Basic Info / 基本情報

Synopsis / あらすじ

[English / 英語] In 1937 Los Angeles, private investigator J.J. “Jake” Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hired by a woman claiming to be the wife of Hollis Mulwray, the city’s water commissioner, to investigate his supposed infidelity. Gittes tails Mulwray and photographs him with a young woman, only to find the pictures splashed across the front page the next day. The scandal deepens when the real Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) appears, threatening a lawsuit and revealing the initial request was a fabrication. Before Gittes can untangle the deception, Mulwray is found dead in a reservoir. Drawn into a labyrinth of municipal corruption and redirected water history, Gittes encounters Evelyn’s formidable father, Noah Cross (John Huston), whose influence looms over the city’s future. The film asks: What is the dark truth behind the artificial drought? What predatory ambition drives the powerful Noah Cross? What devastating secret is Evelyn shielding? And in the end, does “Chinatown” represent the place where the law of the jungle overrides the hope for justice?

[日本語] 1937年のロサンゼルス。私立探偵ジェイク・ギテス（ジャック・ニコルソン）は、市水道局長ホリス・マルレイの妻と名乗る女性から、夫の不倫調査を依頼されます。ギテスはマルレイを尾行し、若い女性と密会する現場を撮影しますが、翌日その写真はスキャンダルとして新聞の一面を飾ります。直後、本物のマルレイ夫人イヴリン（フェイ・ダナウェイ）が現れ、先の依頼が偽物であったことを告げ、訴訟をちらつかせます。困惑するギテスでしたが、事態はさらに暗転します。マルレイが貯水池で水死体となって発見されたのです。市を揺るがす「水の利権」をめぐる陰謀の渦中に引きずり込まれたギテスは、イヴリンの父であり、街の未来を支配しようとする強大な権力者ノア・クロス（ジョン・ヒューストン）と対峙することになります。映画は問いかけます。人為的な干ばつの背後に隠された闇の真実とは。ノア・クロスを突き動かす捕食的な野心の正体とは。そして、イヴリンが命懸けで守ろうとする衝撃の秘密とは。最後に行き着く「チャイナタウン」という場所は、正義の希望が弱肉強食の論理に塗り潰される絶望の象徴なのでしょうか。

Cast & Crew / スタッフ・出演

Additional Information / 追加情報

Awards / 受賞歴

• 47th Academy Awards (1975) – 11 nominations, 1 win:
  • Best Original Screenplay – WON (Robert Towne)
  • Best Picture – nomination
  • Best Director – nomination (Roman Polanski)
  • Best Actor – nomination (Jack Nicholson)
  • Best Actress – nomination (Faye Dunaway)
  • Best Cinematography – nomination (John A. Alonzo)
  • Best Film Editing – nomination (Sam O’Steen)
  • Best Original Dramatic Score – nomination (Jerry Goldsmith)
  • Best Art Direction – nomination
  • Best Costume Design – nomination
  • Best Sound – nomination
• 32nd Golden Globe Awards (1975) – 4 nominations, 3 wins:
  • Best Motion Picture – Drama – WON
  • Best Director – WON (Roman Polanski)
  • Best Actor – Drama – WON (Jack Nicholson)
  • Best Screenplay – nomination (Robert Towne)
• 28th BAFTA Awards (1975) – 5 nominations, 1 win:
  • Best Screenplay – WON (Robert Towne)
  • Best Actor – nomination (Jack Nicholson)
  • Best Actress – nomination (Faye Dunaway)
  • Best Cinematography – nomination
  • Best Editing – nomination
• AFI 100 Years…100 Movies (2007): #21 on the list of greatest American films
• AFI 100 Years…100 Thrills: #2
• WGA 101 Greatest Screenplays: #1 (Robert Towne’s screenplay ranked the greatest ever written)

Critical Reception / 批評的評価

• Rotten Tomatoes: 99% (Critics), 95% (Audience)
• Metacritic: 92/100 (Universal Acclaim)
• IMDb: 8.2/10
• Eiga.com（映画.com）: 4.2/5
• Universally regarded as one of the greatest American films ever made and the definitive neo-noir
• Robert Towne’s screenplay consistently ranked the greatest original screenplay in Hollywood history
• Jack Nicholson’s performance called the finest of his career
• Faye Dunaway praised for vulnerability and complexity — a performance of controlled devastation
• John Huston’s casting as Noah Cross described as a stroke of genius: a legendary Hollywood director playing the embodiment of corrupt patriarchal power
• Jerry Goldsmith’s score — written in ten days after Polanski rejected the original score — called one of cinema’s most haunting
• Roger Ebert.com: ★★★★ “One of the greatest of all films”
• The New York Times (original 1974 review, Vincent Canby): “A beautifully crafted, diabolically clever detective story”
• Sight & Sound: Ranked among the greatest films ever made in every decennial poll since 1982
• Pauline Kael: Called it “the finest American movie of the year”
• Widely studied as the paradigmatic example of the pessimistic post-Watergate Hollywood film
• The ending — Polanski insisted on it over Towne’s original, more hopeful conclusion — now considered essential to the film’s meaning
• Polanski’s cameo (the man who slits Gittes’s nose) noted as the director inserting himself as the agent of the film’s most visceral cruelty

Box Office Performance / 興行成績

• Worldwide Total: $29.2 million
• Domestic (US/Canada): $22.0 million
• Production Budget: $6 million
• Return on Investment: ~4.9x (strong for the era)
• Opening Weekend (US):
  • Wide release: June 20, 1974
  • Strong opening for the period
  • Sustained run through summer and awards season
• Performance Analysis:
  • Released in the summer of 1974 — the same summer Nixon resigned
  • The film’s portrait of systemic corruption resonated with devastating timeliness
  • Critical acclaim drove a long theatrical run
  • 11 Oscar nominations renewed interest and extended theatrical life
  • Golden Globe wins (Best Drama, Best Director, Best Actor) built momentum
• Cultural Context:
  • Released June 1974; Nixon resigned August 9, 1974
  • Watergate hearings dominated American public life throughout the film’s production and release
  • A film about the theft of public resources by private power, about institutional corruption made invisible by institutional design — it arrived at the precise historical moment when Americans were learning these things were real
  • The film’s pessimism felt, to 1974 audiences, less like cynicism than like accuracy
• Long-Term Commercial Legacy:
  • Adjusted for inflation: ~$150M+ in contemporary terms
  • Perennial presence in repertory theaters, film schools, retrospectives
  • One of the most commercially successful films to also be considered a canonical masterpiece
  • Sequel The Two Jakes (1990, directed by Nicholson) was a critical and commercial disappointment

Related Review / 関連レビュー

🔗 English Review
・[World Water Day] He Who Controls the Water Controls the Future—Chinatown and the Politics of Thirst

🔗 日本語レビュー
・【世界水の日】水を制する者が未来を制する——『チャイナタウン』と渇きの政治学