The Silence of the Creator of 'The Silence of the Lambs'; Jonathan Demme Passes Away

Jonathan Demme, the American filmmaker known for prominent films such as 'The Silence of the Lambs' and 'Philadelphia', passed away on Wednesday, April 26, after a long battle with cancer in a hospital in Manhattan, New York. Jonathan Demme was born in 1944 in the United States during the late stages of World War II. His cinematic activities began in 1971 at Roger Corman's studios; an influential filmmaker who made 'B-movies' - low-budget films - and nurtured a large group of prominent filmmakers of the next generation of American cinema, including Martin Scorsese and James Cameron. Demme learned a lot from Corman, including the importance of engaging the audience and striving to satisfy and accompany them in various scenes, essentially making films for the general audience. As a result, his filmography - perhaps like his mentor's - shows significant ups and downs and features films that are highly different from one another. This is why Demme was never taken as seriously as some of his contemporaries - for instance, Martin Scorsese - perhaps the most significant issue in his career lies in this point: the lack of a personal signature. This may be traced back to the beginning of his career: where prominent filmmakers of his generation - from Scorsese to Coppola - faced astonishing box office successes with their first films (and naturally gained more confidence and power to make their desired films), but none of Demme's films in the 1970s achieved commercial success - neither the three films he made at Corman's studio nor his first film outside of Corman's studio, which was critically acclaimed but failed miserably at the box office. In the 1980s, 'Melvin and Howard' paved the way for him to work with well-known Hollywood stars, and in 1986, with 'Something Wild', he reached the competition section of the Cannes Film Festival; a film that is still highly praised by acclaimed filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, who has become Demme's most significant admirer in recent years. However, Demme's name became widely recognized with 'The Silence of the Lambs' in 1991; not only did he take home the Oscar for Best Director, but 'The Silence of the Lambs' also became one of three films in cinema history to win all five major Academy Awards. Although 'The Silence of the Lambs' still lacks the signature of its creator, it was highly praised for its atmosphere and technique in narrating a thrilling and strange story and had a significant impact on films of this genre. His next film, 'Philadelphia', is also considered one of the important and groundbreaking films about homosexuality and AIDS in Hollywood, which earned Tom Hanks the Oscar for Best Actor. However, Demme also has a film close to a masterpiece in his filmography, made fifteen years later: 'Rachel Getting Married', which bears little resemblance to his other prominent films. Everything starts very simply, and it seems the filmmaker had a lot of fun while making the film: gathering together to create a low-budget, experimental 'home' film using music and dance and inviting friends of the director to act in the film [Demme states that the shots were never rehearsed and allowed the actors to participate in a real scene and event with the assumption that the cameraman Declan Quinn might capture them]. All this relies entirely on a fluid camera that bears the entire weight of the film and turns it into a quasi-documentary impact: the entire film is astonishingly shot in handheld style, and this shaky camera - which moves with great skill and undoubtedly provides a remarkable experience - manages to share the inner emotions of the film's characters with the audience moment by moment. The fluidity of the camera and the smooth performances - and sometimes excellent performances from almost all the actors - easily brings the audience into a family and shares their emotional feelings with us. In fact, there is no story; it is an anti-story film that moves entirely in width. Nevertheless, the intimate feeling prevailing in the film and the characters captivates the serious viewer so much that looking away from the screen even for a second distracts them from the calculated and miniature-like flow of the film. As a result, the film is essentially a divine display of the director: that everything is summarized in first-class directing that can not only make the absence of a story forgotten through complete control and guidance of everything in a completely calculated path but can also create a world where the audience is, in fact, and clearly, a part of it: in every moment of this two-hour film, we laugh, dance, and sometimes even cry in the darkness of the cinema.