Giving Voice to the New Hollywood Revolution, ‘Chinatown’ and ‘Shampoo’ Writer Robert Towne Brought Honesty to Artifice
variety.comPeter Debruge Chief Film Critic A great ending can be the hardest thing for a writer. For Robert Towne — who died Tuesday, having written and reshaped some of the most important films of the 1970s — finding the best way to wrap up a film was a career-long challenge.
In the script that earned him an Oscar, the downbeat “Forget it, Jake — it’s Chinatown” finale was famously Roman Polanski’s idea.
And yet, there’s undeniable poetry in Towne’s passing: The Oscar winner died 50 years (and two weeks) after “Chinatown” opened, basking in the fresh round of appreciation that the half-century anniversary brought.
Towne was a natural raconteur whose stories were every bit as rich as his screenplays — as evidenced by an in-depth Variety interview that ran last month — and whose best writing often went uncredited.
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