“Chinatown and J.J. Gittes” As a classic detective movie, Chinatown involves a “hard-boiled” setting and a private investigator. The story takes place in Los Angeles, California during the 1930’s. The mood of the film is typical of that of a detective story, and the gradual discovery of clues completes the film’s mysterious atmosphere. Though the detective myth is at first followed, Director Roman Polanski quickly deviates from the typical story line. Instead of …showed first 75 words of 708 total…

…showed last 75 words of 708 total…It typically involves a hero, in the form of a detective, on a mission. The hero is balanced on the “edge of the law.” He uses both his intuition and his encounters with evil to discover the source of wrongdoing. Finally, the hero finds an individual responsible for the wrongdoing, and the criminal is brought to justice. In Chinatown, however, searching for justice leads only to failure, and in the end, our hero is destroyed.