Movies · 1974
Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown.
— Lawrence Walsh ‧ Chinatown
Behind the line May contain spoilers.
Our reading
An editorial interpretation.
Walsh tries to pull Jake away from a tragedy he cannot undo. The place name becomes shorthand for a world where understanding what happened does not give someone the power to put it right.
- AFI100 Movie Quotes, number74; selected film wording and same-film synopsis.Reference checked
- AFI CatalogChinatown54409: final sequence explicitly attributes the selected line to Walsh.Reference checked
Context reviewed