In his 1992 Oscar acceptance speech for The Silence of the Lambs, director Jonathan Demme acknowledged his “movie-loving life,” then proceeded to thank half the people in it.
To anyone who ever worked with this gregarious, prolific filmmaker, this big-hearted tribute came as no surprise. Demme was all about collaboration.
The director’s interests and talents were wide-ranging, as was his body of work — features, documentaries, TV, performance films. And his enthusiasm for his subject matter was always palpable, especially in his smaller films. Demme had an uncanny knack for bringing together the very best people — actors, writers, art directors, musicians — and he often went overboard in sharing credit. But it was all part of what made his films so great, and why he was so beloved. For him, every project was a passion project.
Demme died of esophageal cancer in 2017, at age 73, and the film world still mourns his loss. Even though we’ll never know all the brilliant work that awaited, we can still tap into his rich and generous legacy. Lucky us!
Stop Making Sense (1984)
Demme saw the Talking Heads in the early eighties, and said he was blown away by “this movie just waiting to be filmed.” He tracked down David Byrne, toured with the band for about a week, and then filmed them over four nights at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. It was December 1983, and the Heads were at their prime, having just released the now-classic album Speaking in Tongues.
This is the first of several music films by Demme — he later shot performances by Neil Young, the Pretenders, Robyn Hitchcock, and Justin Timberlake — but this one’s his most iconic. It’s a visceral, visually gorgeous masterpiece (the cinematographer, Jordan Cronenweth, had just finished Blade Runner), and it’s pure joy. As Demme told Time, “I love this movie passionately with all my heart.”
Something Wild (1986)
Ask any true film nerd and they’ll tell you how much they love this movie. Critics heaped it with praise, but it barely registered with audiences when it was released.
Jeff Daniels plays Charlie, a nerdy, repressed accountant, and Melanie Griffith is Lulu, an alcoholic wildcat who kidnaps him in her ’67 Pontiac convertible and takes him to her high school reunion. It’s a bizarre, unpredictable story (Demme called it a “schizophrenic… screwball comedy that turns into a film noir”) loaded with vividly drawn characters, great music (by X, Big Audio Dynamite, New Order, and a live performance by the Feelies, one of Demme’s favorite bands), and fantastic costumes and production design. Added bonus: a young, crazy Ray Liotta in his first movie role.
The Silence of The Lambs (1991)
We’d be remiss in not mentioning the film Demme is best known for, and which won a whopping five Academy Awards.
Yeah, we know, everyone on the planet has seen this movie, and for good reason — it’s perfect. This was Demme’s big leap from quirky medium-budget indies to Hollywood blockbusters, and, apropos of the subject matter, his style is more serious. But in the film’s most notorious scene — Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) shimmying to Q Lazzarus’s “Goodbye Horses,” barely dressed in drag, his junk tucked between his legs — we get a quick blast of cool, classic Demme: his taste in music, flamboyant costumes, bohemian art direction. (Some trivia for y’all: Levine said he was so nervous about shooting this scene he did a couple shots of tequila beforehand.)
Rachel Getting Married (2008)
This movie gave us a whole new respect for Anne Hathaway, who’s fantastic as Kim, an addict who’s released from rehab to attend her sister’s wedding. Demme made a big stylistic shift here, blending his well-honed documentary skills with narrative storytelling, shooting many of the scenes unrehearsed using a handheld camera. The result is a vibrant, nuanced, and shatteringly personal family drama — for which the director (naturally) credited veteran cinematographer Declan Quinn, brother of actor Aidan.
As it was with all of Demme’s films, this one’s a near-perfect symphony of casting, acting, music, production design, writing, and, of course, directing. And rather than hiring extras for the final wedding scene, the director called on a lifetime of friendships and collaborators to fill in as guests, including Fab 5 Freddy, Robyn Hitchcock, and Roger Corman, an early mentor. Shortly after premiering it at the Venice Film Festival, Demme claimed to love this movie more than any other he’d made. We agree.
