Jonathan Demme - Director of Philadelphia

Robert Jonathan Demme was born on Feruary 22, 1944 in Baldwin, Long Island, New York. He is known for directing The Silence of the Lambs in 1991, Philadelphia in 1993, The Manchurian Candidate in 2004 and Rachel Getting Married in 2008. He also produced the last three movies. He won an Oscar for Silence of the Lambs, and it won "in all major categories, including Best Picture and Best Director." (movies.yahoo.com.) He is five foot ten. He was divorced to Evelyn Prucell. Now he is married to Joanne Howard and has three children. The children are Josephine Demme, Ramon Castle Demme and Brooklyn James Demme. His mother Dorothy Demme was in some roles in several of her son's movies. She died on November 20, 1995.



He has some trademarks like: he regularly casts Charles Napier and Chris Isaak in his movies. He makes sure the characters look directly in the camera. He often uses New Order songs in his movies scores. He also uses the steadicam a lot with handheld shots interspersed.



Here is some trivia. He cast a lot of the same actors in his movies, including Denzel Washington, Paul Lazar, Ted Levine and Tracey Walter. Eight of the actors he directed where in Oscar nominated performances; they are Mary Steerburgen, Jason Robards, Christine Lahti, Dean Stockwell, Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Tom Hanks and Anne Hathaway. Four of these people won Oscars for acting in Demme's movies; they are Steerburgen Hopkins, Foster and Hanks.



Here are some personal quotes. "I don't think it's sacrilegious to remake any movie, including a good or even great movies. I think what's sacrilegious is to make a bad movie, whether it's a remake or an original. It's what I always tell my actor friends, anybody who's in this, the (business), you've gotta try to hold out and only do the scripts, do the material that offers you the opportunity to do your best work. Because if you do stuff that doesn't give you that opportunity? Your work's not gonna be good. And you're gonna suffer in the long run from that. So I don't care if it's a remake if it's a great script with parts in it that can sttract fatastic actors, God, you know, to make the movie." (IMDB)



Here is another quote: "I was really hooked on movies at a very young age. The Manchurian Candidate (1962), along with Seven Days in May (1964), Fall-Safe (1964), and Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. (1964) were this quartet of anarchistic black-and-white American movies, each of which did things that you just didn't do in American movies, especially in the realm of irrevernce toward politics and government institutions and the Army. I was what, 16, it was shocking, it was thrilling and, interestingly, it predated my exposure to the French New Wave so, in a way, this was the American, a certain kind of new wave in American movies." (IMDB)



Jonathan Demme was a very energetic versatile and optimistic director of movies that are character driven. He started making B movies in the 1970's like "Caged Heat" in 1974 and "Crazy Mama" in 1975 to become one of Hollywood's most acclaimed filmmaker. He directed ten movies after "Crazy Mama" and before "Silence of the Lambs".

"Though many viewed the director's decision to film "Philadelphia" (1993) as a mea culpa in response to the charges of homophobia in "The Silence of the Lambs," which were leveled by members of the gay press who decried the complex sexuality of the film's killer, Demme had actually been working on the project with openly gay screenwriter Ron Nywsaner as early as 1988. Nonetheless, the moving courtroom drama dealing with discrimination against gays and PWAs (People with AIDS) was a landmark in mainstream Hollywood history. Greeted with mixed reviews, "Philadelphia" provied an attention-getting and Oscar-winning role for Tom Hanks as the afflicted homosexual lawyer who loses his job when he becomes symptomatic from AIDS. Depite some acclaim, the film was criticized for lacking the strong character development, mischief and sense of the unexpected that characterized Demme's best work." (movies.yahoo.com)

He directed many more films after this. One was called "Beloved" that starred Oprah Winfrey. He directed a remake of the 1962 thriller "The Manchurian Candidate" in 2004. In 2008, he directed the family drama "Rachel Getting Married" which starred Debra Winger and Anne Hathaway.

Bibliography: (IMDB) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001129/bio

(movies,yahoo.com) http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/contributor/1800018279/bio