Jonathan Demme
Jonathan Demme
Robert Jonathan Demmeis an American filmmaker, producer and screenwriter. Demme rose to prominence in the 1980s with his comedy films Melvin and Howard, Swing Shift, Something Wildand Married to the Mob. He became best known for directing The Silence of the Lambs, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director. He later directed the acclaimed films Philadelphiaand Rachel Getting Married...
school done film
I didn't go to film school so my learning was done out in public and showed up on the screen.
rocks london late
I was a sort of rock journalist - whatever that is - in London in the late '60s.
strong real feelings
I had very strong feelings, so the chance to make a film that deals in an imaginative way with stuff you care tremendously about is a real high. It's a really amazing thing to be able to do.
thinking documentaries film
I don't think of Storefront Hitchcock or Stop Making Sense as documentaries, I think of them more as performance films.
wells feels
I also feel that the only thing more gratifying than working with someone who you've worked well with is working with someone new and coming up with something great.
thinking remakes sacrilegious
I don't think it's sacrilegious to remake any movie, including a good or even great movie.
enthusiasm
I'm guided by my enthusiasm.
film moments music-is
Music films are great, but they can never compete with a live performance. Live music is what it is. It's the whole point. You experience it in the moment.
singing film ifs
If you're doing a music film, you've got to be singing about something.
views documentaries fiction
It's such a rich experience when you enter into a subject from a documentary point of view. It's hard for fiction to compete with that.
guitar choices passionate
As much as I love acoustic Neil Young - and I do deeply - I may be more passionate about the electric. Luckily it's not a contest, and we never have to make that choice. But Neil Young on an electric guitar - I feel like I've never seen or heard anything like it.
art eye proud
Maybe that's where the new art comes in - to somehow have your eye on the marketplace and harness your art to come up with something you can be proud of creatively.
country news stories
Documentaries - my God, there is so much going on in our country and in the world today that every time you open the newspaper or turn on the radio or watch the news on TV there is another documentary subject. We're getting the headlines for a second, shaped by corporate delivery most of the time, but what's really the story there?
ideas interesting ease
I love the idea of documentaries. I love seeing documentaries, and I love making them. Documentaries are incredibly easy to shoot. The ease with which you can hear something's going on, somebody's going to be somewhere: That sounds so interesting. Pick up your camera and go.