Oscar winner directed many notable movies
JONATHAN DEMME 1944-2017
YORK — Jonathan Demme, the eclectic, ever-enthusiastic filmmaker behind the Oscar winners “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Philadelphia,” and the director of one of the most seminal concert films ever made, the Talking Heads’ “Stop Making Sense,” has died. He was 73.
Mr. Demme’s publicist, Annalee Paulo, said Mr. Demme died Wednesday morning in his New York apartment, surrounded by his wife, Joanna, and three children. Mr. Demme died from complications from esophageal cancer, she said.
Mr. Demme broke into moviemaking under the B-movie master Roger Corman in the early 1970s, and his prodigious, wide-ranging body of work always kept the spirited, agile curiosity of a low-budget independent filmmaker. His hopscotching career spanned documentaries, screwball comedies and tales of social justice.
Yet his most famous films were a pair of Oscar-winners. “The Silence of the Lambs,” the 1991 thriller starring Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter and Jodie Foster as an FBI analyst, earned him a directing Oscar, as well as best picture. He followed that up with “Philadelphia” (1993), with Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, the first major Hollywood film to confront the AIDS crisis. It remains a landmark film in the portrayal of gay life and injustice, subjects Hollywood had previously largely turned a blind eye toward.
Hopkins, Foster and Hanks all earned Academy Awards for their performances from those films. Mr. Demme’s sensitive, alert eye help produce countless other acclaimed performance, too, from Melanie Griffith (“Something Wild”) to Anne Hathaway (“Rachel Getting Married”).
Mr. Demme’s breakthrough came with the Oscar-nominated “Melvin and Howard” (1980), starring Jason Robards as Howard Hughes. The film is centered on a Nevada service station owner who claims to be the beneficiary of the billionaire. Jake Coyle is an Associated Press writer.