On December 8, the DGA Eastern Region Special Projects Committee held a special evening celebrating the work of Director Jonathan Demme, who passed away in April 2017. Held in the Guild’s New York Theater, the evening honored Demme’s contributions to the industry and featured a screening of his 1986 feature, Something Wild.
The event kicked off with a welcome from Director Susanna Styron, who introduced video comments from some of Demme’s collaborators who were unable to attend the evening such as Actor/Director Tom Hanks who won an Academy Award for his starring role in Demme’s Philadephia, and Actor Mary Steenburgen who picked up an Oscar for her supporting role in Demme’s Melvin and Howard. Then DGA Eastern Region Special Projects Committee Chair Raymond De Felitta introduced the panelists for the discussion about the iconic director’s influence that included: Directors Kelly Reichardt and John Sayles, Actor/Director Jodie Foster, Producer/Director/Production Designer Kristi Zea, Producer/UPM Ron Bozman, and Writer Jenny Lumet.
Reichardt, who helmed features such as Wendy and Lucy, gave her views on Demme’s ensemble comedy, Citizen’s Band; and Sayles, the director of features such as Eight Men Out, did the same for Demme’s Melvin and Howard. Lumet, who penned the screenplay for Demme’s Rachel Getting Married, recalled their process on that project. And finally, Foster, Bozman and Zea looked back on their time spent with the director on his DGA and Academy-Award winning feature, The Silence of the Lambs, a film where Bozman served as a Producer and 1st AD, Zea served as Production Designer and Foster earned an Academy Award for her starring role. Each of the conversations were illustrated by clips from the respective features and the conversations were all moderated by De Felitta.
The discussion portion of the evening concluded with closing remarks from De Felitta and the audience was left to enjoy Demme’s comedy feature Something Wild.
A DGA member since 1976, Demme’s filmography featured 62 directing credits that began with the 1974 feature Caged Heat. While he was best known for his DGA and Academy Award-winning seminal work, The Silence of the Lambs, where he set the template for modern psychological thrillers, his director’s resume includes the features Ricki and the Flash, Rachel Getting Married, Beloved, Married to the Mob, Swimming to Cambodia, Melvin and Howard; the documentary features The Agronomist and Jimmy Carter Man from Plains; the ground-breaking concert film Stop Making Sense the pilots for the series A Gifted Man and The New Yorker Presents; and most recently an episode of the series Shots Fired. He also served as a member of the DGA’s President’s Committee on Film Preservation.
During his acceptance speech when he received his award at the DGA Honors in 2004, he summed up his pride in being a member, stating: “For me, the DGA is very much about an endless fight for creative integrity in movies; it’s for safety and integrity in the workplace; it’s for a bigger share of the pie.”