Matt M. pokes a stick at the movie Chinatown and uncovers the horror movie that lies within.
Not only is Cross a crook who manipulates civic policy, potentially endangering hundreds with flood; not only does he order murders as casually as you might step on an ant. He steals life from others to prolong his own. When he says that he wants The Future, he’s not just talking about the future of water in the city or his personal fortunes. He is talking capital T, capital F The Future. “How many years have I got? She’s mine, too,†he tells his daughter, Evelyn of his granddaughter Katherine.
But Katherine Mulwray isn’t just his granddaughter. She’s his daughter, too. Evelyn Cross Mulwray isn’t only Katherine’s mother, but she’s her sister. Is this adding up? Cross slept with his daughter to give birth to another daughter that is more than half of himself (assuming that you can call your child half your own). And his plan is to sire another child who is more than three quarters himself. Cross commits monstrous, perverse acts in order to extend his power and his grasp of the future. Not only will he live through his daughter, but his granddaughter and even his great granddaughter, who are more and more him with every generation.
Cross is a vampire in the literal sense of the word, but worse than that, he’s a vampire that preys upon his own children, sundering taboos and any consideration but his own survival as he does so.
And in order for evil to survive, good has to be quietly vanquished. Cross extinguishes hope with every footstep. He is impervious to the law, even when Gittes finds out the truth. What’s more, Cross acts with impunity, all but kidnapping the only innocent being in the story right under the noses of the police and a powerless Gittes. What’s more, Gittes has to take it. He has to swim in that water, and in order to do so, it’s easier to let evil triumph. The Bad Guys win, and not in a “zombies swarm all over the wreckage” kind of way. It’s a very personal, intimate kind of devastation that Cross wreaks. He is able to take the fight out of Gittes (whose been shown to be more than capable of manipulating any situation) with seemingly no effort.
Happy Halloween Los Angeles!