Research Seminar - “You may think you know what you’re dealing with but believe me, you don’t.” A conversation about the achievement and legacy of Chinatown.

“You may think you know what you’re dealing with but believe me, you don’t.”
A conversation about the achievement and legacy of Chinatown

Presented by: Michael Eaton and Prof. Jason Jacobs

Date: Friday 26 May 2023
Time: 12-1pm
Location: Online via Zoom and in-person at the SCA Writer's Studio (Level 6, Michie Building)

Abstract

Nearly 40 years ago Robert Evans produced and Roman Polanski directed Robert Towne’s stunning screenplay Chinatown for Paramount Studios. This neo-noir tracks the investigation of private eye J. J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) into the corruption at the heart of Los Angeles in the 1930s, and the film has since acquired the status of a masterpiece of 1970s Hollywood art. Michael Eaton and Jason Jacobs will discuss the achievement and legacy of the film prompted by some extracts from it. 

Presenter

Michael Eaton is an award-winning dramatist for cinema, television, radio and the theatre.  He has written TV docu-dramas such as Why Lockerbie?, the BAFTA-nominated Shoot to Kill and Shipman as well as original dramas including Signs and Wonders and Flowers Of The Forest.  His script for the HBO feature film Fellow Traveller won Best Screenplay at the British Film Awards in 1989.   He has written four plays for Nottingham Playhouse, his local theatre, of which the last was Charlie Peace – His Amazing Life and Astounding Legend.  Among his plays for BBC radio he has adapted several works of Charles Dickens as well as adapting Great Expectations for the stage. His latest radio drama is Never Mind The Ballocks, about the Sex Pistols Indecency trial in 1977, which will be broadcast later in the year.  He is the author of the BFI Film Classics book on Chinatown.

Jason Jacobs is Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Queensland and author of the BFI TV Classics book on Deadwood, and Reluctant Sleuths, True Detectives in the SUNY press series, Horizons of Cinema.