Jonathan Demme

April 28, 1997

Demme is a filmaker who has risen from the ranks of low-budget schlock filmaking to quality storytelling. Born on February 22, 1944 in Baldwin, New York, Demme's first films as a director were projects for Roger Corman's New World Pictures. He started out making cheapies, like Caged Heat (1974) and Crazy Mama (1975), before making an impression on art house filmgoers, with the finely-crafted piece Handle With Care (1977).

Starting in 1980, Demme made a string of quirky, popular films such as Melvin and Howard (1980), the biopic of Howard Hughes and his would-be heir, Melvin Dummar. His WWII story Swing Shift (1984) was drastically edited, during disagreements between Demme and star-producer Goldie Hawn about what the main focus of the story was. This didn't stop Demme from making polished hits like:

Stop Making Sense (1984), a superb documentary look at the rock group, The Talking Heads.
Something Wild (1986), a hip urban comedy-drama about the relationship between a free spirit (Melanie Griffith) and a stockbroker (Jeff Daniels).
Married to the Mob (1988), a fast-paced homage to violent mobster films of the past two decades.

Demme gained his biggest audience during the 1990's, with the tense psychological mystery The Silence of the Lambs (1991) (for which he earned an Oscar for best director) and the moving courtroom drama Philadelphia, the first mainstream picture to look at the issue of AIDS.

My rating on a scale of 1 to 10: 8

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