Oscar Profile #337: Jonathan Demme

Born February 22, 1944 in Baldwin, N.Y., (Robert) Jonathan Demme was the son of Robert Demme, a public relations manager and his wife, Dorothy. The family later moved to Florida, where he graduated from Southwest Miami High School and the University of Florida.

Demme had an early job as a film critic for a shopping guide in Coral Gables. Producer Joseph E. Levine, was vacationing in Miami when he read Demme’s review of Zulu. He was so impressed, he hired him to handle publicity for his Avco Embassy films. In 1971, he went to work for Roger Corman and soon began his film career as a director of exploitation films for Corman. Among them were Black Mama White Mama, Caged Heat and Crazy Mama. His first critically acclaimed film was 1977’s Citizens Band, which did better at the box-office when rereleased as Handle with Care. It earned an Oscar nomination for Best Film Editing.

1979’s Last Embrace starring Roy Scheider and Janet Margolin earned strong notices, while 1980’s Melvin and Howard earned the National Society of Film Critics Award as Best Film of the Year. It also earned Mary Steenburgen a slew of awards, including the Oscar, for Best Supporting Actress. His successes later in the decade included Swing Shift starring Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell and Oscar nominated Christine Lahti; Something Wild starring Jeff Daniels, Melanie Griffith and Ray Liotta and Married to the Mob starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Modine and Oscar nominee Dean Stockwell. It was, however, 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs that provided Demme with the opportunity of his career.

A major box office sensation, The Silence of the Lambs received seven Oscar nominations and won five including Best Picture, Actor (Anthony Hopkins), Actress (Jodie Foster) and Director (Demme). Two years later he was back with Philadelphia for which Tom Hanks received the first of his back-to-back Oscars for Best Actor. It would be another five years before Demme would direct another film, 1998’s Beloved starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover.

Alternating between documentaries and feature films, his early 21st century output included 2002’s The Truth About Charlie, a failed remake of 1964’s Charade with Mark Whalberg substituting for Cary Grant, and 2004’s The Manchurian Candidate, a remake of the 1962 classic, with Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep and Liev Schreiber substituting for Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey. 2008’s Rachel Getting Married brought him best notices of the decade, earning an Oscar nomination for Anne Hathaway.

Demme’s last theatrical film was 2015’s Ricki and the Flash starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline as former rock stars.

Jonathan Demme was married twice and had three children. He died of esophageal cancer and complications of disease on April 26, 2017. He was 73 years old.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

MELVIN AND HOWARD (1980)

Demme’s folksy gem about a gas station attendant (Paul LeMat) who may or may not be Howard Hughes’ heir was an unexpected hit, winning numerous year-end awards including Best Picture from the National Society of Film Critics and Best Director from the New York Film Critics in competition with Ordinary Peopleand Raging Bull and their higher profile directors, Robert Redford and Martin Scorsese. Jason Robards as Hughes received several Best Supporting Actor awards and Mary Steenburgen as LeMat’s kooky first wife cornered the market on the year’s Supporting Actress awards including the Oscar.

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991)

The biggest critical and box-office success of Demme’s career was this near-horror crime thriller that became only the third film in history to sweep the Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actor (Anthony Hopkins), Actress (Jodie Foster) and Screenplay (Ted Tally), following on the heels of 1934’s It Happened One Night and 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Although several sequels and eventually a TV series would follow, this was the only film in the franchise, or for that matter, the genre, that the ecclecic director woul be involved in.

PHILADELPHIA (1993)

Although there had been several TV movies and small budget theatrical films about the subject, Demme’s was the Hollywood’s first major film dealing with the AIDS crisis. Tom Hanks, in his first Oscar-winning performance, was the up-and-coming lawyer diagnosed with HIV who sues his firm, led by Jason Robards, for firing him because of the disease. Denzel Washington is the initially homophobic lawyer he hires to take his case, Antonio Banderas is his supportive partner and Joanne Woodward, in her last on-screen theatrical performance, is his equally supportive mother. An Oscar also went to Bruce Springsteen for “Streets of Philadelphia” as Best Song.

BELOVED (1998)

It took five years after Philadelphia for Demme to direct another film. His film of Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer prize-winning 1987 novel received fairly respectable reviews, but it was not the movie event producer-star Oprah Winfrey anticipated. Word of mouth from her legion of TV fans was disappointing. For one thing, Winfrey’s performance as the former slave is much more muted than her Oscar nominated turn in 1985’s The Color Purple. Nevertheless, she, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Kimberly Elise, LisaGay Hamilton and Beach Richards all give haunting performances.

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED (2008)

Demme’s most critically lauded film since Beloved and the last well-received film of his career was this family drama written by Jenny Lumet. Anne Hathaway, in an Oscar nominated performance, is a young woman who returns to the family home for her sister’s wedding after being in and out of rehab for the past ten years. Hathaway as the ex-druggie, ex-alcoholic, is the film’s central character, but equally important to the plot are the performances of Rosemarie DeWitt as her sister, the bride, and Debra Winger as their absent mother, also returning to the family home for the big event.