I first saw Bonnie and Clyde in high-school film class. I don’t know if I completely understood its sexual themes but I did remember its uncompromising violence. I hadn’t seen the film again until recently, almost two decades later.
Chinatown is of the film noir genre and although it was made in the seventies, its story is set in the period when many film noirs were made. The setting is Los Angeles, where water is money because of its desert location. The basic plot surrounds water’s value to the city of Los Angeles. Whomever controls the water has power and can generate insane wealth merely by choosing where and when water goes. In fact, California today is still very much subject to both power corruption (Enron making profits by shifting power from one state to another) and insane land valuations being propped up by the highest bidder.
Synopsis
A San Francisco mega-skyscraper goes ablaze due to ill-advised construction cost-cutting. Architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) and fire chief O’Hallorhan (Steve McQueen) battle the blaze to save a literal cast of thousands trapped within.
Recently on Market Street I saw a mother shoving her screaming child into a stroller, hysterically shrieking all sorts of dramatics about teaching children to behave. Perhaps this was justified, but to an outside observer it just looked like a big person beating the crap out of a smaller, weak, helpless one. The added layer of public humiliation just made me feel terrible.
Well, if mom keeps it up, the child eventually grows up and makes a film like Mommie Dearest., and I felt terrible watching it. It’s based on a tell-all memoir written by Joan Crawford’s adopted daughter, Christina. Joan Crawford, the famous actress, is played by Faye Dunaway (whom I really loved in Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown), but here, she plays a noxious hag.