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A review by schiavenza1981
The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood by Sam Wasson
5.0
"Chinatown" is one of the great achievements of American cinema, a tour de force of acting, scriptwriting, and set design, and a film that marked the career peak of four movie giants: actor Jack Nicholson, screenwriter Robert Towne, producer Robert Evans, and director Roman Polanski. But, as Sam Wasson writes in this gorgeous, detailed history, Chinatown also represented the end of an era — not only for its stars but for the Hollywood in which it was created.
"The Big Goodbye" benefits from its colorful characters. Polanski, the Polish-born filmmaker who escaped Poland during the Holocaust and found a happy life in Los Angeles — only to have everything shattered by Sharon Tate's murder; Evans, who took over Paramount Pictures at a frighteningly young age and steered it toward auteur-made movies; Nicholson, the charismatic movie star; and Towne, his generation's finest screenwriter. But this is no hagiography. Each man is a deeply flawed egotist, to the detriment of their work and, it should be noted, to the women in their lives. None could have completed their work without the help of the others. Some of the book's strongest passages detail how Polanski whittled down Towne's complex, multi-layered script; there's a tantalizing alternate version of Chinatown hinted at in these pages.
That Chinatown emerged, in its present form, is remarkable. But the good times would not last. A cocaine addiction ravaged Towne's life; Nicholson, after one more classic performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, descended into camp; while it'd be years before Evans made another good movie again. Polanski's denouement, meanwhile, consisted of a rendezvous with a 13-year-old girl that landed him legal jeopardy and, famously, forced his flight from the country.
Was Chinatown really the end of an era in Hollywood? Wasson is persuasive on this point, arguing that the arrival of Jaws and of bombastic producers like Don Simpson — who cared about nothing but money — firmly ended the auteur-driven era. But I'm not so sure. Hollywood still loves its blockbuster franchises, but the arrival of Netflix and Amazon has provided a venue for movies like Chinatown. Here's hoping that when the world re-opens there will be more stories like this to tell.
"The Big Goodbye" benefits from its colorful characters. Polanski, the Polish-born filmmaker who escaped Poland during the Holocaust and found a happy life in Los Angeles — only to have everything shattered by Sharon Tate's murder; Evans, who took over Paramount Pictures at a frighteningly young age and steered it toward auteur-made movies; Nicholson, the charismatic movie star; and Towne, his generation's finest screenwriter. But this is no hagiography. Each man is a deeply flawed egotist, to the detriment of their work and, it should be noted, to the women in their lives. None could have completed their work without the help of the others. Some of the book's strongest passages detail how Polanski whittled down Towne's complex, multi-layered script; there's a tantalizing alternate version of Chinatown hinted at in these pages.
That Chinatown emerged, in its present form, is remarkable. But the good times would not last. A cocaine addiction ravaged Towne's life; Nicholson, after one more classic performance in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, descended into camp; while it'd be years before Evans made another good movie again. Polanski's denouement, meanwhile, consisted of a rendezvous with a 13-year-old girl that landed him legal jeopardy and, famously, forced his flight from the country.
Was Chinatown really the end of an era in Hollywood? Wasson is persuasive on this point, arguing that the arrival of Jaws and of bombastic producers like Don Simpson — who cared about nothing but money — firmly ended the auteur-driven era. But I'm not so sure. Hollywood still loves its blockbuster franchises, but the arrival of Netflix and Amazon has provided a venue for movies like Chinatown. Here's hoping that when the world re-opens there will be more stories like this to tell.