Water and Power: The Story of Chinatown

If one single aspect of the world as we know it could be deemed the most important or essential, it would be water. Water is where all life began and no living creature can live without it indefinitely. The Earth, the human body, and many living creatures are comprised almost entirely of it. For a big city in the middle of a much larger desert, water is key to sustaining the pre-established system and ensuring the continuation of life there. This is where Roman Polanski’s Chinatown is set, and so references to water and its associated power permeate the film in countless ways. Whoever controls it, controls everything. Polanski uses setting, style and motif in many shots and cuts to exemplify this point.

We are set up for the events to come in Chinatown very early on. We’ve only known
the protagonist, a private investigator named Jake Gittes, for a few minutes before the plot begins. Jake meets a woman who we later find out is only pretending to be Mrs. Evelyn Mulwray. She says that she believes her husband is cheating on her. When Jake asks the name of her husband, she replies that it is Hollis Mulwray. The reverse shot to “Evelyn” is a medium close-up of Jake. He arches an eyebrow, and in the background, his assistant’s mouth is agape. “Water and power?” Jake replies simply, and that is all that need be said. So, only a few minutes into the film the correlation is drawn: water and power. Of course Jake capitalizes on the opportunity to take her case, knowing that Hollis is rich. Those high on the “water and power” food chain have the wealth, especially in a desert state such as California.

In the next scene we cut to a town hall meeting room. Up on the stage a man stands in front of map detailing a proposed dam to bring water to the city. As a clever device, this speaker spells out the backbone of the plot for us, detailing the problems, and proposed solutions. He says:

You can swim in [the pacific ocean], and you can fish in it, but you can’t drink it. And you can’t irrigate an orange grove with it. Now remember, we live next door to the ocean, but we also live on the edge of the desert. Los Angeles is a desert community…without water the dust will rise up and cover us as though we never existed.

There very simply it is all elaborated for us, both on the level of the story and on a grander scheme. We now know water is a problem in Los Angeles and that a dam has been proposed to fix that problem. But mild-mannered, and often simple, Hollis Mulwray believes it is too dangerous to build. As we will find out, Hollis knows the truth of it. Water is not just something we need to live or that others seek to control. Without water, we do not exist, but if we try to contain it, often times it breaks free. It is more powerful than any one man. This is the first reference that puts water in a more important light.

Jake then follows Hollis to a series of important settings. All of them have to do with water, and the water supply of the city. Through shots of dry riverbeds, and shorelines where water is being dumped, the director shows us the dilemma. The city is in the middle of a drought. Rivers have run dry, but at the same time water is flowing where it is not needed. While following Hollis, Jake gets a hint of what he’s slowly becoming involved in. At night, on the shoreline, Jake sits watching Mulwray. Then he stands up and we see a profile of him, as he stands behind a drainpipe. Suddenly water gushes out dominating the frame, and obscuring our view of Jake. This is to suggest what is truly the important, and most powerful, figure here. Yet it is not only water that is powerful, but for now, also the selfish people who are controlling it. The film then cuts to a shot of water flowing down a piece of half-pipe, and away into the ocean.

Jake has begun to realize that he is not in control of everything, that he is not all that important in the grand scheme of things. This lack of control of course, is represented by water. When Jake and his team catch Mulwary with a young woman, he thinks for the first time, that he’s got something figured out. Again the motif of water comes into play. We see one of his assistants rowing a boat. Panning over, we see Jake lounging back. In the background is a lake that occupies the middle of the frame. Jake rests upon it entirely comfortable and confident that his lapse into a world where he is not in control is temporary, and almost over.

However, all is not as it seems. Jake finds out that the woman who hired him was acting. The real Evelyn Mulwray has surfaced and she doesn’t appear very happy. At this point Jake’s momentary grasp on the situation is diminished, and he becomes even more determined to find out what’s going on. Again water appears, this time in a local reservoir. Jake is searching for Hollis, and finds him – being pulled out of the reservoir on a rope. The shot of his mouth open, and eyes wide is sickly. Water rushes by him on either side. It appears that not even Hollis, a presumably good person, is immune to water. Though he was forcibly drowned in it, it represents the impartiality of the natural world. Good and bad, and right and wrong, are human concepts, not rules of nature.

Similarly to Hollis, we find out a local drunk has drowned. The only difference is this man apparently drowned in the dry riverbed Jake surveyed Hollis at earlier. The part that is most interesting about this scene, however, is the noise in the background. When the door to the drunk’s room is opened, and his body is hauled out, a slight trickle of water can be heard. No apparent source for this is seen, and it continues until the end of the shot. The message seems clear. Water is involved in all that is happening in the story, and it is ever present.

A little while later, Jake is back at the reservoir, walking around. A gunshot sounds and he jumps into a ditch. He looks around for the source. Then we hear something approaching, something loud. A stream of water rounds the corner, and comes crashing at him. In one long shot it carries Jake down toward a fence, throwing him against it. Water engulfs the screen, this time almost completely, and Jake doesn’t have the choice of standing by and watching. It gushes and roars, as Jake slowly fights his way up the fence. The film cuts to a shot of Jake walking away, very angry. He slops back his soaked hair, and we see his feet, likewise soaked and one missing a shoe. Having become entirely drenched, Jake wants to be rid of the water, for we see him tossing it about as he walks. As he tries to leave the fenced in area, the source of the gunshot, and the agents of those who are controlling the water, appear. It is no coincidence that “the midget” tells Jake that if he continues his actions (trying to realize the plans of Noah Cross and company), he will cut off his nose and feed it to his goldfish.

Jake now becomes a man obsessed. He doesn’t like the unadulterated control these people represent. This may stem from jealously on some level, being shown as a cross between a capitalist and an opportunist. It is for no benevolent reason that he pursues those in power. Jake becomes involved with Evelyn and the story of her father, Noah Cross and his former partner, Hollis, emerges. Jake discovers that they used to jointly own the water supply of the city. Hollis obviously thought such a force should not be owned by two simple people, and convinced Noah to give up their claim. Noah, aptly named after the biblical survivor of the great flood, obviously never liked the idea of losing such a complete source of control.

Throughout the rest of the film a many-tiered struggle commences between Jake, Evelyn, the police, Noah, and water. Jake fights to prove Noah’s scheme to the city, and show them how Noah has selfishly horded the life giving water they all need. Noah fights to stop Jake, and to follow through with his plan to regain control of water supply in the area. It doesn’t matter how rich he may get, Noah wants back that seductive control he once had over the lives of all those around him; he wants control over that which “gave birth” to us all, and that which we all need to survive

For a moment water betrays Noah, and tries to even the score. Again Jake is at the Mulwray residence, and again the setting is aquatic. He is standing before the saltwater pond in the backyard that Hollis apparently spoke fondly of, saying it was representative of the early pools of water in which life first began. In this pond Jake finds what will turn out to be Noah’s glasses. Noah drowned Hollis here, and then transported him to the reservoir. Though he thinks he now has the upper hand, Jake can’t win; his grasp on the situation is too loose.

In the end Noah seems to come out on top. His plot presumably goes forth as planned, and he wins the grapple for control. Those who control the water supply, have the power, and Noah accomplishes this with incredible flair. The powers of nature can be squandered by the likes of men it seems, if only for their short lifespan. In the grand scheme of things, however, it wins out. Water exists longer than any one man, continuing to push onward and bring new life into the world. In the end it permeates all creation and certainly the world of Chinatown, and can only temporarily be contained.