A Book Review by Ali Moosavi.
An illuminating and loving portrait, packed with fascinating behind-the-scenes details….”
I first came across Jonathan Demme’s name at college, when I watched Citizens Band (1977) at our local arts movie theatre. I thought this is a true quality independent picture. A few years later watching Melvin and Howard (1980) reaffirmed my initial thoughts. From then on, I followed Jonathan Demme’s career. His films were always interesting, and I particularly loved his slightly whacky ones like Something Wild (1986) and Married to the Mob (1988).
In his preface of his book, There’s No Going Back: The Life and Work of Jonathan Demme (University Press of Kentucky), David M. Stewart warns us that: “this book is not a definitive biography…. this is an investigative labor of love that hopes to honor and understand Jonathan Demme as a filmmaker and humanist whose work served as a beacon of hope in troubled times.” What the book does, which is a collection of biographical details, interviews with those who knew Demme, behind the scenes stories of his movies and quotes from Demme, serve in a way that very few biographies do; it reveals the true nature and characteristics of the book’s subject. We gather that Demme was a very kind, humanist, likeable person, who aimed to please everyone and shied away from arguments. This latter trait meant that he often gave in to the requests of the producers, studios, and stars to change or amend things in his films. He also accepted actors suggested by producers / studio in place of his first-choices.
Demme started by writing movie reviews for his college newspaper, then became the arts critic for his local paper and his first big break came when the legendary Hollywood producer Joseph E. Levine gave him a job in the publicity department of his film production company, Embassy Pictures. He got to meet Francois Truffaut who signed the book Hitchcock/Truffaut with this message: Pour Jon Demme avec mes amitiés and before your first film – Francois Truffaut.
Demme’s next big break was when Roger Corman gave him an opportunity to make a film for his company. Though the budget was miniscule and Demme was paid peanuts, he expressed his thoughts that: He gives you a chance to make a movie, and if he doesn’t pay you much money, terrific. Who else was going to give you the chance to make the movie? And what are you worth anyway, at that stage of your career?
Caged Heat (1974) was the first of three films he made for Roger Corman. One of Demme’s favorite movies was The Conformist (1970) and he got to meet Bernardo Bertolucci who asked him: Are you going to shoot long takes for your first movie? According to Stewart this question obsessed Demme and he tried having Bertolucci style shots in several of his films. Demme has said that in Fighting Mad (1976), his third and last film for Roger Corman, an exterior view of a house being attacked by the bad guys filmed from a canted angle is “a Bertolucci tilted composition, that he used in The Conformist a lot which I found made the viewer uneasy”. Stewart adds that Demme’s tribute to Bertolucci continued in Married to the Mob with his homage to The Spider Stratagem (1970) and The Conformist with the red-lit canted tracking shot of Dean Stockwell ascending the staircase to the motel.
Hal Ashby invited Demme to be on the set of Shampoo (1975) and they became lifelong friends.
We learn that the Citizens Band script was sent to 22 directors before Demme was given the chance to direct it. Demme had confided that the Citizens Band’s screenwriter Paul Brickman was very clear in his disdain for him. There’s also another case of Demme being easily influenced by others in that he apparently cut a scene cut from this film because Tony Curtis, who had watched it in a private screening, didn’t like it!
Though Demme was personally picked by Goldie Hawn to direct Swing Shift (1984), he found the bitter truth of his limited power compared to Hawn, who was the star of the film. Towards the end of the shooting he came to the set to find his name upside down on the slate, a symbol that he wasn’t in charge of the movie anymore. Hawn believed that her role should have been more emphasized, and Warner Bros. agreed with her. Robert Towne was brought in to write some extra scenes. According to the book, Demme never forgave Towne for this.
The book contains many recollections from Demme’s cast and crews of his films and they are universally affectionate. Jeff Daniels, the star of Something Wild, wrote, “Jonathan’s enthusiasm for filmmaking was palpable. Didn’t matter if he had ten grand or a hundred million, he loved making movies.”
There’s No Going Back is packed with fascinating anecdotes, one tells us that Demme was in a cab in Manhattan, and the cab driver played a tape of her own compositions. Demme was captivated, and the driver, Q Lazzarus, would appear on the soundtracks of his next three films!
We find out about some interesting facts about Demme’s most successful film, The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Gene Hackman was slated to play Hannibal Lecter but he dropped out. Michelle Pfeiffer and Meg Ryan both turned down the role of Clarice Starling while Jodie Foster actively pursued it while Demme had his eyes set on Laura Dern. Here again is another example of the studios changing Demme’s mind. According to the book, the folks at Orion, the studio behind the film, were like, Jonathan, Jodie Foster, has won an Oscar, everybody loves her, and she’s desperate to do this. Please meet Jodie one more time.’ Of course, Jonathan obliged and the rest is five Oscars!
For the role of Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia (1993) the names of Daniel Day-Lewis and F. Murray Abraham were brought up. But we learn that Demme received a phone call from Tom Hanks’s agent, who was, in Demme’s words, “instructed by my client to call you to let you know that he read this script and thinks it’s excellent. He wants to throw his hat in to play Andrew Beckett. I’m further instructed that when it comes to a salary, price will be no object.” Of course, Hanks got the role and a Best Actor Oscar.
One section of the book that I read with particular interest, having met Sam Fuller and interviewed Christa Fuller, was Demme’s attempt to get Fuller back behind the camera. Demme and Martin Scorsese both wanted to coproduce Fuller’s film The Chair vs. Ruth Snyder about Ruth Snyder, the 1927 murderess who became the source of inspiration for James M. Cain’s The Post man Always Rings Twice. The Fullers visited Demme’s cottage and Sam Fuller enthusiastically discussed with Jonathan the prospect of making another movie after the studios had turned their backs on him following White Dog (1982). Christa Fuller has recalled. “Brooklyn (Demme’s son) picks up a wine cork from the table and starts imitating Sam, pretending to smoke a cigar. We laughed so much!” Sadly the prospect of Sam Fuller directing another studio picture was short-lived; he passed away in 1997.
After his bitter experience in Swing Shift, Demme experienced another star interfering in his work, this time Oprah Winfrey in Beloved (1998). Like Goldie Hawn Oprah was also the producer and had the final say about what should be in the film. She asked to sit in on the dailies and again Demme acquiesced to his star’s wishes. This part is Stewart’s book is told by Winfrey: “I was watching the dailies and making comments, and when Jonathan came in, I felt like I was eleven years old and had been taken to the principal’s office. He read me the riot act about doubting the shots and commenting on the scenes—it was unacceptable, and he banned me from dailies.” Clearly after the success of The Silence of the Lambs, Demme felt he was in a strong enough position to do this.
There are plenty more really interesting titbits, anecdotes, and facts in There’s No Going Back. The influence of the French New Wave and Hong Kong movies in The Truth About Charlie (2002) for which Demme got some help with the screenplay from one of biggest fans, Paul Thomas Anderson. Or that neither Washington nor Streep watched the original before acting in The Manchurian Candidate (2004), in which purportedly Streep studied the rhetoric and nuances of Nancy Reagan and General George Patton!
Demme’s friendship with Sidney Lumet resulted in Demme reading his daughter, Jenny Lumet’s screenplay Rachel Getting Married, which he directed in 2008.
For fans of Jonathan Demme, There’s No Going Back provides an illuminating and loving portrait of this great filmmaker while for cinephiles and movie fans in general, it is packed with fascinating behind-the-scenes details of both low budget independent and big budget studio movie production.
In times of crisis, Demme would refer to a proverb he heard when he was in Haiti: petit à petit, l’oiseau fait son nid (“little by little, the bird makes its nest”).
Ali Moosavi has worked in documentary television and has written for Film Magazine (Iran), Cine-Eye (London), and Film International.