What Jake did in the end (Spoilers)

Interesting. I had a different interpretation of "Kitty."

...staying with a guy like Berman who is friends with hoodlums and the fact that she knew he was cheating

I think it was stated only that she may have believed he was cheating. He'd stopped making love to her because of his illness, and she assumed he'd lost interest in her.

Gittes did indeed engage a cover-up to protect Katherine, but his means of doing so were by way of helping Berman escape prosecution so that her identity wouldn't become public, not because she was an accessory ("Splashing Katherine Mulwray's past all over the LA Times wouldn't do anybody any good...This way, Katherine can deal with her ghosts in private").

Gittes knew Berman was terminally ill and would die before he could go to trial, so he philosophically concluded that justice was being served ("What's the difference who passes the sentence, a doctor or a judge?").

I think we can take her at her word, both about her relationship with Berman and her realization after the fact that he'd engineered the killing of Bodine. When Gittes demonstrates to her how Berman arranged to have the gun hidden in the motel room, she's shocked and reacts badly when her husband arrives ("Get away from me. Stay away!"), and once she finally faces facts about him later at Gittes' home (after he's realized who she really is), she advises Gittes to proceed without worrying about her:

KITTY: "I didn't want to give you any reason not to testify. You said you'd always protect me, no matter what. I knew you would...He made me feel I could live a normal life like anybody else. He was romantic...he's a murderer, right?"

GITTES: "Right."

KITTY: "Hand over the wire recording."

I don't think this would have been her attitude if she'd been an accessory; I accept that she's sincere, and don't see anything in the film to indicate otherwise.



Poe! You are...avenged!

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