Film director Jonathan Demme was born in Long Island, New York, in 1944. While his directorial debut was Caged Heat in 1974, it was only in 1991 that he attained huge commercial success and critical acclaim with the psychological thriller The Silence of the Lambs, a film which earned him an Oscar for Best Director. Philadelphia, a moving courtroom drama about discrimination against gays and people with AIDS, was his next big hit in 1993. He went on to direct a remake of the 1962 classic The Manchurian Candidate, starring Meryl Streep and Denzel Washington (2004). His documentary, Neil Young: Heart of Gold, was a critical success and his Rachel Getting Married (2008) garnished many nominations for awards for best screenplay, best actress and best director.
Born: Feb 22, 1944 in Baldwin, Long Island, New York City, New York
Occupation: Director, Writer, Actor
Active: '70s-2000s
Major Genres: Drama, Comedy
Career Highlights: Stop Making Sense, Melvin and Howard, Miami Blues
First Major Screen Credit: Angels Hard As They Come (1971)
Biography
Jonathan Demme proved to be that rare maverick filmmaker who managed to find a place for his talents within the Hollywood system while still making movies his own way and on his own terms. A director who invested his characters with an unusual depth and humanity, Demme was unafraid to take on challenging and controversial subject matters in his films, but also knew how to make his stories absorbing and entertaining, and the results have included both box-office blockbusters (The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia) and critical favorites (Melvin and Howard, Something Wild).
Born in Baldwin, NY, on February 22, 1944, Demme's mother was an actress, and his father worked in public relations. When he was 15, his family moved to Miami, where his father had landed a job at the Fountainbleau Hotel. Demme's original career goal was to become a veterinarian, and, after working at animal clinics as a teenager, he enrolled at the University of Florida in Gainesville. College-level chemistry, however, proved to be his Achilles' heel, and, realizing animal medicine was not a practical goal, he began searching for a new path. An enthusiastic cinema fan since childhood, he applied for an open position as film critic at the university's newspaper.
After finishing college, Demme continued as a film critic for a small paper in Coral Gables until his father introduced him to flamboyant producer Joseph E. Levine. Levine was impressed with the young man's writing, and, after a stint in the military, Demme was given a job as a publicist in the producer's organization. Over the next several years, Demme worked for several film companies, including United Artists, and continued to write about film and music during a stint in New York, where he helped to compile the score for a low-budget thriller called Sudden Terror. While in London in 1970, a friend from his days at UA recommended Demme as a unit publicist to Roger Corman, then in Ireland shooting Von Richtofen and Brown. The independent producer/director soon gave Demme the opportunity to write a motorcycle picture for him, and Demme teamed up with friend Joe Viola to turn the premise of Rashomon into a biker film; after a few rewrites, Corman hired Demme to produce the film and Viola to direct, and the result was called Angels Hard As They Come. After serving as producer and second unit director on another Corman production, The Hot Box, Demme was given the opportunity to direct a steamy women-in-prison picture called Caged Heat; along with the requisite nudity and violence, Demme inserted a subplot about prisoners being abused through medical experiments.
After two more films for Corman -- the offbeat crime feature Crazy Mama and the revenge thriller Fighting Mad -- Demme was hired to make a film about the then-current CB radio craze. The result was a charming, low-key, comedy drama called Citizen's Band, which won enthusiastic reviews from a number of critics but was a dud at the box office, even after being retitled Handle With Care. But the film's notices were strong enough for Demme to be hired to direct the Hitchcockian thriller Last Embrace, and, in 1980, he landed a project perfectly suited to his style. Melvin and Howard was based upon the true story of Melvin Dummar, who claimed to have once given Howard Hughes a ride and is later named beneficiary of 150 million dollars in a will discovered after the reclusive billionaire's death. While the film was only a modest commercial success, it received uniformly positive reviews. Screenwriter Bo Goldman and supporting actress Mary Steenburgen both received Oscars for their work on the picture, while the New York Film Critics Circle named it the Best Film of 1980.
The warm reception for Melvin and Howard led to Demme's involvement in Swing Shift, a picture about women working in defense plants during World War II. Demme wanted the picture to deal primarily with working women embracing their new freedoms during wartime, but leading lady Goldie Hawn felt the film should focus on her character's relationship with a musician (played by Kurt Russell) while her husband was at war. By most accounts, Demme and Hawn rarely saw eye-to-eye during the production, and he and his editor left the project before the film's final cut was completed. Although Swing Shift proved to be a commercial and critical disappointment, bootleg copies of Demme's edit have circulated among collectors, with many contending his version was markedly superior. The director's next movie was more low-key: a concert film documenting the striking multi-media stage show of the rock band Talking Heads. Stop Making Sense was both a massive critical success and a surprise commercial hit, and it confirmed Demme's fondness for music-oriented projects. He later directed music videos for artists such as Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, New Order, and Fine Young Cannibals, and helmed another concert film, Storefront Hitchcock, featuring the quirky singer/songwriter Robyn Hitchcock. (Demme later directed two other feature-length documentaries: Swimming to Cambodia, a record of Spalding Gray's acclaimed one-man show, and Cousin Bobby, about the life and work of his cousin, an Episcopal priest and political activist.)
Demme's next two major projects, Something Wild and Married to the Mob, walked a fine line between the endearing and the oddball, and performed well, if not spectacularly, at the box office. But it was 1991's The Silence of the Lambs, a taut thriller with a strong feminist subtext, that propelled Demme into the first rank of American filmmakers, earning him an Oscar for Best Director, among others for Best Picture, Best Actor (Anthony Hopkins), Best Actress (Jodie Foster), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ted Tally). Demme followed this success with the AIDS drama Philadelphia, another blockbuster and Tom Hanks' first Oscar win. Demme next tackled a controversial adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel Beloved, and then paid homage to the French Nouvelle Vague with a stylish remake of Charade entitled The Truth About Charlie.
When not busy with his own projects, Demme has also served as a producer of other films, including Adaptation, That Thing You Do!, and Mandela. A political activist and collector of Haitian art, he has been married twice, first to after director/producer Evelyn Purcell and later artist Joanne Howard. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Demme was born in Baldwin, New York, the son of Dorothy Demme and a public relations executive father.[1] Demme has three children: Ramona, Brooklyn, Josephine. He is a graduate of the University of Florida. He also was the uncle of director Ted Demme, who died in 2002. He is currently a member of the steering committee of the Friends of the Apollo, along with Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman.[2]
Career
Demme broke into feature film working for exploitation film producer Roger Corman from 1971 to 1976, co-writing and producing Angels Hard as They Come and The Hot Box, then directing three films (Caged Heat, Crazy Mama, Fighting Mad) for Corman's studio New World Pictures. After Fighting Mad, Demme moved on to direct the comedy film Handle with Care for Paramount Pictures in 1977. The film was well-received by critics,[3] but received little promotion,[4] and performed poorly at the box office.[5]
Demme's 1980 film Melvin and Howard did not have a wide release, but received widespread critical acclaim, and led to the signing of Demme to direct the Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russellstar vehicleSwing Shift. A big-budget production intended to be a major prestige picture for Warner Bros.[6] as well as a commercial breakthrough for Demme,[7]Swing Shift was compromised by creative differences, with Demme renouncing the film. The film was released in May 1984, and was generally panned by critics and neglected by moviegoers.[6]
In 1991, Demme won the Academy Award for The Silence of the Lambs—one of only three films to win all the major categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress). Demme directed an Oscar-winning turn from Tom Hanks in his next feature, Philadelphia.
In 2008, the alternative movie Rachel Getting Married was released, which many critics compared to Demme's films of the late 1970s and 1980s.[8][9][10] It was included in many 2008 "best of" lists, and received numerous awards and nominations, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress by leadAnne Hathaway.
One of his common directorial motifs is to allow characters to look directly into the camera. Demme formed his production company, Clinica Estetico, with producers Edward Saxon and Peter Saraf. They were based out of New York City for fifteen years.
^a: Demme would continue to alternate making feature films with documentaries and concert films, making Neil Young: Heart of Gold and Man from Plains in the years following 2004's The Manchurian Candidate.[9]
^Sragow, Michael (1984), "Jonathan Demme On the Line", American Film (January/February), http://www.storefrontdemme.com/ontheline.html, retrieved 2009-03-18, "Although his best two movies to date, Citizens Band (AKA Handle With Care, 1977) and Melvin and Howard (1980), were hailed for bringing the heartiness and sensitivity of a homegrown Jean Renoir into latter-day American film comedy, they failed to score at the box office."
^Burr, Ty (2008), "He's back", The Boston Globe, 2008-10-12, http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2008/10/12/hes_back/, retrieved 2009-03-19, "Warm rather than cold, forgiving rather than damning, Rachel is a throwback to the fluky, generous vibe that sustained the director's films in the late 1970s and 1980s - Handle With Care (1977), Melvin and Howard (1980), Stop Making Sense (1984), Something Wild (1986), and Married to the Mob (1988)."
