I learned this morning of the death of Robert Towne at 89. I had never seen his face before. From the picture in the New York Times, looking at his eyes, I could tell at once that he was Jewish.
How odd, I thought to myself. “Towne” is not a Jewish name. Then I read the obituary, and learned that he was born Robert Schwartz.
It all made more sense to me then, the undercurrent of incredible sadness that runs through his best screenwriting. The line “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.” is a metaphor for infinitely larger tragedies.
We need our poets. We need them to speak to what is unspeakable, yet must be spoken.