#174: Twisty Mysteries, Pt. 1 - Chinatown

The Next Picture Show

Filmspotting

Tv & Film, Film History, Film Reviews

4.6 • 858 Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2019

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In David Robert Mitchell’s new UNDER THE SILVER LAKE, every clue leads deeper down a rabbit hole toward an endpoint that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the beginning point. In a film as referential as Mitchell’s, that structure seems purposefully lifted from Roman Polanski’s 1974 classic CHINATOWN, another sunlit noir about a private investigator who starts with a simple philandering case and winds up peeking into a secret battle for control of the city. In this half of our pairing of the two films, we dig into CHINATOWN’s legacy and how to reconcile it with the Polanski Problem, examine how its story and performances diverge from the noir tradition, and consider whether its twisty mystery ultimately lands in a satisfying place. Plus, some feedback inspired by our recent episodes on US and VELVET BUZZSAW. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about CHINATOWN, UNDER THE SILVER LAKE, or anything else film-related by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Outro music: Destroyer, “Chinatown” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Want to win £1,000 for free? Thought so. Hang about. It's only the bugs from Tom Bola, which means bug match is back.
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0:46.5	It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present.
0:50.2	You believe that someone out of the past can enter and take possession of a living being?
0:57.0	We may be true with the past, but the past is not through with us.
1:04.6	Welcome to The Next Picture Show, a movie of the week podcast devoted to a classic film
1:08.7	and how it shaped our thoughts on a recent release.
1:11.0	I'm Tasha Robinson, here with Scott Tobias and Genevieve Koski. We're not sure where Keith Phipps is right now.
1:16.4	He said something about a conspiracy that he wanted to investigate and we haven't seen him since,
1:20.2	but we're hoping he'll make it back soon with his nose intact. Today, I can't just come out
1:25.2	and tell you what films we're actually talking about today because the shadowy powers that be don't actually want you to have that information.
1:31.3	Genevieve, Scott, the best I can offer you this week is this boxed copy of the 1993 PC computer game, Mist.
1:38.5	It's up to you to determine the rest.
1:40.8	Okay, we could probably figure this out, right?
	...

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