Narrative of Chinatown

I studied the film Chinatown to get a feel of the narrative structure of thriller films (this may not be true to all thriller films, but is an example).


A narrative is a more detailed version of a plot which tells the story, but also tells how the story is told. A narrative commonly involves ‘twists’ in the plot and also sometimes tells the story in a particular person’s perspective or maybe even different peoples’ perspectives. This can be used to show how different characters feel throughout the film and can show how it links together. For different characters their perspective may be shown in different ways to reflect on that character’s personality.

An internal monologue can be used to tell the story of a film, this is when a character verbally commentates what is happening and what his thoughts are. The story can suddenly come to a dead end without any questions answered, which leaves the audience wondering and wanting to know what happens next. This is how a narrative can form a cliff hanger. Internal monologues and cliff hangers are typical of thrillers as they can help add a certain feel and style to the story and can also help add a mysterious and maybe dramatic effect. The use of a cliff hanger is true in Chinatown as at the end of the film Noah Cross takes away his daughter/granddaughter after his other daughter who is also the mother of his granddaughter/daughter is shot. This leaves the audience not knowing what is going to happen to the granddaughter/daughter called Catherine; her relations with her father/grandfather are bound to have a drastically bad effect on her later life (she does not know that he is her grandfather as well as father.

I would describe the narrative of Chinatown as being mysterious and tension building throughout. There are plot twists which add drama to the story a plot twist in Chinatown is when Mrs Mulwrey reveals that Catherine is her daughter as well as her sister (this is one of several twists). The story is given in the perspective of private detective Mr Gittes. Giving the story from this perspective shows what his life and work was like as a private detective at the time. It helped give us a feel of how he must have felt and seen things throughout the film. The narrative engages the audience in Chinatown as you make realisations as Mr Gittes does which makes you feel as If you yourself are uncovering the story and secrets.

The narrative of the film is very important as without it there would be no way to tell the story. The narrative is the foundation of any film and gives each film its own identity. Narrative is important in Chinatown because it creates the film to be a thriller by using the methods of how the story is told and what the story is about. Narrative is important in a thriller because you can show the narrative in many ways (e.g. an internal monologue). The narrative plays a big part in making films into thrillers.