The Big Goodbye

Starred review from December 1, 2019

Inimitable Wasson (Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.) examines the development of the iconic film Chinatown (1974), beginning with the months leading up to the murder of director Roman Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate, in 1969. Robert Towne began writing a neo-noir screenplay about political corruption and a disturbing family dynamic that echoed the disarray in Washington, DC, and the pall cast over Hollywood after the Manson family killings. Robert Evans was already a successful producer, yet he was dedicated to his vision for Chinatown, his first independently produced film. Jack Nicholson, Towne's longtime friend, was coming into his own; Towne crafted the main character around the actor's talents. Each of these men brought distinct strengths to the project. Wasson nimbly guides us through their battles over the story and the score, and the infamous clashes between Polanski and the brilliant lead, Faye Dunaway. Wasson argues convincingly that Chinatown was one of the last great Hollywood films; in the years following its release, the industry shifted from a dream factory realizing ambitious visions to a corporate machine churning out blockbusters. VERDICT On par with Wasson's exceptional Fosse, this portrait of a neonoir classic will weave a spell over cinephiles.--Peter Thornell, Hingham P.L., MA

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2019
A biography of the making of Chinatown, which scriptwriter Robert Towne called "a state of mind." In his latest, Los Angeles-based film chronicler Wasson (Improv Nation: How We Made a Great American Art, 2017, etc.), who has written about Bob Fosse, Audrey Hepburn, Blake Edwards, and Paul Mazursky, undertakes a multifaceted dissection of the infamous noir film starring Jack Nicholson. Produced by Robert Evans and written by Towne, Chinatown was directed by the "brilliant tyrant" Roman Polanski. Throughout the book, Wasson treats the film as a masterpiece, an arguable but reasonable assessment, and delineates his biographies of Nicholson, Evans, Towne, and Polanski in the context of the film specifically. The author adeptly illustrates how each man brought his own experience of contemporary Hollywood to the film though the story is arguably a more accurate depiction of 1930s Hollywood than any noir film recorded in that time period. Wasson portrays drugs and crime in a matter-of-fact manner befitting the movie itself, and he doesn't minimize or romanticize any of the less-than-savory elements involving the principals of the narrative; this applies especially to Polanski. The author weaves into the text details about the Tate-LaBianca murders and their effects on not only Polanski, but the city as a whole. He shows how the phrase "That's Chinatown" was not just a memorable motif in the movie, but also a reflection of the visceral emotions roiling LA at the time of the film's release. "Since the murders," writes the author, "the communal dream of social and political reformation that had illumed the sixties had blackened, almost on cue, at the decade's turn." As Towne said, "there are some crimes for which you get punished, and there are some crimes that our society isn't equipped to punish, and so we reward the criminals." Through Wasson's thorough research, this book clearly illuminates that concept. If you love Chinatown, then you'll love The Big Goodbye--and it's good reading for any American cinema buff.

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Starred review from February 15, 2020
Chinatown is beloved by cinema fans across generations, and this making-of account of the landmark 1974 film will be relished by them all. Veteran Hollywood writer Wasson looks both at how Chinatown came to be as well as the larger societal and cultural forces swirling behind it, including the Sharon Tate murders in 1969 and Watergate, which was dominating headlines at the time. As assistant director Howard Koch put it, We were making Chinatown the movie, and America was becoming Chinatown the country. Focusing on producer Robert Evans, director Roman Polanski, screenwriter Robert Towne, and star Jack Nicholson, Wasson scrupulously tracks the genesis of the project from Towne's desire to write a movie for his pal Nicholson that would incorporate great swaths of Los Angeles history, through Evans' legendary dealmaking, and Polanski's obsessive desire to make the film his own. The personal lives of the four weave in and out of the narrative, including Polanski's trauma over the murder of his wife, Tate, and their unborn child, as well as his criminal attraction to much-younger women. At the book's heart, though, is the screenplay, especially the role played by Towne's unacknowledged collaborator, Edward Taylor, and the battles between Towne and Polanski over cutting the script, battles that Polanski, wielding his red pencil, invariably won. A detail-rich study of the tortured birthing of a masterpiece.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)