Chinatown has been praised to the heavens by almost all the critics and it's not difficult to see why. It is precisely the sort of film that apolitical (or pseudo-political) aesthetes would flip for. It presents politics as strictly an Evil Man's field of action. The Big Daddy in this thing has even committed incest, that's how Evil he is! Also laid out is that reassuring notion that politics is all too complicated, mysterious and even mystical for any of Us to understand. The political scandal and the incestuous scandal are, in fact, equated: the whole scene is beyond sense, completely irrational, utterly Evil. We are all controlled by a handful of Bad Guys and there's nothing We can do about it…. [It's] inspiring to literary-intellectuals who can cite Blake, Beckett and other trade-heroes in confirming that, (sigh) yes, there is nothing that one can do, the world...