Robert Towne: A Portrait of the Artist as a Hollywood Screenwriter

Robert Duvall, Robert Towne, and Tom Cruise on the set of Days of Thunder (1990). (Photo: Don Simpson)

Robert Towne, who died July 1, at age 89, at his Los Angeles home, established irrefutably that a screenwriter could operate as an artist. Unlike literati such as Ben Hecht and Dorothy Parker, who separated movies from their real work, and writers who catered to directors, the way Jules Furthman did to von Sternberg and Hawks, and Frank Nugent to John Ford, Towne initiated and nurtured projects that fascinated him, and he fought to get his visions on the screen.

Towne elevated his chosen form by developing a style of his own, as intricate, expressive and plainspoken as Thornton Wilder’s or Mark Twain’s. He used sly indirection, canny repetition, unexpected counterpoint, and even a unique poetic vulgarity to stretch a scene—or an entire script—to its utmost emotional capacity. He changed how Americans hear themselves, whether with the vocabulary of everyday obscenity (in 1973’s The Last Detail) or the feel-good mantras of domesticated hedonism (“You’re great”; “George is great”; “Jill is great”; “Everything is going to be great”), given satiric edge in 1975’s Shampoo.

Cracked Mirrors, Part Two: The Minstrel’s Dilemma

Don van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart. (Photo: Andy Freeberg)

Part One of Cracked Mirrors was published on this site on October 27, 2021.

There should be a kind of periodic table for singer-songwriters, the way there is one for the elements and their interactive relationships. Maybe there is one, and we just haven’t noticed what it looks like. Does the table of their relative values and sonic weights as elements resemble the Grammy Awards? No, it couldn’t be, otherwise Don van Vliet would have won a Grammy years ago for his wonderful portrayal of Captain Beefheart before retiring to return to his first love of painting. If so, he would be Helium.

 

Remembering Kevin Courrier: A Friendship Cemented Through Music

Kevin Courrier passed away on October 12. He would have turned 64 years old today.

I was already very interested in movies when I became friends with Kevin Courrier, the late co-founder of Critics At Large, in the late eighties/early nineties, not long after I graduated from Ryerson Polytechnic Institute (now Ryerson University) in Toronto and began reviewing films professionally on a freelance basis. We bonded over our affinity for American filmmakers Brian De Palma and Steven Spielberg, who were disdained by many of our colleagues, and shared a love of other directors, such as Satyajit Ray (The Apu Trilogy) and Louis Malle (Lacombe, Lucien, Vanya on 42nd Street). But I think I learnt more about music from Kevin than from anyone else. As much as Kevin knew cinema, and he certainly did, I’d say he knew music even better.

Radio Daze: Fond Memories of an Aggravating Angel

Photo by John Marsonet.

“To deal with the history of cultures means to abandon oneself to potential chaos and yet to retain a deep belief in the basic ordination and meaning of things. It is a very serious task. One requiring a great lightness of spirit.” – Hermann Hesse, Magister Ludi

I definitely miss being on a weekly radio program. From about 1988 until the end of the 20th century, I was the visual art critic for CJRT-FM in Toronto, a wonderful community-based station with an eclectic mix of programming and hosts covering every aspect of popular culture, from classical music, folk and jazz, to BBC-imported Goon Shows and compelling ideas-based documentaries. The program on which I appeared every Wednesday to review an exhibition, interview an artist, curator or museum official, discuss an architectural design site and occasionally assess art books of mainstream interest, was appropriately called On the Arts, and that’s exactly what it was, with a day each week exclusively devoted to music, films, theatre, art, design, books and art politics.  It just now seems so perfectly 20th-century, in fact, that kind of diversity of interests, since independent public radio (and television for that matter) has become such a rare thing to behold or behear. (Critics At Large has been sharing excerpts of the program as podcasts.)

One of the other joys of my radio days was the fact that it was through this medium that I was able to cross paths with a delightful friend of over thirty years, the late, great Kevin Courrier, who passed away (or went to spirit, as he would have called it) in mid-October of this year. The path to Kevin, however, first led me to encounter the irascible, sardonic, sarcastic, infuriating and brilliant Tom Fulton, Kevin’s co-host at CJRT-FM and his mentor of many years: the man who Kevin said helped him “find his voice.” Kevin in turn helped me find my own voice, guiding me through the odd vagaries and quirks of the radio broadcast medium of expression.

Kevin Courrier (1954-2018)

Kevin Courrier, November 23, 1954-October 12, 2018. (Photo: John Marsonet)

It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Kevin Courrier on October 12 after a three-year battle with cancer. Kevin co-founded Critics At Large in January 2010 along with Shlomo Schwartzberg and the late David Churchill and served as editor-in-chief until his illness compelled him to retire early this year. He also contributed hundreds of pieces, mostly on movies and music. Even after he was no longer able to write for the website, he continued to be heard here – literally as well as figuratively – on podcasts that had originated as interviews with a wide range of artists on the CJRT-FM radio show On the Arts throughout the 1980s.

Kevin was a fine writer and a formidable critic. He had a grasp of the popular arts that was simultaneously dazzlingly broad and effortlessly deep. He was a compendium of information about music and movies and he had a precise memory that never faltered, even in his final months. He had a rare – one might say unparalleled – gift for making unexpected and resonant connections between disparate works and ideas, unshakeable common sense, and the ability to make the complex lucid, whether on larger canvases (his books on Randy Newman, The Beatles, Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart) or smaller ones (his work on this website, the culmination of a career in journalism). These same qualities were apparent in the extraordinarily popular classes on film he gave to audiences of seniors in a variety of Toronto venues.

We offer below a small selection of reviews and articles that showcase his remarkable talent. We will miss his voice.

– The editorial team of Critics At Large

Out of This World: John Coltrane in Seattle (1965) September 24, 2015 

Lost Man – O.J.: Made in America June 23, 2016

You Probably Don't Even Hear It When It Happens: The Sopranos & The Death of the Gangster Hero August 26, 2016

A Change Is Gonna Come: The End of the Obama Era January 20, 2017

Bridge Over Troubled Water: The Fiftieth Anniversary of Bobby Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe" July 11, 2017

Run Through the Jungle: Ken Burns & Lynn Novick's The Vietnam War October 1, 2017

Deplorable: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri January 9, 2018

Podcast: Interview with Judith Marcuse (1982)

Photo by  David Cooper.

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1982, I sat down with Canadian choreographer and dancer Judith Marcuse.

At the time of our conversation, Judith Marcuse's dance program Playgrounds was premiering in Toronto. Marcuse's career as a dancer began 20 years earlier at London's Royal Ballet School, but she would soon return to her native Montreal with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. In 1972, she turned primarily to choreography, and over the decades has created over 100 original works, many addressing a variety of social issues (e.g., the environment, teen suicide, bullying and homophobia). In 2007, she founded, and still co-directs, the International Centre of Art for Social Change in association with Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. 

 – Kevin Courrier

Here is the full interview with Judith Marcuse as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1982.

Podcast: Interview with Margie Gillis (1987)

Margie Gillis dancing to Tom Waits's "Waltzing Matilda" in 1978. (Photo: Jack Udashkin)

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1987, I sat down with Canadian dancer and choreographer Margie Gillis.

At the time of our conversation, Margie Gillis was already an international name in modern dance and choreography. We spoke of her show, New Dreams, which was premiering in Toronto, and about the new demands of balancing her fame with her artistic ambitions. In 2011, Gillis was awarded the Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award from the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award and, in 2013 became an Officer of the Order of Canada.

 – Kevin Courrier

Here is the full interview with Margie Gillis as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1987.

Podcast: Interview with Tom Laughlin (1985)

Tom Laughlin and Delores Taylor in the 1971 cult hit Billy Jack. (Photo: Handout/NY Daily News)

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1985, I sat down with actor, director and screenwriter Tom Laughlin.

At the time of the interview, Tom Laughlin was in Toronto filming The Return of Billy Jack, a planned follow-up to his Billy Jack films of the previous decade, in which he bucked the trend of 1970s film antiheroes by portraying a genuinely positive heroic figure who protected animals and children against racist thugs. The Return of Billy Jack would unfortunately never be released.

– Kevin Courrier

Here is the full interview with Tom Laughlin as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1985.

Podcast: Interview with Bill Forsyth (1985)

A scene from Bill Forsyth's Local Hero (1983).

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1985, I sat down with Scottish film director and writer Bill Forsyth.

At the time of our conversation, Forsyth had written and directed four feature-length films: That Sinking Feeling (1979), Gregory's Girl (1981), Local Hero (1983), and Comfort and Joy (1984). He would go on direct four more – including 1994's Being Human, starring Robin Williams – but he likely remains most famous for those earlier movies.

– Kevin Courrier

Here is the full interview with Bill Forsyth as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1985.

Podcast: Interview with James Ivory (1985)

Helena Bonham Carter in Ismail Merchant & James Ivory's A Room with a View (1985).

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1985, I sat down with critically acclaimed film director James Ivory.

Ivory was most famous for his lifelong partnership with film producer Ismail Merchant. When I interviewed Ivory in 1985 their soon-to-be award-winning film, A Room with a View, had just been released. Starring Helena Bonham Carter and Julian Sands, A Room with a View would garner eight Oscar nominations – including Best Picture, Best Director, and a Best Supporting Actress nod for co-star Maggie Smith – and a win for screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala for Best Adapted Screenplay. Ivory's collaboration with Merchant and Jhabvala goes back to 1962 with The Householder, and prior to 1985 included The Europeans (1979), Quartet (1981), and The Bostonians (1984). They went on to make over a dozen more films together, including Howards End (1992) and The Remains of the Day (1993). Ivory most recently won acclaim for this work on Call Me by Your Name, which he wrote and produced, winning him the award for Best Adapted Screenplay at this year's Academy Awards.

– Kevin Courrier

Here is the full interview with James Ivory as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1985.

Podcast: Interview with Author Monica Hughes (1982)

I think there's no excuse for hiding things [from children]. I've never believed in fairy tales, in the sense of fairy tale as a disguise for reality. I love fairy tale as fantasy, as an expression of creative joy . . . but not for hiding reality.

– Monica Hughes, in conversation with Kevin Courrier (1982)

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1982, I sat down with English-Canadian children's and young adult author Monica Hughes.

Born in Liverpool in 1925, Monica Hughes spent her childhood in Cairo, London, and Edinburgh before moving to Canada in 1952. She was the author of over 40 books, including her award-winning Isis Trilogy (1980-1982) and Invitation to the Game (1990). At the time of our conversation, her ninth book, Hunter in the Dark, hads just been published. Her last published work was The Maze, in 2002. Monica Hughes passed away in 2003, at the age of 77.

– Kevin Courrier

Here is the full interview with Monica Hughes as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1982.

Podcast: Interview with Cynthia Rhodes (1987)

Patrick Swayze and Cynthia Rhodes in Dirty Dancing (1987).

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1987, I sat down with dancer and actress Cynthia Rhodes.

At the time, Rhodes had just completed her role as dance instructor Penny Johnson in Dirty Dancing, alongside Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. Rhodes's brief career in film had begun nine years earlier with a small ensemble role in Xanadu (1980). She went on to play Tina Tech in Flashdance (1983) and was then cast opposite Sylvester Stallone in Staying Alive, the appalling 1983 sequel to the 1977 hit Saturday Night Fever. Rhodes's most famous role, however, remains the one she played in Dirty Dancing.

– Kevin Courrier

Here is the full interview with Cynthia Rhodes as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1987.

Podcast: Interview with Terry Jones (1987)

Julie Walters (right) in Terry Jones's Personal Services (1987).

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1987, I sat down with film director, screenwriter, actor and comedian Terry Jones.

At the time of our conversation, Terry Jones was promoting his new film Personal Services, which had recently gained some notoriety by being banned in Ireland. Jones, who, along with Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, and Michael Palin, formed the famous Monty Python comedy troupe on television and film, had previously directed two Monty Python films – Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) – both of which were also, at the time, "banned in Ireland." Personal Services, which starred Julie Walters in the lead role, was Jones's first non-Python directorial effort.

– Kevin Courrier

Here is the full interview with Terry Jones as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1987.

Podcast: Interview with Paul Schrader on Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)

A scene from Paul Schrader's Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985).

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1985, I sat down with film director Paul Schrader.

At the time of our conversation, Paul Schrader, the screenwriter behind Taxi Driver (1976) and writer/director of American Gigolo (1980), had just completed work on Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, his biopic of Japanese author, playwright and filmmaker Yukio Mishima, who had famously committed public seppuku in 1970. The film, which combines stories of Mishima's life with adaptations of some of his fictional works, was recently remastered and released by the Criterion Collection.

– Kevin Courrier

Here is the full interview with  Paul Schrader as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1985.

Podcast: Don Shebib on Margot Kidder and Heartaches (1981)

Margot Kidder in Heartaches (1981)

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1981, I sat down with Canadian film director Donald Shebib.

At the time of our conversation, Don Shebib, director of the Canadian classic Goin' Down the Road (1970), had just completed work on Heartaches (1981), written by playwright Terence Heffernan and starring Margot Kidder, Annie Potts and Robert Carradine. In this interview, Shebib speaks about his new film and what it was like to work with Kidder, at the time most famous for her work on the Superman movies and 1979's The Amityville Horror. Margot Kidder passed away on Monday, May 13, at the age of 69.

– Kevin Courrier

Here is the full interview with Don Shebib as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1981.

Podcast: Interview with R. Lee Ermey (1987)

R. Lee Ermey in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987). Ermey passed away on April 15 at the age of 74.

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1987, I sat down with Full Metal Jacket actor R. Lee Ermey.

A former United States Marine Corps staff sergeant, drill instructor, and honorary gunnery sergeant, Ermey spent 14 months on the ground in Vietnam before being medically discharged in 1972 due to injuries sustained in the field. He parlayed this first-hand military experience into a career as an actor and technical advisor, spanning over thirty years of iconic film and television roles. He is still remembered best for his performance as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket. Ermey passed away on April 15, 2018, at the age of 74.

– Kevin Courrier

Here is the full interview with R. Lee Ermey as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1987.

Podcast: Interview with Robert Leuci (1985)

NYPD detective and novelist Robert Leuci, aka "Prince of the City." (Photo by Don Hogan Charles/New York Times)

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1985, I sat down with former New York City police detective and novelist Robert "Bob" Leuci.

A police officer for the NYPD (working alongside officers like Frank Serpico), Leuci rose to national attention after becoming an informer for widespread investigation into police corruption in 1971. His controversial role in that investigation was documented in Robert Daley's 1978 book Prince of the City, which was later adapted into Sidney Lumet's 1981 film of the same name. (In the film, Treat Williams plays a fictionalized version of Leuci.) At the time of our conversation, Leuci had retired from the NYPD and had just published his first novel, Doyle's Disciples. He would publish seven more novels in the years to come, as well as a critically acclaimed 2004 memoir, All the Centurions, which chronicled his two decades as a narcotics detective. Robert Leuci passed away in 2015 at the age of 75.

– Kevin Courrier

Here is the full interview with Robert Leuci as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1985.

Podcast: Interview with Documentary Filmmaker Errol Morris (1988)

A scene from Errol Morris's The Thin Blue Line (1988).

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1985, I sat down with documentary filmmaker Errol Morris.

At the time of our conversation, his groundbreaking and award-winning film The Thin Blue Line had just been released. Depicting the story of a man falsely convicted of a crime he did not commit, The Thin Blue Line eventually led to the man's release a year later. It was Morris's third feature documentary. He has since directed more than dozen features, including A Brief History of Time (1991), Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997) and the Academy award-winning The Fog of War (2003).

– Kevin Courrier

Note: Apologies for the intermittent audio issues with the segment. They were the result of technological issues at the time of the original interview. 

Here is the full interview with Errol Morris as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1988.

Podcast: Interview with Biographer David Robinson on Charlie Chaplin (1985)

(from left) Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith.

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1985, I sat down with film critic and biographer David Robinson about the recent publication of his book on the life of Charlie Chaplin, Chaplin: His Life and Art (originally published by McGraw-Hill in 1985, revised in 1992 and 2001, and currently in paperback by Penguin).

Along with Chaplin's own My Autobiography (1964), Robinson's official biography would later be used as source material for Richard Attenborough's 1992 biopic Chaplin, which starred Robert Downey Jr. as the famed comedian and film director. Robinson was the main film critic for The Times of London from 1973-1990, and his books include Hollywood in the Twenties (1968), a 1970 volume on Buster Keaton, and World Cinema: A Short History (1981).

– Kevin Courrier.

Here is the full interview with David Robinson as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1985.

Podcast: Interview with Philip Glass (1984)

From 1981 to 1989, I was assistant producer and co-host of the radio show On the Arts, at CJRT-FM (today Jazz 91.1) in Toronto. With the late Tom Fulton, who was the show's prime host and producer, we did a half-hour interview program where we talked to writers and artists from all fields. In 1984, I sat down with celebrated American composer Philip Glass.

Widely recognized as one of my influential composers of the 20th century, over the course of his 50+ year career Glass has composed numerous operas, symphonies, and film scores – including Godfrey Reggio's experimental feature Koyaanisqatsi in 1982. (Three of his film scores have been nominated for Academy Awards: Kundun [1997], The Hours [2002] and Notes on a Scandal [2006].) Earlier this month, the 81-year-old Glass performed at Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center, as part of its new Direct Current festival.

– Kevin Courrier.

Here is the full interview with Philip Glass as it aired on CJRT-FM in 1984.