When people hail the Chinatown screenplay as the GOAT because it was confusing to and demanded of, the audience mystery-solving, they are confusing the moviescript with the screenplay, two different things, at least this third draft screenplay. The moviescript is confusing in ways that this draft is not. There were whole scenes in this screenplay that clarified some things--and were cut from the film. There were other scenes that were drastically altered. Take this one, kinda important:
Both 3rd screenplay and moviescript
EVELYN
(continuing)
-- my father and I, understand, or
is it too tough for you?
3rd screenplay only
Gittes doesn't answer.
Movie only
GITTES
He raped you.
3rd screenplay only
EVELYN
(continuing)
... he had a breakdown... the dam
broke... my mother died... he became
a little boy... I was fifteen...
he'd ask me what to eat for breakfast,
what clothes to wear!... It
happened... then I ran away...
That's different, huh? Narcissistic-sociopath-rapist-of-his-own-daughter vs shattered-widowed-sympathetic-revert-to-childhood-man-who-doesn't-know-who-he-is-or-who-she-is-and-willing-seductress-daughter.
Or how about this: Evelyn DOES NOT shoot Cross! :) Big change, no? Or this?
3rd screenplay
GITTES
Gittes looks down. What he sees horrifies him. Cross is on the ground, holding Evelyn's body, crying.
In the movie, cross grabs Kathryn and carries her away. Cross ignores Evelyn.
Now, you could take this approach to all of this confusion on the who and the what, sort of like who cares who Shakespeare was: "But ultimately, who wrote what is less important than what was written." You could take that approach, if you were a vacuous moron and didn't specify "what was written" that you so laud. For there were many things written, to which do you refer? The first screenplay draft? The second? This, the third? Any subsequent draft written by Robert Towne--who won an Oscar writing the best screenplay—based on the moviescript? It mattered to the Academy Awards people "who wrote what"! Or are you referring to the moviescript? I believe the afore-referenced moe-ron refers to the moviescript. Then who wrote the moviescript?
The answer to that last question, and largely to the others above, is Roman Polanski, according to one researcher.
In his book, Wasson 1 argues that Roman Polanski, who directed Chinatown, rewrote Towne’s original screenplay.. [two ellipses sic] In particular, Polanski insisted on a far darker ending than Towne had initially envisaged. Towne had wanted something vaguely approximating a happy ending, but that wouldn’t wash with Polanski...Polanski knew that there could be no escape for Evelyn, another innocent in a city full of sin. He rewrote the ending to reflect that.
1 Sam Wasson, The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood.
