Jack Gittes: Chinatown - Essay Example

? "Chinatown" By 23 November, 23 November, "Jack Gittes - Chinatown" Jack Gittes in Roman Polanski movie ‘Chinatown’ is a private investigator who emerges as someone not very successful with his assumptions in solving the case at hand. Throughout the plot one can see that Jack opens the wrong knots for solving the mystery of Evelyn Mulwray’s case. Instead of reaching to the conclusion about her husband he keeps on taking the wrong turns and suspecting the wrong people. Before analyzing the causes of Jack’s failure to solving the case, we need to take a look at his personality and the traits essential for a being a successful private investigator, “because undercover work is not something to which all people are vocationally called.’ (Travers 66) the temperament of a private investigator or undercover agent is calm and steady. Good investigators avoid jumping to conclusions and do not consider face value as the actual perception of the person under observation. In the whole movie one could gauge that Jack kept on concluding his analysis all too very quick. And much to his dismay all his findings were wrong, the result of such assumptions can be attributed to his un-composed and unsteady temperament. Jack lacked the required amount of self confidence for his particular field. The past experience can be held responsible for the low self confidence. One can guess that betrayal and unsuccessful career as a police officer has conditioned him to suspect the same in his job as a private investigator. The field of PI (private investigation) requires strong logical thinking and analysis. The domain of logical thinking is one of the innate characteristics of the private investigator. Jack’s logical thinking was weak as scene throughout the movie. He could not make out the relationships between the characters of his case and at times had to use force to take information out from the client. Like the instance when he repeatedly slapped Evelyn to find out about her sister. A good investigator interchanges his logical and creative thinking to come to a sound conclusion and as Jack was very straight forward by nature he could not figure out the tangled issues of the case and this was one of the reasons for his failure. Another pre-requisite for a good private investigator is the technical expertise and experience. When Jack received the case from the bogus Evelyn he was rather new to the field of investigation and therefore could not differentiate the fake Evelyn from the actual one. Good investigators perform background check before taking on an assignment so that they are sure that their client is real and that case is authentic. In Jake’s case the plot was dicey as the Mrs. Evelyn who came for marital surveillance of her husband Mulwray was not the real Mrs. Evelyn Mulwray. But Jack took the case and started the search for Mulwray only to find him dead and ended up suspecting the wrong convict. Jack lacked the experience and knowledge for solving the case, due to this he was set up in a plot by the person who wanted to search for Mulwray. So instead of putting others in a setup he became a victim himself. In the investigation field the cases can be divided into three categories: neighborhood assignment, social assignment and work assignment. In the neighborhood assignments the investigator becomes a part of the client’s neighborhood and observes to solve the case. In social assignment the investigator follows the suspect around the social settings of pubs, markets and other public places. Work assignments are office related and pertain to the office environment and its surroundings. Jack’s case was a hybrid of neighborhood and social assignment. When Jake and Evelyn went to the posh locality, they disguised themselves as one of them to get in. Also Jake followed Mulwray to find out about his girlfriend only later we came to know that she was Evelyn’s sister. The lack of experience led Jack to conclude that the girlfriend had murdered Mulwray, later he changed his own conclusion several times in the movie. The hybrid nature of the assignment was too much to handle for someone of Jake’s experience. Also the experience he had as a Lon Angeles police officer did not help him in the new field of private investigation. Because as similar as the two fields seem, they are very different from each other. In police department cops fight the crime at hand and mostly work in groups. However in the private investigation field all crimes are mysteries that need to be worked out and then solved. So in this field analytical skills and logical thinking takes the main seat as opposed to reactive thinking in the police department. Having analyzed Jack’s weaknesses and his inability to solve the mystery in the required fashion, we also notice that later Jack established a stronger image as a private investigator with a huge clientele. The success that came later to Jack can be attributed to his experience and increased self confidence in the field of private investigation. As discussed in the beginning of this write up that being an undercover detective is not everybody’s forte, but the success that Jack received later in his career shows that he had developed the traits required for becoming a good private detective over the course of time. He had learned to remain calm and composed and think logically. The required amalgamation of logical and creative thinking is the essence of this field. Jack’s experience led him to think more rationally rather than emotionally. This increased control over his job boosted his self-confidence and he started believing in his abilities as a private investigator, a feeling that he lacked when he was a police officer. Due to this lack of confidence in himself as a cop Jack took everything personally and was emotionally involved with his cases. Thus Jack was an emotional and straight forward person who had negative experiences in his previous job as a cop that had led to low self esteem and confidence. The case of Evelyn was a difficult one for Jack as he kept on reaching to the wrong conclusions. But with time and experience Jack learned the required traits and qualities and turned himself into a successful private investigator with a large number of clients. Work Cited Travers, J. Introduction to Private Investigation: Essential Knowledge and Procedures for Private Investigator. 2nd. Springfield: Charles C Thomas - Publisher Ltd., 2005. 66. Print. Read More