Jonathan Demme
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| Jonathan Demme | |
| Born | Robert Jonathan Demme February 22, 1944 Baldwin, New York, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Occupation | director, producer, actor, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1971 - present |
| Spouse(s) | Joanne Howard Evelyn Purcell |
Robert Jonathan Demme (born February 22, 1944) is an American filmmaker, producer and screenwriter.
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[edit] Personal life
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]
[edit] 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 Russell star vehicle Swing 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]
After Swing Shift, Demme started making documentary films, making a notable series of concert films with Stop Making Sense and Swimming to Cambodia.a[›]
In 1991, Demme won the Academy Award for The Silence of the Lambs—one of the few films to win all the major categories (best film, best director, best screenplay, best actor, and best actress). Demme directed an Oscar-winning turn from Tom Hanks in his next feature, Philadelphia.
Since then, Demme's films have included remakes of two popular films: The Truth About Charlie, a remake of Charade that starred Mark Wahlberg in the Cary Grant role; and The Manchurian Candidate, with Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep.
In 2007, Demme's film Man from Plains, a documentary about former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's book tour in promotion of his book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, premiered at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals.
In 2008, Rachel Getting Married was released, which many critics compared to Demme's films of the late 1970s and 1980s.[8][9][10] It was inlcuded in many 2008 "best of" lists, and received numerous awards and nominations, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress by lead Anne 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 for fifteen years.
[edit] Filmography
- Caged Heat (1974)
- Crazy Mama (1975)
- Fighting Mad (1976)
- Handle with Care, also known as Citizen's Band (1977)
- Last Embrace (1979)
- Melvin and Howard (1980)
- Who Am I This Time? (1983)
- Swing Shift (1984)
- Stop Making Sense (Talking Heads concert film) (1984)
- The Perfect Kiss (New Order music video) (1985)
- Something Wild (1986)
- Swimming to Cambodia (1987)
- Haiti: Dreams of Democracy (1987)
- Married to the Mob (1988)
- The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
- Cousin Bobby (1991)
- Philadelphia (1993)
- Beloved (1998)
- Storefront Hitchcock (1998)
- The Truth About Charlie (2002)
- The Agronomist (2003)
- The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
- Neil Young: Heart of Gold (2006)
- Man from Plains (2007)
- New Home Movies From the Lower 9th Ward (2007)
- Rachel Getting Married (2008)
- Neil Young: Trunk Show (2009)
[edit] Notes
^ 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]
[edit] References
- ^ "Jonathan Demme Biography (1944-)". Film Reference. http://www.filmreference.com/film/38/Jonathan-Demme.html. Retrieved on 2009-03-19.
- ^ "Friends of the Apollo". Oberlin College. http://new.oberlin.edu/apollo/friends.dot. Retrieved on 2009-07-06.
- ^ Sragow, Michael (1984), "Jonathan Demme On the Line", American Film (January/February), http://www.storefrontdemme.com/ontheline.html, retrieved on 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."
- ^ Kaplan, James (1988-03-27), "Jonathan Demme's Offbeat America", The New York Times: 6.48, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE7D71739F934A15750C0A96E948260&pagewanted=all, retrieved on 2009-03-18, "Paramount figured it might just have a sleeper hit in the small movie, but it took a wait-and-see attitude, spending little on advertising and promotion, and hoping the movie would hook onto the C.B. craze and catch."
- ^ Williams, Phillip (2002), "The Truth About Jonathan Demme", MovieMaker, 2002-10-11, http://www.moviemaker.com/directing/article/the_truth_about_jonathan_demme_3301/, "We had a great time doing it and we were invited to the New York Film Festival, despite the fact that the film tanked horrendously—and famously—at the box office."
- ^ a b Vineberg, Steve, "Swing Shift: A Tale of Hollywood", Sight & Sound (British Film Institute), http://www.storefrontdemme.com/sightandsound.html, retrieved on 2009-03-19
- ^ Uhlich, Keith (August 2004), Jonathan Demme, ISSN 1443-4059, http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/04/demme.html, retrieved on 2009-03-19
- ^ 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 on 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)."
- ^ a b Olsen, Mark (2008-09-28), "Jonathan Demme's 'Rachel Getting Married.'", Los Angeles Times, http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/28/entertainment/ca-demme28, retrieved on 2009-03-19, "With "Rachel Getting Married," Demme, 64, has returned to the playful, deeply humanist storytelling of such early work as 1980's "Melvin and Howard" and 1986's "Something Wild," both of which are widely acknowledged as having influenced a younger generation of filmmakers."
- ^ Schickel, Richard (2008), "Rachel Getting Married, Demme Getting Messy", TIME, 2008-10-02, http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1846818,00.html, retrieved on 2009-03-19, "Back in the '70s and '80s he was the best — or at any rate the most promising — young American director. […] Demme's new film, Rachel Getting Married, is arguably an attempt on the part of the director to wend his way back to his roots."
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