“Swimming To Cambodia” (1987)
Bringing his newly canon, pared-back performance-doc approach to a one-man theatrical monologue, which on paper is far less visceral and immersive than a musical performance from an art-rock band at the height of their fame, Demme’s Spalding Gray film nonetheless works a similar kind of trick on us that “Stop Making Sense” does. It’s the same magic that Demme had at his disposal all the time: that of unobtrusively communicating his own interest in the material so much that he could take an apparently unappealing, pretty unsexy premise and make from it a compelling, absorbing and often ridiculously entertaining film. On a darkened stage, very minimally adorned with a chair, a table and a few maps behind to locate us in the “action,” “Swimming To Cambodia” relies solely on Gray’s powers as a storyteller — and they are considerable — but heightens them with the judicious use of camera angles, close-ups and editing rhythms that cumulatively work to eradicate the fourth wall. It helps that the narrative Gray weaves is never less than surprising, and very often so self-skeweringly funny that it completely disarms the viewer of any irritation at the self-indulgence of the project. It’s an account of Gray’s involvement with the Roland Joffé film “The Killing Fields,” and he gives some nice inside-baseball anecdotes about the film industry, but it’s also the story of his dawning awareness of the exorbitant human cost of the war in Cambodia, poignantly and hilariously counterpointed with his reminiscences about brothels, drugs and celebrity encounters. Gray did this twice more, once in Nick Broomfield‘s “Monster In A Box” and once in Steven Soderbergh‘s “Gray’s Anatomy” (Soderbergh also directed a more general documentary on Gray in 2010’s “And Everything Is Going Fine“), but it’s Demme’s calm and amused “Swimming To Cambodia” that sets the high-water mark.
“Swing Shift” (1984)
A box-office flop at the time and barely remembered now (despite netting Christine Lahti an Oscar nomination and featuring an early role for Holly Hunter), Demme’s wartime women’s picture is much better than its (total lack of) reputation suggests. Perhaps it’s disregarded because, as Wikipedia puts it, it became a “case study for director/actor conflict” (a very rare allegation when it comes to Demme), with star Goldie Hawn, who was also producing, apparently wanting to steer the film in a more lighthearted direction than Demme wished. The finished film may be a compromised version of his original vision, but it’s still a very appealing and engaging minor-key movie, rich in period detail and displaying an unusual, gently feminist respect for the value of female friendship. Hawn plays married homebody Kay, whose husband Jack (Ed Harris) is called up for naval duty in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, and who goes to work at an airplane-parts factory along with her more streetwise neighbor Hazel (Lahti, who handily walks away with the film), a brokenhearted but resilient nightclub singer. The third point in the love triangle that ensues is factory foreman Lucky (Kurt Russell, with dimples to die for), but the film’s real heart is in the burgeoning friendship between Kay and Hazel, and Kay’s growing sense of herself in response to her Rosie the Riveter role. It’s gentle rather than revolutionary, and perhaps too quick to forgive its characters and to tidily divorce them from the moral consequences of their actions, but as a warm, well-mounted depiction of a period in American life accorded much less attention than it warrants, it’s a very enjoyable diversion, elevated by Lahti’s terrific turn. And by Kurt Russell’s dimples.
“The Silence Of The Lambs” (1991)
For all the famous scenery- and fava-bean-chewing lines given to incarcerated genius cannibal Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) in Ted Tally‘s script for “The Silence Of The Lambs,” the one moment that has always stuck with me is a pretty tame one. Toying with FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), Lecter points out her “good bag and cheap shoes.” It’s a throwaway observation in a much more scathing monologue, but it points to what makes Demme’s approach to this schlocky story so sincere and unique, and therefore what makes “The Silence Of The Lambs” his masterpiece. There’s an interest here in the psychology not of Lecter, who is a creature of such immense evil and cunning that he could sustain multiple sequels and a three-season TV show, but of Starling, the mousy, ambitious rookie whose drive to prove herself is so painfully palpable. Not only is this one of his trademark shifts in focus away from the showy would-be central character, but it also neatly encapsulates a prevailing fascination of Demme’s: he was eternally interested in people trapped in lives or lifestyles they feared they hadn’t the resources escape. Angela de Marco in “Married To The Mob,” Lulu/Audrey in “Something Wild,” Melvin in “Melvin And Howard,” Ricki in “Ricki And The Flash,” almost everyone in “Handle With Care” — these are all people who are tortured, sometimes humorously, often dramatically, by the tantalizing proximity of the lives they think they want instead of the lives they have. That is Clarice’s great desire — to escape her gauche, “rube” upbringing (this story is named after a childhood memory of hers, rather than some attribute of the killer, after all) — and it’s Demme’s unblinking curiosity about her that makes ‘Silence’ such an unusual horror film. It’s also bloody frightening, with Demme’s realist approach giving even the most baroque flourishes a chilling air of plausibility. It won the “Big Five” Oscars (Film, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay) and it deserved every single one.
“Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids” (2016)
It’s unusually appropriate that Demme’s last feature should be not just a concert doc, but this concert doc. Having revolutionized the form three decades before with “Stop Making Sense,” here he gives us a film so attuned to the spectacle of Justin Timberlake‘s lavish Las Vegas showcase that it almost seems like a repudiation of his former asceticism — that is, until you, as perhaps not the biggest Timberlake fan in the world, find yourself caught up in the movie in almost exactly the same way that you were with “Stop Making Sense” or “Swimming To Cambodia,” and you remember that Demme was the opposite of dogmatic, always adjusting his approach the better to serve the material. And the material here is unusual for its enormous variance in scale, from JT’s facial expressions and gestures, to wide ensemble dance routines, to stage-engulfing light shows that even spill out to embrace the audience, too. Few directors have a swan song that shows them on such supple form, but Demme dazzlingly showcases Timberlake’s charm and talent even to non-believers, and perhaps compensates when some of the songs are a bit meh by switching up from a flourish as tiny as a shimmy to a massive, God’s-eye view of the infectiously upbeat large-scale visuals. The oft-repeated truism of “Stop Making Sense” is that it feels like being at that gig, in the audience, swept up in the sweat and semiquavers of the live event. But none of the 17,000-odd people at Timberlake’s concert in the MGM Grand could possibly have had the same range of visceral experience, from intimate to gargantuan, that Demme’s film gives the viewer — this is one time that the film doesn’t just capture the feeling of being there, but probably improves on it.
“Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids” ends with the camera recording, with forensic interest, the phalanx of roadies and set builders constructing the various apparatuses that go into the enormously intricate affair. The electric, inventive energy of the film makes it even less believable that it should have been Demme’s last, but if these shots of hammers and forklifts and pulleys had to be his closing coda, perhaps it’s an appropriate one: a collection of scenes showing all the tireless, good-humored effort and craftsmanship it takes to make a feature-length entertainment seem so graceful and so effortless.
There’s lots more to explore if you feel inclined to honor Demme’s passing in this way. His ambitious attempt to tame Toni Morrison‘s massive “Beloved” into a feature film is not wholly successful or satisfying — for once, the straight-ahead sincerity of Demme’s dramatic style feels like it weighs the text down in literalism — but it’s valuable for its performances, and moving nonetheless. There are quite a few ardent admirers of his remake of “The Manchurian Candidate,” though if we’re honest, it’s a film of which we never could see the real point, with the original being so terrific. Michelle Pfeiffer drawls her way delightfully through the candy-colored, featherweight “Married To The Mob,” which reads as a more insubstantial, kooky mafiosi take on “Something Wild.” Completists will want to check out his more experimental moments, such as the recent “A Master Builder,” which is a take on Henrik Ibsen‘s play starring Wallace Shawn; and his trio of debut features made for exploitation giant Roger Corman, “Caged Heat,” “Crazy Mama” and “Fighting Mad.” And his last narrative feature, “Ricki And The Flash” staring Meryl Streep, is a light charmer, if not exactly the most urgent film you’ll see.
And there’s a whole category of film that Demme revisited frequently and that we’ve scarcely touched on above, with several documentaries focused on political leaders and social issues. Of those, the best is “The Agronomist,” a stirring portrait of a Haitian activist and radio journalist. “Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains” is a perhaps too-fond profile of the ex-president embarking on a book tour. “Cousin Bobby” is, we’re told, a warm, personal doc about Demme’s cousin, an Episcopalian minister in Harlem; and there are several more TV docs and PBS specials that benefitted from Demme’s wryly empathetic eye. He also delivered another strong concert doc in “Neil Young: Heart Of Gold” and then followed the musician home to Ontario for “Neil Young: Journeys.” Really, it’s hard to go wrong no matter where you end up in Demme’s filmography — but you maybe want to think about steering clear of “The Truth About Charlie.” Or perhaps that’s your favorite? If so, let us know about it, or any other title you think we didn’t give a fair shake, or indeed any other thoughts you have about Demme’s legacy, in the comments below.
