Chinatown – that late masterpiece of film noir – could never be made now

In one of the most frequently quoted lines of post-war European cinema, a character in the 1976 Wim Wenders film Kings of the Road remarks that ‘the Yanks have colonised our subconscious’ (‘Die Amis haben unser Unterbewusstsein kolonialisiert’). The Hollywood film, a powerful weapon broadcasting this almost mythological vision of American culture around the world, had already begun its long retreat from complex adult themes, after untold millions were made from the colossal success of pictures by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg such as Jaws (1975), Star Wars (1977) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), all of which became franchises. Last year, one of America’s greatest directors, Martin Scorsese, took aim at today’s superhero blockbusters:

That’s not cinema. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks.

A late masterpiece of film noir, Chinatown was released in 1974, and received 11 Academy Award nominations. Today, this bracingly jaundiced tale of nose-slicing, incest and rampant municipal corruption — with its unflinchingly downbeat ending in which the lead actress is shot dead by the police — would probably struggle to obtain funding, let alone a national cinema release. With no Forrest Gump-style platitudes and no syrupy conclusion, Chinatown presents the kind of complex, morally ambiguous world that readers of novels are more than happy to accept, but which these days cinemagoers are almost never allowed to experience in mass-market Hollywood product.

Sam Wasson’s book examines the origins, production and aftermath of this landmark film, largely by tracing the stories of four key individuals: the director Roman Polanski, the producer and Paramount Studios head Robert Evans, the screenwriter Robert Towne and the male lead actor Jack Nicholson.