Demme formed his production company, Clinica Estetico, with producers Edward Saxon and Peter Saraf in 1987.[16][17] They were based out of New York City for fifteen years.[18][19]
Later films
Demme won the Academy Award for The Silence of the Lambs (1991)—one of only three films to win all the major categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress).[20] Inspired by his friend Juan Suárez Botas's illness with AIDS[21] and fueled by his own moral convictions,[8] Demme then used his influence to make Philadelphia (1993),[22] one of the first major films to address the AIDS crisis[22] and which garnered star Tom Hanks his first Best Actor Oscar.[22] He also co-directed (with his nephew Ted) the music video for Bruce Springsteen's Best Song Oscar-winning "Streets of Philadelphia" from the film's soundtrack.[23] Jonathan used several of the same actors for both movies.
At one time, Demme was signed on to direct, produce, and write an adaptation of Stephen King's sci-fi novel 11/22/63, but later left the project due to disagreements with King on what should be included in the script.[28]
He returned to the concert documentary format with Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids (2016), which he described as a "performance film, but also a portrait of an artist at a certain moment in the arc of his career",[21] and his last project was a history of rock & roll for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame compiled from footage from Hall of Fame induction ceremonies set to debut in summer 2017.[21]
Demme directed music videos for artists such as Suburban Lawns, New Order, KRS-One's H.E.A.L. project and Bruce Springsteen. He also produced a compilation of Haitian music called Konbit: Burning Rhythms of Haiti that was released in 1989. (Lou Reed selected Konbit... as one of his 'picks of 1989').[29]
Throughout 1986–2004, Demme was known for his dramatic close-ups in films. This style of close-ups involves the character looking directly into the camera during crucial moments. According to Demme, this was done to put the viewer into the character's shoes. Beginning with Rachel Getting Married (2008), Demme adopted a documentary style of filmmaking.[31][32]
Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson has paid homage to Demme in his films and has cited him as a major influence in his work. In an interview, Anderson jokingly stated that the three filmmakers who inspired him the most are "Jonathan Demme, Jonathan Demme and Jonathan Demme."[33][34] Other directors such as Alexander Payne and Wes Anderson have been known to be inspired by his close-ups in their own work.[35][36]
Demme was married twice. His first marriage to Evelyn Purcell ended in divorce.[42] In 1987, he married artist Joanne Howard, with whom he had three children.[1] He was the uncle of film director Ted Demme, who died in 2002.[43] Demme's cousin was the Rev. Robert Wilkinson Castle Jr., an Episcopal priest who appeared in some of Demme's films.
Demme was a member of the steering committee of the Friends of the Apollo Theater, Oberlin, Ohio, along with Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman.[44] In 2013, he returned to Oberlin as part of an alumni reunion during the class of 2013 graduation ceremony and received the award for Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts.[45]
In 2009, Demme signed a petition in support of director Roman Polanski, who had been detained while traveling to a film festival in relation to his 1977 sexual abuse charges, which the petition argued would undermine the tradition of film festivals as a place for works to be shown "freely and safely", and that arresting filmmakers traveling to neutral countries could open the door "for actions of which no-one can know the effects."[46][47]
Demme was an avid collector and devotee of Haitian art, in particular of Hector Hyppolite - so much so that he called it "an addiction". In 2014, he held an auction in Philadelphia selling thousands from his collection, much of which was donated to a cultural center in Port-au-Prince.[48]
"I am heart-broken to lose a friend, a mentor, a guy so singular and dynamic you'd have to design a hurricane to contain him. Jonathan was as quirky as his comedies and as deep as his dramas. He was pure energy, the unstoppable cheerleader for anyone creative. Just as passionate about music as he was about art, he was and will always be a champion of the soul. JD, most beloved, something wild, brother of love, director of the lambs. Love that guy. Love him so much."
^Seitz, Matt Zoller (April 26, 2017). "A musical soul: Jonathan Demme, 1944-2017". RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC. Retrieved February 14, 2020. Demme's laid back brand of optimistic humanism wasn't always a great fit for Hollywood projects, though he applied his talents to them so conscientiously and inventively that he briefly became an A-list director anyhow.
^ abDeCurtis, Anthony (March 24, 1994). "The Rolling Stone Interview: Jonathan Demme on Philadelphia, Tom Hanks, homophobia". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on April 26, 2017. Retrieved April 26, 2017. Philadelphia was fueled by three of the director's staunchest convictions: that helping out people who are having a hard time is less a duty than a pleasure; that bigotry is more the result of ignorance than evil; and that for all the country's political outrages, goodness is deep in the American grain.
^Sragow, Michael (1984), "Jonathan Demme on the Line", American Film, no. January/February, archived from the original on July 7, 2004, retrieved March 18, 2009, Although his best two movies to date, Citizens Band (AKA Handle With Care, 1977) and Melvin and Howard (1980), were hailed for bringing the heartiness and sensitivity of a homegrown Jean Renoir into latter-day American film comedy, they failed to score at the box office.
^Kaplan, James (March 27, 1988), "Jonathan Demme's Offbeat America", The New York Times, p. 6.48, retrieved March 18, 2009, Paramount figured it might just have a sleeper hit in the small movie, but it took a wait-and-see attitude, spending little on advertising and promotion, and hoping the movie would hook onto the C.B. craze and catch.
^Williams, Phillip (October 11, 2002), "The Truth About Jonathan Demme", MovieMaker, archived from the original on March 1, 2009, retrieved March 18, 2009, We had a great time doing it and we were invited to the New York Film Festival, despite the fact that the film tanked horrendously—and famously—at the box office.
^Burr, Ty (October 12, 2008), "He's back", The Boston Globe, retrieved March 19, 2009, Warm rather than cold, forgiving rather than damning, Rachel is a throwback to the fluky, generous vibe that sustained the director's films in the late 1970s and 1980s – Handle With Care (1977), Melvin and Howard (1980), Stop Making Sense (1984), Something Wild (1986) and Married to the Mob (1988).
^Olsen, Mark (September 28, 2008), "Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married", Los Angeles Times, retrieved March 19, 2009, With Rachel Getting Married, Demme, 64, has returned to the playful, deeply humanist storytelling of such early work as 1980's Melvin and Howard and 1986's Something Wild, both of which are widely acknowledged as having influenced a younger generation of filmmakers.
^Schickel, Richard (October 2, 2008), "Rachel Getting Married, Demme Getting Messy", Time, archived from the original on October 4, 2008, retrieved March 19, 2009, Back in the '70s and '80s he was the best – or at any rate the most promising – young American director. ... Demme's new film, Rachel Getting Married, is arguably an attempt on the part of the director to wend his way back to his roots.