MovieChat Forums > The Two Jakes (1990) Discussion > 'You may think you know what's going on,...

'You may think you know what's going on, Mr. Gittes....'

posted 17 years ago by amkatz
5 replies | jump to latest

***********SPOILERS****************

First, I admit, I goofed. I'd never seen the Two Jakes till the other day. I thought it was on Sundance--no commercials, full length--but it was actually on Sleuth--two hours with commercials. So, obviously I didn't see the entire film.

Still, I thought the repetition of the above line summed up most of the problems with this sequel. Its use in Chinatown couldn't have been more appropos. Chinatown is rife with darkness and layers of mystery and ambiguity. Certainly LA wasn't the first town built in such a manner, but the sheer scale of the land grab was so audacious ... who could have imagined? Then there's Katherine's origins. Even this final revelation is fraught with ambiguity, witness Evelyn's reaction to Gittes's question: "He raped you?" Although there's no way a fifteen year old girl can consent to sex with her father, it's not that clear-cut to Evelyn.

Segue to The Two Jakes. What's going on is really rather banal: Someone's trying to steal mineral rights, drill underneath subdivisions ... okay. Wasn't that pretty much what Jake figured was going on by that point?

Repition of a significant line for its own sake, in spite of the logic of the story, usually indicates a sequel done for the sake of doing a sequel rather than a real need to continue the story.

Other issues with the film:

In what way was Jake always looking after Kitty? He didn't even know how to find her (hence his visit with Kahn). And why would Kitty have any clear idea of his role in trying help her and Evelyn escape? Surely her father/grandfather didn't enlighten her.

Don't get the deal with Bodine & Kitty. If Bodine knew--through his research--that Kitty was Katherine, why is talking to her on the wire about Katherine as though she weren't in the room? (Perhaps that was an effect of the truncating of the film, but I thought I understood that Bodine was sleeping with Jake Berman's wife, and Jake Berman's wife was Kitty/Katherine).

What was wrong with Jake Berman? The chest x-ray seems to clue Gittes in, but the only thing a layman might recognize from a chest x-ray are the spots of increased density associated with lung cancer. Berman confirms this by stating that the radiation implants aren't working. But why the need to keep it secret? Why offer Gittes's money for it?

And does anyone really buy JJ Gittes as a war hero?
WTF....?

More's the pity because the cast is, overall, quite good. Nicholson in middle age exudes a gravity he lacked fifteen years earlier--one could almost see him as the definitive Philip Marlowe, outdoing even Bogart in the role.

Keitel was fine as usual, and casting Ruben Blades as a Jewish hood (Mickey Cohen, obviously), was sheer genius. Despite being a thug through and through Mickey's genuine affection for Jake Berman redeems him.

But this makes the disappointment all the more acute.

Andy

[–] devastation_x 17 years ago

***** Contains Spoilers**********

amkatz, you make good points/criticisms. Sorry to say the unedited DVD I just watched didn't shine any further light on the questions you raise.

It was rather frustrating how they didn't come out & name what Harvey Kitel's character was suffering from. I must admit the incest plotline in Chinatown I found a little ridiculous, although not unbelievable. With that in mind when Kitel collapses, and then Nicholson grabs the X rays I was suspecting something on that same unbelievable bombshell level as the incest. So at first I was afraid they'd reveal Jake Berman was in fact the Post Op Transexual Katherine Mulray (SP). What a twist that would've been. In hindsight I think that would've fit with the ridiculousness of this movie. I suppose a clue to the audience was in the form of that shot of the cells in the microscope. Cause everyone who watches movies have already gone through instruction on cellular activity & how to indentify diseases by a quick 2 second shot of a microscope.

So by the time they're in the Model home I'm thinking he's probably got Syphalis, or Herpes, or perhaps Soap Poisoning (to quote Ralphie from Xmas Story). I thought it must've been herpes especially when they said "It never goes away. Well thanks to shotty film making I went onlne & found a movie spoiler site that says it was advanced Syphalis. Apparently back in those days these radium implants were used to treat Syphalis but they in turn caused cancer themselves. Not sure why they didn't bother just telling us that. But then again there was a lot they told us that didn't make much sense anyway. So it was bound to happen either way.

[–] amkatz 17 years ago

Thanks for the comments, Devastation. I used to work in healthcare and yet had no idea radium was ever used to treat syphillis. Yet, it was. Hmmm. So Keitel had his syphillis treated with radium which then induced lung cancer (his coughing spasms and the x-ray), which was *then* treated with radium implants that failed--he alludes to the implants not working anymore--that wouldn't be the case with syphi1lis, its course is more gradual, often a bit like MS or ALS.

I still remember seeing Chinatown in the theatres when it came out--part of it, the wash scenes, takes place near where I grew up. The idea of father-daughter incest was new to me (and not widely discussed elsewhere) and so very intense.

But I think bottom line is that Nicholson & Towne were too easily satisfied with the script for the remake--there wasn't the hunger Towne must have felt with writing Chinatown.

Maybe it's just as well they didn't do three;-)

Andy

[–] autopro50 17 years ago

I'll take a stab at a couple of your questions (spoilers)

1. war hero - Jake does seem to be old enough that he wouldn't have been drafted. But he could've volunteered. Just as trivia, they show on his wall what appears to be his framed Distinguished Service Cross, second highest award after Medal of Honor.
2. looking after Kitty - he apparently promised himself and/or her to look after her, after her mother was killed. I agree he obviously failed for a time; he didn't even know where she was. But it wasn't his fault, Noah Cross took her away and presumably had custody of her. Noah was really rich and kept Jake away from her. But Jake tried to keep his promise in the end.
3. Kitty knowing his role in helping her mother - Kitty was old enough in Chinatown to remember Jake (I think she was in her teens). She pretends in 2 Jakes not to know him until he makes it known he knows who she really is.
4. as to the line you mention, I agree it was more appropriate in Chinatown. In 2 Jakes, I guess you could say it alludes to the stuff Rawley (oilman) mentions, when he says that it's not just about oil, it's about making it possible for suburbs to exist - with oil (and later cheap gas), the outlying areas of a city are tranformed from farmland into subrubs. He implies it's the cheap oil that makes all the road building, housing development, suburban businesses, etc. possible. It ties into Chinatown, where its suggested that whoever controls the water can control power and wealth of LA, 2 Jakes says the water isn't enough, you need the cheap oil to create suburbs and wealth.

[–] JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies 13 years ago

Although there's no way a fifteen year old girl can consent to sex with her father

Actually, the age of consent in many locales is 16, and it's even 15 in some places (though not in the US).

http://www.rateyourmusic.com/~JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies

[–] JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies 13 years ago

In what way was Jake always looking after Kitty? He didn't even know how to find her (hence his visit with Kahn).

I'm not clear on what your issue is with this. His aim was to always protect her, but he didn't always know where she was. What's the beef you have with that?

And why would Kitty have any clear idea of his role in trying help her and Evelyn escape?

Because her mom told her about Gittes? The first film covers this, and it doesn't need to be covered again in this film, becauae any doubt about it would stem from the first film.

Don't get the deal with Bodine & Kitty. If Bodine knew--through his research--that Kitty was Katherine, why is talking to her on the wire about Katherine as though she weren't in the room?

He's saying that her identity as Mulwray could cause problems.

What was wrong with Jake Berman? The chest x-ray seems to clue Gittes in, but the only thing a layman might recognize from a chest x-ray are the spots of increased density associated with lung cancer. Berman confirms this by stating that the radiation implants aren't working. But why the need to keep it secret?

It's not that it's kept a secret. It's rather than (a) it's not important to the story what the exact illness was, and (b) they were shooting for more "naturalistic" dialogue--just how people would talk to each other in that situation, rather than announcing things to the audience as such.

Why offer Gittes's money for it?

It was important to make sure that the police didn't know he was terminally ill, because that would implicate him in killing Bodine premeditatively.

And does anyone really buy JJ Gittes as a war hero?

Sure, why not? Anyway, a lot of people who have been considered war heroes will tell you that they were just in the right place at the right time and got lucky.

http://www.rateyourmusic.com/~JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies