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2 Reviews
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Good essay.
After reading the BFI books on DOUBLE INDEMNITY (which spends most of its 66 pages detailing the careers of Wilder and Hammet) & CITIZEN KANE (which offers absolutely nothing new) this edition on CHINATOWN is head and shoulders above the aforementioned. Nicely written, informative and evocative of the film itself.
Published 3 months ago by Joey D
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23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A great film inspires a fair book
I wish I could say Michael Eaton's Chinatown is required reading for film buffs, or for people who love the movie as I do, but I can't. It's not a bad book by any means, but I'm somewhat ambivalent about recommending it. The author deals in great detail with some aspects of the work in great (too much?) detail, while glossing or ignoring other important aspects of the...
Published on June 24, 1999 by John Grabowski
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23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A great film inspires a fair book,
By John Grabowski (USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Chinatown (BFI Film Classics) (Paperback)
I wish I could say Michael Eaton's Chinatown is required reading for film buffs, or for people who love the movie as I do, but I can't. It's not a bad book by any means, but I'm somewhat ambivalent about recommending it. The author deals in great detail with some aspects of the work in great (too much?) detail, while glossing or ignoring other important aspects of the film and why it is a masterpiece (and coincidentally why its ill-advised sequel failed). He also gets bogged down on some trivial coincidences in which he sees all too much meaning, as well as his Freudian interpretations. (What is it with film "scholars" and their "Freudianization" of everything?) But most of all the structure of the book is just flat-footed and monotonous, with too much scene recitation and too little insight. It reads more like a set of Cliff Notes than anything else.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good essay.,
By Joey D (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Chinatown (BFI Film Classics) (Paperback)
After reading the BFI books on DOUBLE INDEMNITY (which spends most of its 66 pages detailing the careers of Wilder and Hammet) & CITIZEN KANE (which offers absolutely nothing new) this edition on CHINATOWN is head and shoulders above the aforementioned. Nicely written, informative and evocative of the film itself.
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Chinatown (BFI Film Classics) by Michael Eaton (Paperback - December 27, 1997)
$14.95
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