robert towne (1934 - 2024}

robert towne was a very gifted writer who penned masterpieces like Chinatown [1974], a film so good that it should be on english lit. syllabuses.  i came to know the work of towne at the moment when i found that poetry would become my life.  i've always been enthralled with movies.  but movies were something you did when you cut class.  towne proved on the pulse that screenwriting, filmmaking, are also literature.  i remember an early '90s essay published in esquire magazine about his life as a screenwriter, & lo here it is is!  the internet never forgets!  at any rate, as i've said, robert towne proved to me, a budding poet, that movies are also literature.  & so too screenwriting is also art.  r.i.p. robert, you were a killer writer who helped make some of our most brilliant movies!