I hate narration in movies.
It’s usually completely unnecessary, and in those rare occassions when it works… well, that these occassions are rare is proof enough. The Two Jakes, the 1990 sequel to the film noir classic Chinatown, starts out with narration. Jack Nicholson as Private Investigator JJ Gittes tells the audience what he does as he photographs a couple in the act of lovemaking over the opening credits. The dialogue has that same crisp writing style that screenwriter Robert Towne brought to full bear in the original. But here… It’s telling the audience things the filmmakers think they can’t figure out by themselves… which is the exact opposite of how the original worked, with that brilliant clockwork plot that unwound elegantly.
I rewatched Chinatown last week, excited over a new bluray remaster that made the movie look brand new. It’s frequently listed by film critics as one of the top 100 movies of all time, and justifyably so. It’s a fantastic film, and the script by Towne and the directing by Roman Polanski is pitch-perfect. Revisiting the original film made me wonder about its 1990 sequel, the film that left me cold the one-time I saw in in theatres in 1990. The film left me cold back then, but that was a long time ago… could it have been better than I remembered it? A revisit was in order.
Now, after having watched it again, 22 years later (!) I can definitively say that it is better than I remembered, but it still leaves me cold. It’s a film without drive or a reason to exist.
Unlike the original, this film is directed by Jack Nicholson, and, while Jack does his best with the material he is given… he’s no Roman Polanski. His shots have no energy, and even scenes that are supppossed to be dynamic and exciting are aloof. He directs the movie like he acts – super-cool and detached from it all. To his credit, though, his performance in the film is nuanced and subtle… a big difference from the majority of his work in the 90s.
The plot involves real estate, oil, murder, and a ghost from the past… a ghost in the form of Katheryn Mulwray, the daughter of Faye Dunaway’s character from Chinatown. It is as convoluted as much as Chinatown was linear and crisp… And that is the main problem that The Two Jakes can’t overcome. It’s not Chinatown. And everytime it invites comparisons to the original in its plot and tone it rings hollow.
A key reason for my response to this film for is something very personal. When Chinatown ended, it ENDED. There is nothing after that ending that makes me want to see what happens to any of these characters later, because it was absolutely satisfying. Tthe story has been told, and nothing else needed to be said. It’s the same reason why Gone With The Wind didn’t need revisionist sequels, or Citizen Kane 2 was never made… Great drama is like that, it’s self-actualized and complete. To follow up Chinatown… Well, The Two Jakes is a story that doesn’t really need telling, much like The Godfather III, a movie Paramount released that same year.
Like Gittes’ interrupting narration… The Two Jakes is unnecessary.
When I was watching Chinatown last week, I had the horrible thought that someone would come up with a prequel based on the hints that Towne drops in the film, a movie about what happened to Gittes when he was a cop in Chinatown doing “as little as possible”. In today’s remake and sequel crazy Hollywood, such an act would tempt me to burn the whole place down. The Two Jakes is the best arguement against such an idea, and one of the movie’s core concepts is, ironically, both the perfect evidence and an accurate indctment of itself as well.
The past is best left alone.
Some images from the film:
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