Quote 1
Man
with Knife: “You’re a very nosy fellow,
kitty cat. Huh? You know what happens to nosy fellows? Huh? No? Wanna
guess? Huh? No? Okay. They lose their noses.”
Theses are the words the Man with Knife
speaks before he slices Jake’s nose. These lines are a warning to
Jake to stop trespassing at the reservoir, but they serve as a broader
warning about looking too fervently for the truth behind appearances.
Throughout the film, the audience learns that Jake’s problems stem
from much more than his willingness to climb over fences. Unlike
the majority of characters in the movie, Jake cannot ignore all
the corruption around him. From shadowy Chinatown to the brighter
areas of Los Angeles, authority figures see the public as something
to manipulate and control, killing or beating into submission anyone
foolish enough to investigate the larger pattern of corruption.
Noah Cross murders Hollis Mulwray because Hollis attempted to unveil
the corruption behind the new dam project. Ida Sessions, though
initially part of the conspiracy, dies when she oversteps her bounds
by talking to Jake. The police shoot Evelyn Mulwray, who led a silent
yet relatively safe existence during the previous fifteen years,
only after Jake intrudes on her life. Jake suffers a more subtle
punishment, living with the knowledge that he not only failed to
protect Evelyn but, through his nosiness, caused
her death.
