Jonathan Demme Quotes
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I've never fallen into what I consider to be a trap of trying to figure out something analytically that could be a very popular film. I would hope my enthusiasm could match up with something with that potential.
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That is - the use of the subjective camera is an idea that's been around in movies for a long, long time. And it's an idea that was seized on very notably by Sam Fuller and by Alfred Hitchcock in two different very kind of - otherwise very different styles of filmmaking.
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Tak Fujimoto and I, when we started getting enough of a budget where we could afford the right lenses - 'cause we started out doing low-budget pictures together - we started experimenting with this subjective camera thing. And we kind of fell in love with the idea of using that as our close-up.
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I often find myself feeling that filming music is somehow the purest form of filmmaking. This crazed collision of sound and images, the intense collaboration, these incredibly cinematic performances. And for the nights you're filming, a non-player like me gets to feel somehow part of the band.
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I'm of Neil Young's generation. Neil Young's songs have spoken to what it's like to be at least a white male of his generation over the years. Endlessly, he's sung about the stuff that I really care about. He's put into words the feelings that hit you at different transitional moments in life.
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A trilogy is a pretty abstract notion. You can apply it to almost any three things.
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I was a sort of rock journalist - whatever that is - in London in the late '60s.
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Everything I've made - it doesn't mean they've all been good - but everything I've made so far, big or little, fiction or documentary, has been something that I've been really enthusiastic about.
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It was so easy for me to see that Anthony would be a superb Dr. Lecter because he had been such an amazing good doctor in 'The Elephant Man'. He had been as believable a doctor as you can imagine, and he was good.
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I was a Talking Heads fan from the very beginning.
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As much as I love acoustic Neil Young - and I do deeply - I may be more passionate about the electric. Luckily it's not a contest, and we never have to make that choice. But Neil Young on an electric guitar - I feel like I've never seen or heard anything like it.
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I'm guided by my enthusiasm.
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If you're doing a music film, you've got to be singing about something.
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The excitement of wading into 'reality' and just finding out what happens - and then the challenge of selecting those things that happened and shaping them in the editing into a narrative that will have appeal and be engaging - is a great, great thrill.
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In 'Heart of Gold' at one point, there were 23 players on the stage with him. And part of what's magic about Neil is the way he interacts with the other musicians.
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The occupied territories and the movement of settlements - moving people today off of their property and claiming it - is illegal.
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I'm all for streaming, and I do think it's thrilling that a gazillion people can see our film the day it drops. On the other hand, I'm a fierce believer of the theatergoing experience. My hope would be that films can be enjoyed in both ways, that there's room for both.
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I had had no aspirations to be a filmmaker or a writer.
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I love the idea of documentaries. I love seeing documentaries, and I love making them. Documentaries are incredibly easy to shoot. The ease with which you can hear something's going on, somebody's going to be somewhere: That sounds so interesting. Pick up your camera and go.
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Every film deserves its own unique look.
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I also feel that the only thing more gratifying than working with someone who you've worked well with is working with someone new and coming up with something great.
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I only work with actors who take full responsibility for their characters.
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It's such a rich experience when you enter into a subject from a documentary point of view. It's hard for fiction to compete with that.
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There's that rule: Don't show any of the other cameras. Why? Do you think the viewer doesn't think we filmed this?