| It captivated me then. It captivates me now. Something more than the story has a hold on me, it calls up a time and place in my life. |
I remember seeing Chinatown on a summer night with my mom. In 1974 I was still coming back home to spend summers between college years and before I began life in New York City. Seeing “high brow” movies with mom is a memory I cherish; The Conformist, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz come to mind. We’d usually go to a theatre in Northwest Portland, the old part of town, the neighborhood where my parents were newlyweds, where I was born.
Henry Thiele’s was part of our outing. A shrimp cocktail and iced tea seemed to my 20-something self to be slightly sophisticated, adult, out of the ordinary and ideal for summer. A Portland institution, Henry Thiele’s was no mere eatery, I could feel the one-time upperclass of it. It deserved becoming a landmark not the parking lot it is today. And, it looked straight out of Chinatown.
Chinatown's look and sumptuous theme song swept me up and into a world of beautiful darkness. I couldn't wait to write to my friend Mark describing Faye Dunaway’s auburn waves of hair spread out on a pillow as ‘Titian’ (yes, that exact description). I couldn’t wait for him to tell me he was enthralled too. How to not be enthralled the way I was? Mystery and malevolence with a score that haunts (https://tinyurl.com/y4cbrn39)
So here, Los Angeles, now, all these years later, Chinatown pulled at me again. Hearing about a special showing in a grand old-time movie house with screenwriter Robert Towne's Q&A after, it pulled like a magnet. (https://tinyurl.com/ybxh6hh7)
My perfect birthday treat, a pilgrimage to downtown L.A., Chinatown's city. A special gift to sit in a 1927 movie palace, a setting suited to Jake Gittes & Evelyn Mulwray.
There I sat, in movie darkness excited to be transported to the 1930’s, to listen to the screenwriter who had crafted the elegant tale I couldn’t get enough of.
There I sat, decades after a jewel named Chinatown first sparkled and flickered before my eyes.
Captivated again.
There I sat, in movie darkness excited to be transported to the 1930’s, to listen to the screenwriter who had crafted the elegant tale I couldn’t get enough of.
There I sat, decades after a jewel named Chinatown first sparkled and flickered before my eyes.
Captivated again.
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