appreciate this film more and deepens my understanding of its social history and relevance immensely. But this appreciation is precisely where my problem begins. Over the years, I’ve seen the film three times, and with each viewing, I feel like I’m appreciating it but never really loving it. I don’t know why. For some reason, I’ve never been entirely won over by its aesthetic. The film seems almost too predictable to me, and I feel like its noir conventions, rather than enabling the film, end up rather limiting the work instead. The corruption is certainly evident, but the human dimensions of the film are more melodramatic than dramatic.
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SEMINAR MEMBERS RESPOND
 Ashley Dawson
Peak Everything
Nov 20, 2008
Roman Polanski’s film Chinatown was released in 1974, two years after the sensation caused by the publication of the Club of Rome-commissioned report The Limits to Growth and one year after the onset of the crisis sparked by the OPEC oil embargo. It was a time when the western industrial model and capitalism in general seemed to be breaking down as it ran up against its natural limits. If Chinatown teaches us anything about this particular conjuncture, which has such strong resonance with the resource conflicts unfolding today, it is that the US needs to overcome a long history of exploitative social and environmental relations if it is to build a sustainable society.
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SEMINAR MEMBERS RESPOND
 Andrew Bast
Crisis, Crisis Everywhere, and Not a Drop to Divert
Nov 19, 2008
If the last half-century of geopolitical struggle for oil has been grisly, there's a good chance that the struggle for another natural resource—water—may make the next hundred years even more ominous. Mass urbanization around the planet has created megalopolises—the Washington-Boston corridor, Cairo, Lagos, Beijing, Mumbai, Mexico City, Tokyo—as humanity heads for the capital centers. It's a short connection to make, but oil has fueled the economy of global capital that engineered this shift. But ultimately, humans don't need oil to survive. Water, however, is another story.
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Chinatown: A Commentary