It's My Job
2009; Volume: 39; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/flm.0.0114
ISSN1548-9922
Autores Tópico(s)Cinema and Media Studies
ResumoIt's My Job William Leslie Hewitt Jonathan Demme: Interviews. Robert E. Kapsis, Editor. University Press of Mississippi, 2009. 184 pages; $50.00. In a spirited 1984 interview, Michael Sragow—of the American Film Institute—asked Jonathan Demme about the dynamic character development in his early films and the noted director responded, "If I get turned on by a script, it's my job to make the viewers of the movie feel the way I felt as a reader of the script."(21) Two of Demme's early films were Citizens Band (aka Handle with Care, 1977) a clever view of CB (citizens band) radio aficionados who created alter egos over the airwaves, and Melvin and Howard, portraying the alleged encounter between a gas station attendant and the obsessively reclusive Howard Hughes. This collection of Demme interviews, from the 1970s until the release of Rachel is Getting Married (2008), compiled by Robert E. Kapsis, professor of sociology at Queens College City University of New York, provides an insightful profile of Demme's development of his oeuvre. The anecdotes are rich and numerous in Demme's interview responses over the years. For example, he revealed that making Swing Shift (1984) turned into a disaster that dogged him for years. Demme sustained his penchant for character development despite this bad experience by developing a young female character in Silence of the Lambs (1991), Clarice Starling (Jodi Foster), surrounded by older intimidating men: her manipulative boss Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn); eerily menacing serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins); and, sociopathic James "Buffalo Bill" Gumb (Ted Levine). Demme admitted that he did not discuss his reading of Starling with author Tom Harris. Demme considered his film "vaguely subversive," yet not "of special interest to moviegoers, but I love that he's taking some really good pokes at patriarchy while spinning this tale." (61) [End Page 86] Another Demme anecdote illustrates his sensitivity to the social mores of his day, in this case, with regard to homosexuality. He told Ann Kolson of the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1993 that he sought out an AIDS script before shooting Silence of the Lambs because he had a friend living with the disease who would subsequently die a few months before shooting of Philadelphia got underway. Reflecting the continuing constricted homophobic climate of the albeit post-Stonewall gay liberation 1990s, Demme responded to a question posed by Rolling Stone reporter Anthony Decurtis acknowledging that everyone involved in the project realized that hetero-sensibilities could be pushed only so far. After talking about the emotionally evocative scenes between Tom Hanks and Antonio Banderas in the movie, Demme is asked by Decurtis: "But didn't Denzel Washington reportedly tell Will Smith that whether you play a gay character or not, you never kiss another man on screen?" Demme replied: I wouldn't fault Denzel for telling Will Smith that. That's Denzel responding to the same concern that Ron [Nyswaner, writer], Tom [Hanks], Antonio [Benderas], and I had. It's a real concern. When we see two men kissing, we're the products of our brainwashing—it knocks us back twenty feet. And with Philadelphia—I'm sorry, Larry Krammer—I didn't want to risk knocking our audience back twenty feet with images they're not prepared to see. It's just shocking imagery, and I didn't want to shoehorn it in." (88) There is a sense of growing self-awareness inadvertently revealed by Demme in these interviews. His residence in Nyack, New York, afforded him a certain amount of insulation from the zaniness of Hollywood. His documentaries, The Agronomist, My Cousin Bobby, and Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains, were all made because, "I also love the absence of pressure, any kind of pressure, with documentaries."(103) Making Demme even more difficult pigeonhole or categorize are his performance films, including Stop Making Sense, and Neil Young: Heart of Gold. The book's concluding interview, involving Terry Gross, Neil Young, and Demme goes back to a Demme self-revelation that has always been critical in his carrier moves, "I responded to the emotional dimension. I responded to my own emotion. I got very emotional as I heard this stuff...
Referência(s)