Exploring Narrative in Chinatown

The narrative also known as a story is the word used to describe a series of events, usually in a film or a book. These events can be fictional or non-fictional. The narrative of a film is extremely important; this makes up the main plot or storyline in a film. The narrative structure is the content of the story and the form used to tell the story, there are two main parts of this structure, the plot and story. The story refers to the raw materials of dramatic action whereas the plot is more a focus on how the story is told or unfolds. A simple narrative structure could be a character’s life is disrupted by an event, from this a series of conflicts take place, with one major conflict that is eventually resolved towards the end of the film. I will be concentrating on investigating the narrative structure of the thriller genre of films, mainly looking at the film Chinatown.

Film makers can use the narrative in a wide variety of ways to change and shape a film, with the key objective to engage the audience. There are many ways to engage the audience by using the narrative to create cliff hangers and to create twists to fool and keep the audience glued to the edge of their seats. A common and proven successful method of using narrative is to present in from the point of view of a character. A classic example of this is the Godfather Trilogy, which follows the life of Michael Corleone, who is part of the Corleone mafia family, we watch him as he changes and ages eventually rising to power at head of his family, not without going through a number of conflicts and a few major conflicts. This example is typical of the thriller genre, the story of a character that has to overcome a number of obstacles, with a number of twists and cliff-hangers along the way. Some other typical thriller narratives are death, whether is being murder, accidental or suicide, red herring, being watched or followed and deception, these examples often come up in thriller films.

I have recently watched the famous thriller film Chinatown by Roman Polanski; I would describe the narrative in this film as following from the point of view of one main character Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson). Many aspects of the films narrative make it such a successful thriller: Mystery, intrigue and a few twists and turns.One of the main effects the narrative of the point of view of Gittes is that the audience are part of his journey, when he finds out something so do the audience, it leaves he audience in suspense relying on gittes to solve these sequence of events.We follow him on a thick twisted plot; I found it was very interesting how his personality changed from what we see at the start of the film to what he is like towards the end. At the start he is very loud and rude in his manner but there is a sense he is hiding something, we also learn that he is an ex-cop detective which is very common thriller signifier and a common character. In the film we only see events through the perspective of J.J Gittes as he tries to solve a number of conflicts and mysteries throughout the film. Throughout the film a number of events take place which help signify that the film is a thriller: Mr Mulwray dies which is the man Gittes was hired to investigate, he is then hired to investigate his murder by Mrs Mulwray. Also with Gittes being a detective he follows a lot of people, for example when he is investigating Mr. Malwray to see if he is having an affair. It also has a perfect example of deception when Mrs. Malwray lies to Gittes about her daughter telling him it was her sister. Some other common characters we embark throughout the film are Police, a flawed Heroe(Gittes), Femme fatales and Villains. The Mise en Scene of the film also helps create the thriller atmosphere, the film has a few different urban locations there is also a few scenes in the dark which helps to create a sense of mystery.

The narrative in this film and many other thriller films is absolutely critical as thrillers are known to have very specific structures that are proven to be very effective and it is what audience are use to and enjoy watching. The narrative in thrillers sets the whole film and all the big successful thrillers have very similar structures with a few unexpected twists to keep the audience guessing and on the edge of their seat. I think that the narrative in Chinatown is a perfect example of a thriller and I personally found the journey the audience go on with gittes is full of mystery and suspense, leaving you always second guessing what’s going to happen next. The film also has some interesting conflicts along the way which unexpectedly all entwine together towards the end of the film. This creates a superb dramatic ending, which leaves the film on a cliff-hanger with Cross taking away Catherine from the car she just watched her Mother (Mrs. Mulwray) die in, whilst trying to protect her from her evil Father and Grandfather Mr. Cross. The final line in the film is also very effective and leaves the audience in suspense over its meaning “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown”; leaving them with many unanswered questions, for example, what had happened before in Chinatown?

Demographic classification of audience

Royalty and Aristocracy

A- 4% Top Managers and MP's

B- 21.9% Middle Managers and Lawyers

C1- 29% Teachers, Supervisors and office workers

C2- 20.7% Skilled manual labourers and plumbers

D- 16.2% Semi and unskilled manual workers and working class

E- 8.1% Lowest living Standard

*These Results are from http://www.businessballs.com/demographicsclassifications.htm and are take from all UK adults over the age of 15.