Jonathan Demme

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tojoed
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#26 Post by tojoed » Thu Apr 27, 2017 12:54 pm

Thanks hearthesilence, absolutely lovely. Demme is as charming as I imagined he would be.

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whaleallright
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#27 Post by whaleallright » Fri Apr 28, 2017 8:38 pm

I'll join the chorus of regret here. Demme always seemed like an unusually optimistic, open-minded, and generous person. I've had such a pleasant time over the years watching interviews or listening to audio commentaries with him that I feel a more-than-usual pang of sadness from the death of someone I didn't know personally. I remember remarking a few years ago that it was astonishing that Demme was 70 years old, because he had the demeanor of someone just coming up. In that way I half expected a few more career highlights, not to mention comebacks, from him, like he had 20 or more years to go.
..."Citizen's Band", which is so difficult to see these days.
Are there, as they say, "rights issues" with this film, or is it just plain obscure? I've seen this in probably the same straight-from-cable rip that everyone else has probably seen, and it never gets revived (I've encouraged a few film societies to program it, and they always say they can't locate a print). It's as noteworthy for its screenplay by Paul Brickman (he of the great Risky Business and little else) as for being Demme's first "non-genre" film. Although Brickman disliked what Demme did with it, it's a very appealing movie, almost like an Altman film—with its dovetailing strands of eccentric Americana—but in a more quotidian, humanist key.

It's funny to see the very MOR soundtrack to this film (Richie Havens, Joe Cocker) in light of what came later. It wasn't really until Stop Making Sense that Demme's adventurous tastes in music became a major part of his filmmaking, although he was following the "new wave" all along (see his video for Suburban Lawns ca. 1980). One of the most appealing things about Demme was this figure who was simultaneously at the top of the Hollywood game, making Oscar-winning films with major stars, and a man so eager to share his many obscure passions.

Speaking of obscurities, it's worth checking out Demme's episode of Columbo, "Murder Under Glass," starring Louis Jourdan as a homicidal restaurant critic. Not really one for the auteurists, but lots of big close-ups of late-70s haute cuisine.

Image

Finally: the director's cut of Swing Shift—in the rough-cut video version that Jonathan Rosenbaum and others have referenced—just turned up in backchannels, so now we can judge for ourselves.

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jazzo
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#28 Post by jazzo » Fri Apr 28, 2017 9:06 pm

Is it foolish to ask what those back channels may be? I'm dying to see this, and have been for years, but all of my more intense online searches simply bring up others asking the same question on message boards or articles. I'll happily accept a PM.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#29 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Apr 28, 2017 9:18 pm

whaleallright wrote:
..."Citizen's Band", which is so difficult to see these days.
Are there, as they say, "rights issues" with this film, or is it just plain obscure? I've seen this in probably the same straight-from-cable rip that everyone else has probably seen, and it never gets revived (I've encouraged a few film societies to program it, and they always say they can't locate a print). It's as noteworthy for its screenplay by Paul Brickman (he of the great Risky Business and little else) as for being Demme's first "non-genre" film. Although Brickman disliked what Demme did with it, it's a very appealing movie, almost like an Altman film—with its dovetailing strands of eccentric Americana—but in a more quotidian, humanist key.
No, just poorly distributed. Lincoln Center has screened a 35mm print in recent years (see my previous post with the Q&A) and it's available as VOD. For instance, you can rent it here on YouTube or you can rent it here on Amazon. In both links, you can even outright purchase a stream of it as well.

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whaleallright
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#30 Post by whaleallright » Fri Apr 28, 2017 9:26 pm

Huh, thanks. I guess it pays to check Amazon etc. every so often. Last I had checked the film was unavailable. Does the SD stream look OK? Is it widescreen?

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The Narrator Returns
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#31 Post by The Narrator Returns » Fri Apr 28, 2017 9:35 pm

I would also like to be directed in private towards these backchannels with the director's cut of Swing Shift.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#32 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Apr 28, 2017 9:36 pm

whaleallright wrote:Huh, thanks. I guess it pays to check Amazon etc. every so often. Last I had checked the film was unavailable. Does the SD stream look OK? Is it widescreen?
GOOD question, because I can't remember the correct aspect ratio or whether this stream even uses the correct ratio. Anybody?

FWIW, here are the opening titles displayed in academy ratio. Not sure of the source on this video - VHS perhaps?

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GaryC
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#33 Post by GaryC » Sat Apr 29, 2017 3:05 am

hearthesilence wrote:
whaleallright wrote:Huh, thanks. I guess it pays to check Amazon etc. every so often. Last I had checked the film was unavailable. Does the SD stream look OK? Is it widescreen?
GOOD question, because I can't remember the correct aspect ratio or whether this stream even uses the correct ratio. Anybody?

FWIW, here are the opening titles displayed in academy ratio. Not sure of the source on this video - VHS perhaps?
IIRC the OAR is 1.85:1. I saw it on UK TV many years ago. Amazon UK have it in SD so I may well watch it later.

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JamesF
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#34 Post by JamesF » Sat Apr 29, 2017 8:56 am

I'd also love the opportunity to see Demme's cut of Swing Shift - one only hopes it'll be distributed more widely in future (legally or otherwise) and that Demme might be finally vindicated. I'd love to do a split-screen comparison between both versions.

My first Demme film was Stop Making Sense, and it still might be my favourite.

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GaryC
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#35 Post by GaryC » Sun Apr 30, 2017 2:48 am

Amazon UK's copy of Citizens Band (no apostrophe on screen) is 4:3 and clearly open-matte. It's probably NTSC as its running time is 95:41, which is more or less the cinema running time. (95:36 according to the BBFC when they passed it for cinema release in 1981.) I'd previously only seen the film on a TV broadcast, most likely the BBC2 showing in 1988. I ended up watching this, my old Criterion DVD of The Silence of the Lambs and my DVD of Stop Making Sense.

I saw Swing Shift at the NFT, inevitably the released version, a long time ago. I don't remember much of it now.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#36 Post by hearthesilence » Sun Apr 30, 2017 1:00 pm

FWIW, as one can see from a screencap posted in the film's own thread, Demme's cut of Swing Shift survived only as a VHS dub with burned-in timecode and what I'm guessing is a pan-and-scan presentation. The sound mix and color is also going to be a bit rough since they wouldn't do any of that until they got an approved, picture-locked cut.

The Sight & Sound article details the changes pretty thoroughly, but I'm guessing 50-70% of the picture used in Demme's cut probably survives in the released cut. (A lot of the damage was done by massive resequencing, which is why at least a good bit of the raw material needed to restore Demme's cut would be available.) With that in mind, I'm wondering if it would be worth combining the two to get the best of both worlds? It would be jarring, there's no mistaking that - it wouldn't be so bad going from a scene to a previously completely discarded scene, but as detailed in that article, there are single shots taken out, and at least a few long takes that were severely trimmed.

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domino harvey
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#37 Post by domino harvey » Sun Apr 30, 2017 1:14 pm

Open matte, not pan and scan

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furbicide
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#38 Post by furbicide » Mon May 01, 2017 1:33 pm

I'm yet to see any of Demme's feature film work, but I just realised that he was responsible for one of my all-time favourite music videos (New Order – The Perfect Kiss):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3XW6NLILqo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#39 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jul 08, 2020 5:52 pm

I thought I had seen almost every early Demme film, but I couldn’t remember a few so I sought them out- and if I don’t recall Last Embrace it’s either because I never saw it or blocked out the experience. This is Demme’s worst film by a mile, also the one early work that feels completely void of his humanist energy. The film starts off simmering just fine, with Scheider playing an incarnation of walking trauma, prone to aggressive impulses which are fun to watch as we try to align with such an abrasive person. The mystery with semetic codes in notes even keeps the engine going, until he meets the man who has the key to the answers, we are presented with the pathetic twist, and everything crumbles in an exasperating final act that makes one forget the fine foundation this built.

Crazy Mama was an imperfect but decently amusing Corman romp that played halfway to Waters’ camp, as a road movie where, barely provoked, older generations of women in a family system go on a robbery spree while the youth follow in tow with their own wildness. It’s not a particularly good film, but it’s unapologetically silly enough to give it some slack. Fighting Mad is a far more brash Corman affair depicting necessary violence in response to very unnecessary violence. Demme finds time to draw out scenes of interpersonal and interenvironmental romance without an ulterior motive of contrasting for shock factor, but because he’s an empathetic filmmaker who feels comfortable dwelling in the banal spaces he finds beautiful, that others may just see as extraneous details. The small town life is given some time too to balance out the familiar. Even if the exposition is mostly in service of that narrative, it’s still more transcendental and indicative of why the land is meaningful than most films like this feel they need to be to earn audience investment.

I haven’t read Morrison’s novel but I can’t imagine that Demme’s adaptation of Beloved properly translates what is often discussed as one of the masterworks of 20th century literature. Given the subject matter and the way supernatural forces are presented along with traumatic history, I also can’t imagine the book was so adaptable in the first place. However, Demme commands a wave of grace throughout his milieu, and there are some incredibly captivating moments, with Kessia Embry stealing the show as an eccentric white girl whose erratic behavior plants you inside Winfrey's point of view in a surreal meeting. Embry should have gotten an Oscar nom off of this insane perf, and it's amazing that she seems to have failed to pop up elsewhere aside from roles as basically extras. Glover, Newton, and Winfrey all do a great job with the material and the evocation of mood is strong, making me want to (finally) read the novel.

I admired how Ricki and the Flash opened with the Tom Petty cover that Demme famously used as a symbol of freedom to juxtapose against the impending doom of Bill’s kidnapping in Silence of the Lambs. It was a nice choice to start things off joyful- a perfect kind of swan song (and I don’t even really like the song!) The movie as a whole is fragmented in essence, but the ways the relationships mend don't feel earned, and this ultimately reminded me of an attempt to redo the already perfect film that is Rachel Getting Married with a shifted story. The final speech is powerful in its humble surrender, but the spoonfeeding we get about Streep's success in reclaiming her worth with various characters kinda undercuts its raw message.

And because we'll never do a Demme list project, his best films are

1. Rachel Getting Married
2. Something Wild
3. A Master Builder

(eliminating Stop Making Sense because I can't compare a concert doc to narrative)

JabbaTheSlut
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#40 Post by JabbaTheSlut » Wed Jul 08, 2020 6:00 pm

:D
1. Silence of The Lambs
2. Something Wild
3. Citizen’s Band

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#41 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jul 08, 2020 6:19 pm

Citizens Band and Lambs would have been the next up

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hearthesilence
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#42 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Jul 08, 2020 7:19 pm

I'll play:

1. Melvin and Howard
2. Swing Shift (director's cut)
3. Citizens Band
4. Stop Making Sense
5. Something Wild

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The Narrator Returns
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#43 Post by The Narrator Returns » Wed Jul 08, 2020 8:42 pm

I recently watched pretty much all of Demme's feature-length work in time with Blank Check's miniseries on him (just missing Enzo Avitabile Music Life, but that sounds like a pretty minor work) and became convinced of his status as one of the all-time great American directors. Happy to share some of my thoughts on the man and his work.

- I like Crazy Mama and (especially) Caged Heat more than Fighting Mad, which strikes me as his weakest outside of the butchered studio Swing Shift cut. Compared to the other two Cormans, Mad feels like Demme's strengths are getting boxed-in by the generic confines of the story, and the occasional wild visual touches of Mama and Caged Heat are mostly absent (the only shot I remember is the ominously tilting shot of Scott Glenn's house while he's about to get murdered). I at least got a kick out of the climax being just another bit of Fonda iconography that Soderbergh stole for The Limey.

- Other than Stop Making Sense, Melvin and Howard is Demme's masterpiece, the purest representation of his empathy for everybody who passes in front of his camera and one of the best films about the futility of chasing the American dream. Watching it before Citizens Band, a very good movie, probably made me less generous than I should be to Band, which is very much a trial run for the heights he climbed with Melvin.

- Married to the Mob was one of the first ones I watched for this project and it blew me away, to the point that I have the likely unpopular stance of preferring it to Something Wild. It's so infectiously goofy, every idea it has executed with such over-the-top style that I spend every minute of it with a big smile on my face. And Pfeiffer is one of the great Demme lead for how she adds aching humanity to what might only be silliness.

- Contrary to almost everybody else, I adored his two 2000s remakes, to the point that I'd watch either of them before the originals. They're two of his most stylistically inventive films, Truth About Charlie returning to Mob's free-range camera with some new French New Wave touches and Manchurian Candidate having every shot, especially the Demme close-ups, be as nerve-jangling as possible (I'll never forget the pit in my stomach after a seemingly banal shot of Robyn Hitchcock walking down a school hallway). And they're both unexpectedly moving in how they handle their source material: Charlie rewrites Charade to be about people struggling to deal with the trauma of death (even down to Agnes Varda's cameo as a grieving widow, sandwiched between a shot of a Cherbourgian umbrella stand and Thandie Newton meeting a character named Lola so it's obvious who she's grieving) and trying to help each other through it, while Manchurian sees all of Demme's usual optimism so badly bruised that even his go-to uniting forces of music and friendship can only go so far when the world is so overrun by evil and death (the use of Fountains of Wayne as a faux-optimistic underscore to the climax is diabolical in a way Demme never was before, not even in Lambs). Charlie is only stopped from being a masterpiece by Mark Wahlberg's casting (Will Smith in the lead like Demme intended makes it an easy 5/5, I bet), but it's such an odd, beautiful thing that he doesn't really matter, not when Demme is doing things like having the emotional climax hinge on a Feelies needledrop.

In conclusion:
1. Stop Making Sense
2. Melvin and Howard
3. The Manchurian Candidate
4. The Silence of the Lambs
5. The Truth About Charlie
6. Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids
7. Married to the Mob
8. Rachel Getting Married
9. Something Wild
10. Storefront Hitchcock

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#44 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jul 08, 2020 8:59 pm

I agree with you that Melvin and Howard is the most representative film in Demme's canon of his empathic brand, and would probably place sixth for me (this is all discounting Stop Making Sense, which would definitely make my top three). I haven't seen Citizens Band in at least six or seven years, and only remember liking it a lot, so it's entirely possible that its placement would fluctuate if I watched it today. I never got the love for Lambs until sometime in the last few years, after about twenty years of scratching my head, so I'm still riding the train on appreciation for that one. Fighting Mad's strengths were primarily in that initial love scene with Scott before the death, and some of the atmospheric meditations following, but it all kinda dissipated after the first act, so I'm with you in finding it to be one of his weaker films. I remember liking Caged Heat when I saw it in my early 20s, but I always mix it up with The Big Doll House and I know I like one way more than the other, so I should probably revisit both and find out once and for all.. one of these days.

Your comments on The Truth About Charlie are enticing me for another revisit. I hated it when I saw it in theatres, but I was also young enough not to trust that guy's opinions so I watched it again a few years ago after a few back-to-back watches of Charade and liked it more. I haven't seen The Manchurian Candidate since it came out though, so that's due as well. I love both original films, which will likely find places on my 60s list amidst the hundreds of excellent films from that decade, so viewing each as distinct eg. your reading of Charlie could help things.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#45 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Jul 08, 2020 11:02 pm

I recall The Silence of the Lambs being fairly popular with everyone when I was growing up, and it was probably one of the first "serious" movies I ever saw and I liked it quite a bit. I probably saw it five or six times by the time I finished high school (once with Criterion's commentary, which may have been my introduction to the Criterion Collection as well).

When I finally revisited it after college, a lot of what I admired came down to craft, but I was stunned by how bad a lot of it seemed. To be fair, this was material that was integral to the source novel, but it felt like pretentious, pseudo-intellectual nonsense. Having become more familiar with Demme's work, I could understand how an early supporter like Dave Kehr could feel betrayed, if that's an accurate assessment. You can see many of the signature elements of his best work here (favorite supporting actors, his approach to composition, his way with music, the cameos serving as film references), but they're put towards the service of something his previous supporters might have found dubious.

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dustybooks
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#46 Post by dustybooks » Thu Jul 09, 2020 9:37 am

In contrast, I find Silence stronger each time I see it; I always think that I'm going to anticipate its story beats and that, stylistically, it's going to seem weak to me because of the number of ubiquitous films (and TV) that owed so much to it... but it always seem to captivate me in terms of both the mystery and elegance of its characterization and in how impeccably it functions as a thriller. It's one of those films that has ingrained itself in popular culture, in my view, because it's simply that effective; and while sometimes that's an easy marker of a film that I can respect without actually caring much for, in this case even as I get old enough that the story itself isn't so shocking or inherently fascinating, I always feel pretty knocked out when I revisit.

I feel like I'm a bit of a contrarian on Demme's follow-up Philadelphia, which feels sketched-in and incomplete in a way his best films don't, but maybe I'm wrong since most of you aren't bringing it up either. I think it's a socially admirable and well-meaning film, but I don't think it really transcends its time.

Stop Making Sense and Melvin and Howard are my favorites. Just about everything in the latter makes me tear up just thinking about it.

beamish14
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#47 Post by beamish14 » Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:21 am

I can't remember who it was, but I *think* it was Shunji Iwai who said in an interview some time back that he loved the films Demme made
during the 80's and felt that his works lost their sense of humanity afterwards, which I generally agree with. He certainly still made works that
were distinctly his, but films like The Truth About Charlie felt so hollow and inconsequential when I saw them. At least they still had
great soundtracks, though.

Last Embrace is considerably less-awesome than this still photo of Roy Scheider in it would suggest.


Does anyone have thoughts on his documentaries like Cousin Bobby?

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The Narrator Returns
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#48 Post by The Narrator Returns » Thu Jul 09, 2020 1:10 pm

dustybooks wrote:
Thu Jul 09, 2020 9:37 am
I feel like I'm a bit of a contrarian on Demme's follow-up Philadelphia, which feels sketched-in and incomplete in a way his best films don't, but maybe I'm wrong since most of you aren't bringing it up either. I think it's a socially admirable and well-meaning film, but I don't think it really transcends its time.
I was with you the first time I saw it, and I would still say that the script itself isn't up to what Demme was doing from Melvin to Lambs. But a rewatch really made me appreciate how much Demme makes it work just on the back of his craft (obviously in scenes like Hanks listening to opera but also in how omnipresent his usual direct-to-camera close-ups are) and what he adds around the material like the opening credits montage. It's a movie where you can easily imagine a godawful version made of it around the same time, but Demme avoids most, if not all, of the pitfalls and makes it something that feels as humane as the rest of his work.
beamish14 wrote:
Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:21 am
Does anyone have thoughts on his documentaries like Cousin Bobby?
Cousin Bobby is quite good, a very Demme thing where what's essentially a sweet home movie becomes a call to arms about America's continued racial injustice. It's his best non-concert (or Spalding Gray) documentary, though I also really like Man From Plains and I'm Carolyn Parker (The Agronomist is a good story pretty blandly told).

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hearthesilence
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#49 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:17 pm

dustybooks wrote:
Thu Jul 09, 2020 9:37 am
I feel like I'm a bit of a contrarian on Demme's follow-up Philadelphia, which feels sketched-in and incomplete in a way his best films don't, but maybe I'm wrong since most of you aren't bringing it up either. I think it's a socially admirable and well-meaning film, but I don't think it really transcends its time.
That's actually the usual take I've encountered as long as I can remember. It's well-meaning, but it always felt shallow. For starters, Hanks and Banderas were never a convincing couple. I don't recall anything close to physical intimacy except a brief bit of slow dancing (which looked more awkward than convincing, but I'd have to revisit it again). I heard Demme directed Philadelphia partly because he was hurt by the criticism over Lambs being homophobic (as well as transphobic) - I haven't seen any interviews where he mentions that though. Maybe someone else has?

EDIT: I did a cursory search, and Slate apparently did a lengthy piece after he died that recaps all the controversies. Basically, Demme wanted to do Philadelphia even before Lambs was released, so it wasn't done in response to the criticism over the other, but Philadelphia was met with strong criticism as well. (From Larry Kramer: "After these two films, I wish he’d just go away and leave us alone.") The article also quickly recaps Demme's responses over the years and how he grew to understand the anger leveled at both films.

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knives
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Re: Jonathan Demme (1944-2017)

#50 Post by knives » Thu Jul 09, 2020 2:30 pm

Of course a lot in the community wanted Kramer to go away as well.

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