Face the Fact

     
        " I don't blame myself. You see, Mr Gittes, most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and right place, they're capable of anything. "

Noah Cross -
Chinatown
1974

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Sunday Dog Parade

Shadow Dancing

Bitter Rice

Killers Kiss

They Shoot Horses Don't They

The Damned Don't Cry

Black Swan

Crossfire

Shock Corridor

Party Girl

Road House

Asphalt Jungle

Casino

Criss Cross

Victims of Sin

Dime a Dance - Fallen Angels (S2 E3)

Gilda

Satan in High Heels

Cabaret

Flamingo Road

More Poster Noir

A State of Affairs

         Chinatown connotes color and in a larger sense the hidden twoness of things. It is both a place and a state of affairs, part of Los Angeles and Los Angeles itself. At the end, we learn that Noah Cross "owns the police", that the cover-up Gittes detested in Chinatown extends all over. To paraphrase Marlowe's Mephistopheles ; Why this is Chinatown, nor am i out of it.

except from
Norman Holland
A Sharper Focus

Life in the Shadows #62

Babylon Berlin

Asphalt Jungle

Vertigo

Diaboliques

Carol

Blue Dahlia

Angel Heart

Third Man

Sopranos

Sunset Boulevard

Blade Runner

Raging Bull

No Country for Old Men

Phantom Lady

Jackie Brown

Night of the Hunter

Dark City (1998)

Nightmare Alley (1947)

Reservoir Dogs

Lady from Shanghai