He Accomplished His ‘Mission’ in Context

Once again, Robert Towne earns his reputation as being one of the superlative screenwriters in the industry (“ ‘M:I-2’ Author to Critic: Forget It, Steve, It Isn’t ‘Notorious’,” June 5). He writes, regarding “M:I-2”: “Carefully orchestrated action sequences that make up at least half the movie . . . [do] not really allow for many ‘layers of complexity and perversity’ for the characters.”

What this renowned master of the art of subtext has thus said: “They already had the action sequences written in, and all I was asked to do was fill in the gaps with enough plot and people to carry them. Don’t expect much deep character in these types of flicks.”

And he is absolutely correct. Why spend an extra six months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to achieve such deep levels of art? The box office shows that the target audience would never know the difference or care.

If you want to see deep character and/or weighty plots or themes, go read a book or support your local theater. Movies are not the place for such stuff. They exist to entertain--and thereby make money--only.

MAUDE HAM

Burbank

After reading Robert Towne’s perfectly clear response to Stephen Farber’s article, all I have to say is: Shame on Towne and his Paramount cohorts for gleefully contributing to the delinquency of the general moviegoing public.

RICHARD G. RODRIGUEZ

Newport Beach

Robert Towne’s comments on the charges that “M:I-2” is merely a shallow reworking of “Notorious” omit a salient point:

The film and its predecessor are, after all, based on a 100% plot-driven TV show whose characters were, week in and week out, a bunch of rubber face-mask-wearing, dial-twiddling, backstory-less ciphers who, over the course of 100-odd episodes, never displayed a frame’s worth of emotion or voiced a single personal opinion about anything.

You can’t get much shallower than that.

AVIE HERN

Los Angeles