MovieChat Forums > Chinatown (1974) Discussion > The most chilling moment in the history ...

The most chilling moment in the history of cinema. (spoilers)

posted 4 years ago by JackalopeCash57 (92)
20 replies | jump to latest

First of all, I adore this film. The other day, I was watching this for the first time in years. The film gets better and better with each re-watch. However, I must say that upon my most recent viewing of it, there was a moment that hit me like a brick and was twice as horrifying than I remember it being. This moment takes place at the end, after Evelyn has been shot and everybody gathers around her car in utter shock. The moment from this scene that I found to be more horrifying than before was Noah Cross's obviously fake attempt to act devastated upon seeing his daughter's corpse as he was about to take Kathryn away. The way he says "oh lord, oh lord, oh lord" while grabbing a heavily distraught Kathryn is one of the scariest parts in all of film. Gives me goosebumps just talking about it.

[–] MichaelJPollock (650) 4 years ago

Yes, the ways he covers her small face and eyes with his huge hands.... he's an ogre about to eat her alive.

Somehow, my favorite moment of the whole film is the swift forward tracking shot (the same Scorsese will be using over and over again later on...) on Gittes's face when Evelyn's butler tells him the maid's address he knows is in Chinatown. That one place (or rather mental space) that's been looming over the whole film, and fate crashing down on Gitte's head like a ton of brick...

Also, the mise-en-scene and Nicholson's acting are so effective in that sequence that I don't care where you live or if you've never heard of L.A.: you instantly understand 1712 Alamed is in Chinatown.

[–] BourbonKing (5618) 4 years ago

John Huston's performance really has a visceral effect on many men and women who also love this movie. I love it too and rank it in my desert island list, but I never found Noah Cross all that terrifying. His portrayal is very familiar and indeed well crafted but the reactions from viewers I know always point out his evilness like it was a personal revelation.

Perhaps he reminds them of a relative? LOL

[–] JackalopeCash57 (92) 3 years ago

I mean, John Huston has always reminded me of my late paternal Grandpa due to the physical resemblence and his all around deep thinking yet jovial demeanor. So yeah, that is most likely why Cross really scares the shit out of me once it is revealed that he is the villain lol. I am willing to bet that lots of folks out there share this opinion of the ending and the character of Noah Cross. I mean, the most effective and well-written/well-portrayed villains are the ones who initially seem to be very charismatic and polite, it makes the gut-punch reveal land twice as hard

[–] Ace_Spade (9356) 3 years ago

Cross is one of the evilest villains every portrayed in cinema history. He's more frightening than a horror monster because he's a real monster, and he's more villainous than a megalomaniac Bond villain. He's even worse than nutter psychotics like Hannibal Lector. Lector is scary, but clearly deranged (although, quite chillingly sane at times), whereas Noah Cross? Just selfish, evil, lust-filled, greedy, and hungry for power and wealth. Huston's performance is amazing (was it ever anything else?)

[–] BourbonKing (5618) 3 years ago

"Of course I'm respectable, I'm OLD. Politicians, Old buildings and whores become respectable if they last long enough..." -

[–] Ace_Spade (9356) 3 years ago

Every inch of the film is great. That script is incredible!

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 3 years ago

And what's worse about Noah Cross is that society doesn't even realize he's a villain and those that do have been paid off so they look the other way. Everyone knew that Hannibal Lector and Ernst Stavro Blofeld were evil

[–] Ace_Spade (9356) 3 years ago

An excellent point. We see this a lot all around us. Somebody gets powerful and can reward others, so when they act in an evil way, they are lauded by sycophants looking for scraps.

That is one of the darkest and most troubling aspects of evil and villainy: they often are appealing and seductive, and because of this, people around monsters will pretend that they are otherwise.

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 3 years ago

Yes and that was another chilling thing about Polanskis previous film Rosemarys Baby, every member of that coven looked totally normal and someone who didn’t know better would never figure out they were evil until they saw them in the apartment filled with satanic imagery and were hailing Satan, just reinforces the idea that evil may be integrated within our society.

[–] Ace_Spade (9356) 3 years ago

Evil hides and evil lurks, but sooner or later, it outs itself.

Vigilance is key.

[–] roreyking (558) 3 months ago

Gee, thanks.

[–] cyguration (3845) 3 years ago

That is one of the darkest and most troubling aspects of evil and villainy: they often are appealing and seductive, and because of this, people around monsters will pretend that they are otherwise.

Reminds me of Hunter and Joe Biden.

It's one thing to see the the photos and videos from the laptop, knowing what Hunter did with Natalie. But the most heart-wrenching thing of it all is reading the correspondence between Hallie Biden and Joe Biden, where Hallie pours out her heart to Joe about what Hunter did with Natalie, and Joe tells her to go to "therapy".

That entire family is screwed up, yet Joe was (falsely) elected to sit in the most powerful seat on the planet.

Every time I see Hunter or creepy Joe, my stomach turns.

[–] Ace_Spade (9356) 3 years ago

I have no idea what you're talking about with the laptop.

Yes, politicians are dirty, a lot of them are sociopaths, and/or narcissists, and we just have to ferret them out and try to block their worst actions as we can.

The last two US presidential elections have been rock-hard place kinda situations. Trump or Hillary? Trump or Biden? Ugh. Maybe the Republicans and the Democrats should try running good candidates next time.

[–] cyguration (3845) 3 years ago

I have no idea what you're talking about with the laptop.

Here, I'll help you out...

https://www.yippy.com/search?v%3Aproject=clusty-new&query=hunter+biden+natalie+biden+laptop+photos

Might want to open that in a browser with incognito mode turned on.

The last two US presidential elections have been rock-hard place kinda situations. Trump or Hillary? Trump or Biden? Ugh. Maybe the Republicans and the Democrats should try running good candidates next time.

I used to think the exact same thing -- that all of them were evil and corrupt; all the same. But 2016 really opened my eyes to just HOW evil the DNC was when Wikileaks released the e-mails, and then we got to see how the mainstream media mentioned in the e-mails how they would push Clinton unequivocally at the expense of Bernie and everyone else.

A former staffer of Clinton, Seth Rich had reportedly been in contact with Wikileaks, but was killed shortly after the leak. The MSM spun the story that it was actually the dreaded Russians who leaked the e-mails. Even though Julian Assange said multiple times they didn't get any leaks from the Russians:
https://archive.is/od4YR

But before scrubbing the net of previous reports, there's actually an archive of a Fox article detailing that Rich allegedly had been in contact with Wikileaks, before they backtracked on the story:
https://archive.is/FQfj9

Assange also implied it was Rich, too:
https://archive.is/wip/yTn4I

The FBI retrieved his laptop and Seth Rich was included in an investigation involving 20,000 pages:
https://archive.is/87MfQ

Later, we saw how the MSM covered for all of Biden's corruption, including his deals with China, his son's underage sex scandals, and everything else.

I realized that Donald Trump was somehow a lesser evil compared to all these other swamp monsters, and the more I learned about the vile things they were associated with, I realized most movie villains don't hold a candle to them.

[–] Ace_Spade (9356) 3 years ago

Well, I didn't click the "yippy" link. I'm not going anywhere that you think I'll need a cloaking device to view safely.

After googling around a bit, I found this: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fbi-agents-hunter-biden/

That article is saying there's no evidence for there being child pornography on Hunter's laptop. Where is the correspondence coming from? You referenced Joe Biden and Hallie talking at some point? Are there key quotes for that? What's the source?

Snopes is also unconvinced of Rich's murder being definitively accounted for in the manner you suggest: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/seth-conrad-rich/

I'll take snopes over Fox any day of the week.

As for general corruption, yeah, I bet Biden and the DNC are up to their eyeballs. So are the Republicans and Trump.

I don't think he was the lesser of two evils at all.

[–] cyguration (3845) 3 years ago

I don't trust Fox either, but I do trust Assange.

Also, if you don't want to check the Yippy results you can also check Yandex:
https://yandex.com/search/?text=hunter%20biden%20natalie%20biden%20laptop%20photos&from=os&clid=1836587&lr=21074

You can find plenty of photos that prove Snopes 100% wrong, assuming you actually want to see the photos/videos yourself
https://www.tmbfiles.com/leaked-all-hunter-biden-photos-sex-tapes/

Again, you can either believe Snopes or check out the evidence for yourself.

Also, you won't find any answers to your questions on Google. Google removes any links or websites that contain evidence of things they want to keep hidden. Snopes is controlled disinformation.

For instance, check Snopes for election fraud. They'll say it's all "debunked" and "false!" and there's "no evidence" of anything, which is why they claim the courts threw out all the cases, even though most of the cases the courts completely refused to even look at the evidence. If you actually look at what happened the courts dismissed the cases on "no standing", not that there wasn't any evidence.

In fact, evidence has been prevalent since the claims were made.

Nearly three hours worth of evidence was presented during the Georgia Senate Subcommittee hearing. I time-stamped a short relevant portion here:
https://youtu.be/EjbAFuoQOvo?t=10489

A security specialist also performed a live demonstration of two-way communication with the machines that places like Snopes claimed couldn't be hacked, or were "secure". Here's the video here:
https://youtu.be/Xah-eI3mpBU

Demonstration of being able to rig ballot counts:
https://rumble.com/vbqnqj-dominion-vote-fraud-coffee-county-georgia.html

Arizona subpoenaing for an audit after discovery of ballot-rigging because the board refused to allow an audit:
https://youtu.be/xXQ-tp7R5yQ

If the elections were so secure, EVERYONE would want an honest audit.

That's just a small tip of the iceberg related to the corruption afoot.

[–] Ace_Spade (9356) 3 years ago

So, searching around, fact-check websites are basically saying this stuff is conspiracy-grade news. Media Bias Fact Check confirms that sites like Snopes are reliable and have yet to fail a fact-check. I'm not sure why you think Snopes is a bad site. I don't want to look at photos and videos of sex crimes myself because I don't want that crap littering my computer; I don't want my IP getting pinged by some watchdog.

As for election fraud, I highly doubt that anybody plays a clean game if they can help it - Team Trump or the Biden Brigade. Fraud probably cancels itself out. That said, I would like a Trump administration spokesperson to address why they thought votes for Biden didn't count, but Republican wins for other offices in those fraudulent areas were 100% valid.

I don't really want to have a bit political argument here since I'm mostly here to talk about movies.

[–] cyguration (3845) 3 years ago

So, searching around, fact-check websites are basically saying this stuff is conspiracy-grade news.

Yes, because many of them are funded by companies associated with the CCP. The same CCP who wanted Trump out and Biden in.

It sounds like something out of movie, but a lot of it was revealed during Candice Owens' lawsuit against Facebook:
https://epochtimes.today/facebook-fact-checker-funded-by-chinese-money-through-tiktok/

Although, Tik Tok did mention they were partnering with these groups beforehand... they just failed to mention their parent company is the one funding said fact checkers:
https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-au/tiktok-partners-with-fact-checking-experts-to-combat-misinformation

I'm not sure why you think Snopes is a bad site.

You just linked to an article that lied and said there was no photos of illicit activity involving Hunter and underage kids, and I linked you evidence that shows otherwise. I only found out about it myself because one of the places I work at is a rater company for social media sites and people were sharing the photos/videos online and the company's job is to censor it so people aren't informed about this content.

Ask yourself this: Why doesn't Google want you to even know about these heinous crimes? Why censor news sites from even reporting about it?

Why is Snopes et al covering for a crack-addict who sleeps with kids?

Why is Big Tech insistent that actual, factual, irrefutable evidence is somehow a "conspiracy theory"?

This isn't me talking politics, this is me circling back to the original topic of real life housing villains worse than those depicted in fictional media.

A lot of people, however, are so brainwashed and deluded by the mainstream's heavy-hand of censorship and disinformation that they would willingly rather stay blinded rather than face the cold, hard, disturbing truth that reality is oftentimes worse than the most heinous fiction one could experience.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

John Huston's performance really has a visceral effect on many men and women who also love this movie.

---

I saw Chinatown on a date with a long-term girlfriend, and though I liked the movie (and would like it BETTER on later viewings), she was so devastated by the ending that she ended up needing to go home early, shaken, crying and trembling.

I felt bad. I never took her to "gory horror movies" out of deference and Chinatown simply gobsmacked us both with the revelations about Katherine and at the end.

Worse: Chinatown was the SECOND date movie I'd done with that gal in 1974 that had that effect on her. Earlier in the year "The Conversation," with its nightmarish scene with the hotel bathroom toilet and ITS grim paranoid ending...put her in roughly the same place: home early, shaken, crying and trembling.

In both cases, I thought we were going to see "artful Hollywood thrillers," but hey, both went deeper. Funny thing: they didn't affect ME that way, but when I saw how hard those two movies were on HER, I came to realize that 1970's Hollywood filmmakers didn't necessarily consider the gentle souls out there in the audience.

After Chinatown, I read reviews carefully and steered clear of violent dramas for dates. With her, at least.

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 3 years ago

Yeah and we know that he is going to molest Kathryn, it was a really unsettling ending much like one of Polanski's other films Rosemary's Baby