#47 — Swimming to Cambodia (Jonathan Demme, 1987) The very nature of Swimming to Cambodia is fantastically, deliriously uncinematic. There’s no sweep or scope to the movie, nothing particularly dynamic to train the camera on. The action gets no more … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Forty-Seven
#5 — The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991) It didn’t occur to me at the time, but, looking back, Jonathan Demme wasn’t the most obvious choice to helm the film adaptation of Thomas Harris’s grim novel about an … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 90s — Number Five
Swimming to Cambodia (Jonathan Demme, 1987). Jonathan Demme may not have been the best filmmaker of the nineteen-eighties, but I think there’s an argument to be made that he was the most interesting. This film is a good illustration of that point. It’s a film version of one of Spalding Gray’s monologues, a meandering but always focused act of storytelling that springs from his involvement in the film The Killing Fields. Gray’s approach was simplicity itself, sitting behind a small wooden table with his spiral notebook before him and little more than a couple of maps to help fill out … Continue reading Demme, Frears, Hooper, Lee, Wang
Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953). It would take some dedicated hunting through Hollywood history to find another star turn that justifies hanging an entire film upon it as much as the one at the center of this lovely wisp of a romantic comedy. It’s really all about Audrey Hepburn and her swoon-inducing performance as a pampered princess who steals away from her privileged, cloistered world to indulge in a burst of freedom across the streets of Rome. She’s utterly charming in a guileless way, but it’s the levels of personality that she injects into the performance that really sell the … Continue reading Demme, Hitchcock, Ramis, Scott, Wyler
#11 — Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme, 2008) This is what a family looks like. This is what a family feels like. Though Rachel Getting Married takes place over the course of just a couple of days, the momentous weekend of … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Eleven
The Agronomist (Jonathan Demme, 2003). I greatly admire Demme’s commitment to interspersing documentaries and other non-fiction offerings throughout his filmography, but I also need to sadly concede that this is not a strong effort. The film examine the life and contentious career of Jean Dominique, who operated a Haitian radio station committed to bringing information to the citizenry and speaking truth to power, especially during times when the country was being crushed by oppressive regimes. It’s easy to root for him, but Demme’s approach is too sedate, too withdrawn. This impassive approach prevents the film from becoming anything beyond a … Continue reading Demme, Gibney, Macdonald, Redford, Siegel
#1 There are no shortage of dysfunctional families in the annals of film. Directors like Jonathan Demme–who brings an observant delicacy to his work, a commitment to emotional honesty and an abundant insight–are, on the other hand, a true rarity. … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2008 — Number One
Coffee for Two 