Robert Towne, Screenwriter of ‘Chinatown’ and More, Dies at 89

 

 

 "“The characters I write about are men who control events far, far less than events control them. My characters get caught, they try even though they don’t prevail or even significantly influence events. These guys muddle through.”

But he continued to maintain that the muddling was worth the effort. In a 1991 essay for Esquire, he explained why movies were his medium of choice.

“There are no novels or plays I’m itching to write and there never have been,” he wrote. “I love movies. I think movies best communicate whatever I have to say and show; or to put it another way, when what you want to show is wat you have to say, you are pretty much stuck with movies as a way of saying it.”"

READ OBIT BY BILL MORRIS