CHINATOWN

You get tough. You get tender. You get close to each other. Maybe you even get close to the truth.

Roman Polanski's brooding film noir exposes the darkest side of the land of sunshine, the Los Angeles of the 1930s, where power is the only currency--and the only real thing worth buying. Jack Nicholson is J J Gittes, a private eye in the Chandler mould, who during a routine straying-spouse investigation finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a jigsaw puzzle of clues and corruption. The glamorous Evelyn Mulwray (a dazzling Faye Dunaway) and her titanic father, Noah Cross (John Huston), are at the black-hole centre of this tale of treachery, incest and political bribery. The crackling, hard-bitten script by Robert Towne won a well-deserved Oscar, and the muted colour cinematography makes the goings-on seem both bleak and impossibly vibrant. Polanski himself has a brief, memorable cameo as the thug who tangles with Nicholson's nose. Chinatown is one of the greatest, most completely satisfying crime films of all time.

Bonus Supplements:

• Commentary with Robert Towne and David Fincher
• Three-part Water and Power documentary with Robert Towne:
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 The Aqueduct

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 The Aftermath

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 The River & Beyond

• Chinatown: An Appreciation retrospective with filmmakers Steven Soderbergh, James Newton Howard, Kimberly Peirce, and Roger Deakins
• Three behind-the-scenes featurettes:
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 Chinatown: The Beginning and the End

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 Chinatown: Filming

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 Chinatown: The Legacy

• Theatrical trailer