Robert Towne / Why I Write Movies

 

Robert Towne by George Rose

Why I Write Movies

A few words on screenwriting from Robert Towne, author of Chinatown and Shampoo, script doctor on Bonnie & Clyde and The Godfather.

By Robert TownePUBLISHED: JUL 3, 2024

This article originally appeared in the July 1991 issue of Esquire. 

Several years ago my five-year-old daughter bounced into my study and found me hunched and miserable over my typewriter, feeling like a housewife who couldn’t get her stove to boil water. Kate wanted to know why I wouldn’t play with her. “Because I’m stuck.” She wanted to know why I was stuck. “Because it’s hard.” She thought about this for a minute and said, “Then why do it, Dad? Why don’t you cease this activity and become an artist?”

 

The 100 Best Screenwriters of All Time

As chosen by working screenwriters.

Edited by Stacey Wilson Hunt

“To make a good film,” Alfred Hitchcock once said, “you need three things: the script, the script, and the script.” Yet while it’s easy to find (and argue over) lists of the greatest films ever, it’s difficult to find a list of the greatest screenwriters. We decided to remedy that — by polling more than 40 of today’s top screenwriters on which of their predecessors (and contemporaries) they consider to be the best. To compile such a list is to pose a question: What is the essence of the screenwriter’s art? Plot? Dialogue? Character? All that and more? We left that judgment to those who know best — the writers. Here are their selections (ranked in order of popularity, with ties broken by us), and representative testimonials for each.

As ‘Chinatown’ Turns 50, Robert Towne Reflects on His Netflix Prequel Plans With David Fincher and Writing Jack Nicholson’s Most Iconic Role

J. Kim Murphhy
22 June 2024

There are the classics — and then there’s “Chinatown.” First released on June 20, 1974, the seminal noir feature was a resounding success at its time: a big hit for producer and Paramount heavy Robert Evans, a renowned return to Hollywood for director Roman Polanski and an Academy Award winner for screenwriter Robert Towne, plus Oscar nominations for stars Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.

 

Robert Towne

How They Write A Script: Robert Towne

Scott Myers 

26 June 2018

“The single most important question, I think, that one must ask one’s self about a character is what are they really afraid of? What are they really afraid of? And if you ask that question, it’s probably for me the single best way of getting into a character.”

 

Robert Towne

Robert Towne, Oscar-winning screenwriter of Chinatown, dies aged 89

Writer, who died in his Los Angeles home, also worked without credit on The Godfather and Bonnie and Clyde

Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Chinatown, considered one of the greatest screenplays of all time, has died at age 89.