Something Wild is an atomic undressing of genre clichés, lies, and costumes. As with the best of Demme’s work, it uses a genre getup solely as an excuse to explore the truth, the realer-than-real funkyjunky Americana (and its multiculti makeup) that so many of Demme’s characters can be at first oblivious to (or costumed appropriators of).
Jonathan Demme made an exploitation film about peace, and it’s one of his best, most exciting pieces of work.
How is it, between the four lines that form a televisual frame, that Jonathan Demme’s Who Am I This Time? is among the most romantic gestures ever set to film?
In Jonathan Demme’s 2004 adaptation of The Manchurian Candidate, the truth is a nightmare.
Consider how The Silence of the Lambs revolves around vision. Not only perception, but empathy and hindsight, and the non-empirical prick of intuition, where vision exceeds the reach of training.
Melvin and Howard would be a curiosity in Jonathan Demme’s filmography if not for the fact that his entire filmography is a collection of curiosities.
So much of Rachel Getting Married is about these needle-fine moments of grace and clemency. Many great directors find truth in skepticism, but Jonathan Demme often found it in the sparseness of in-betweens.
The Talking Heads are strange truth-tellers, joyfully angry people, persistently interested in the power of art. And in Stop Making Sense, collaborating with Jonathan Demme elevates their music into something truly transcendent.








