Do not have an answer to the parenthetical. Will be thinking about it.
Thank you so much for this post! It's true, it's something about Chinatown I'd known but not thought consciously of. How it becomes fun for a while, right at and after the visit to the old-folks' home, how the antagonism of other people is maintained in one way, and totally drained in another. Because, I guess, people have personal and professional selves?
I'm comparing Blade Runner - an easy comparison because it's also LA, it's also noir, it also features both a lost girl and attrition. But in comparison to Chinatown it's so monumentally unfriendly. Pretty much everyone turns out privately to be worse, the big friendship scene is a rejection (Roy tells Deckard he can't understand and what can Deckard do but agree), and the big friendship act is an absence (Gaffe elects not to show up, and signals it by leaving an orgami creature that doesn't exist).
It's weird, in this light of consideration, how much friendlier Chinatown is than Blade Runner. But I knew that. Chinatown is a run through a serial collapse of places that really were sanctuaries until, pretty much, the moment you see them (the boat in Echo Park, Faye's house, etc.). Everything in Blade Runner is a pit with or without you, there's nothing in its structure that could shift.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-04-11 06:31 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for this post! It's true, it's something about Chinatown I'd known but not thought consciously of. How it becomes fun for a while, right at and after the visit to the old-folks' home, how the antagonism of other people is maintained in one way, and totally drained in another. Because, I guess, people have personal and professional selves?
I'm comparing Blade Runner - an easy comparison because it's also LA, it's also noir, it also features both a lost girl and attrition. But in comparison to Chinatown it's so monumentally unfriendly. Pretty much everyone turns out privately to be worse, the big friendship scene is a rejection (Roy tells Deckard he can't understand and what can Deckard do but agree), and the big friendship act is an absence (Gaffe elects not to show up, and signals it by leaving an orgami creature that doesn't exist).
It's weird, in this light of consideration, how much friendlier Chinatown is than Blade Runner. But I knew that. Chinatown is a run through a serial collapse of places that really were sanctuaries until, pretty much, the moment you see them (the boat in Echo Park, Faye's house, etc.). Everything in Blade Runner is a pit with or without you, there's nothing in its structure that could shift.