September 4, 2025 • 20 mins
In this episode, I spoke with author David M. Stewart about his book "There's No Going Back: The Life and Work of Jonathan Demme". Jonathan Demme, one of the most influential and dynamic directors of the twentieth century, was a fearless and radical filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer―a compassionate artist, advocate, and humanist who was compelled to tell the stories of marginalized communities. His intense passion and appreciation of music, culture, and art were interwoven throughout his life and extraordinary body of work.
Forgotten Hollywood is on Facebook
Forgotten Hollywood Books are on Amazon
Doug Hess is the Producer/Host!
Forgotten Hollywood is on Facebook
Forgotten Hollywood Books are on Amazon
Doug Hess is the Producer/Host!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Let's go bye Forgotten Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
We don't forget.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Forgotten Hollywood. You'll remember Forgotten Hollywood. Well, we came from
Forgotten Hollwood.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Hello everyone, and welcome to Forgotten Hollywood, your podcast and
memories of Yesteryear. My name is Doug Hess and if
you're turning in for Hollywood for the first time, what
I do on this podcast is take you on a
journey back in time and share with you pieces of
Hollywood that you may or may not know about. And
in this episode we have a very special guest with us,
David M. Stewart, and he is here to talk about
(00:49):
his book There's No Going Back, The Life and Work
of Jonathan Dimmy. David, Welcome for the Hollywood. Thanks for
having me, Doug.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I enjoy your show and glad to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Ah well, thank you very much and thank you, like
I said, for taking a few minutes out of your time.
So one of the things we always like to start
off with is to allow the author to kind of
give an overview in their words, of what the book's about.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
This book that I wrote is about the.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
I think beyond the life and work of an amazing
American filmmaker. I think it's in my way, it's an
investigative love letter into his life and who is his
enriching career. I mean, I grew up watching Philadelphia Sansa
Lambs and most of the Neil Young concert films well
(01:42):
as a teenager. So no matter where I was, Jonathan
films were always in the ether somewhere, whether it be
at my school library or whether it be at the
movie theater. And when he passed away in twenty seventeen,
it felt like there was this gaping hole that, if
not an American cinema them definitely in the loss of
(02:02):
an amazing humanitarian behind the camera.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And for the next five years or so, from twenty.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Twenty up to now, for the last twenty nineteen to
twenty twenty four, before the most publication, that I managed
to find as much information as I could on Jonathan's
life and talk to forty or so people who are
very generous enough to remember Jonathan and for me to
record it in this book.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah. Absolutely. You know, probably two of the films that
he's most known for is Silence of the Lamb in
Philadelphia in terms of that, but obviously he was known
for much more than that. You were talking about some
of the music biography slash not really biographies but more documentaries.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
I would say writ very performance films if you want
to put it in that category as well.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. In terms, so he was more than
just a director as we think in today's.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Termsbsolutely, he was beyond the measure of a commercial director.
I think commercial really didn't really pique his interest.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
If anything.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
As many filmmakers, they have a unique sensibility of what
they see as the perfect movie in their eyes. For Jonathan,
he managed to bring out the best in people, whether
it be through his characters that were written by their
screenwriters as well as flesh out individuals that he saw
(03:28):
in everyday life that made him pick up his camera
and want to record the livelihood of such influential individuals
that not many people recognize or know of, whether it
be his cousin Bobby, Robert Wilkinson Castle, or Carolyn Parker
and I'm Carolyn Parker who was very adamant in returning
to her home in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Half
(03:49):
many others of the Lower ninth Ward and Jimmy Carter
in Man from Plaines, among many other influential people that
Jonathan managed to capture with his camera. I stayed in
the introduction Jonathan was What surprised me was that he
was an ornithologist or he studied birds as much as
(04:11):
he studied.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Films and music.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
And I always thought the best metaphor for him was
that he was a cultural magpie.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
He was someone that swooped down from his nest.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
And collected the people, the artistry, the imagery of anywhere
and anywhere he was around, and brought up to his
various nests, whether it be his film offices in Times Square,
Clinicosettiko or at Who's Homan Nayak and in turn sharing
it to the film loving community, be it local or worldwide.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah. Absolutely. What was he like with the director Slash
to his actress's relationship.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Jonathan loved actors.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
There's no denying that when it comes to getting the
best performances out of the film of an actor, it
takes a director to really help push an actor into
the right state of mind or into a place where
they're not comfortable being before, but in turn giving such
a very impassioned performance in the long run. And on
(05:13):
top of that, he was someone that advocated for women's
agency throughout the majority of his movies. If you go
back to the Roger Corman New World production of films
like kh Ted or Crazy Mama, or even when you
think of films like Married to the Mob before Song
Slambs Married to the Mob, when you think of just
Michelle Pfeiffer as this single widow try and survive and
help her son, it really epitomized Jonathan's view of just
(05:37):
the strength that women had that was not really as
calcified or crystallized in film as it should be, and
given today in the recent decade or so, with the
eclectic stories told by women and about women's issues, I
think Jonathan would have been on the sidelines cheerleading all
(05:57):
these incredible filmmakers have come out in the last decade
or so, whether it be Chlode Shou or Mariel Heller
or you know, Gina Prince, Blivewood, so many others that
he really was he was inspired by other people's work
as well, I mean beyond director, beyond actors, like he
was also inspired by the creativity of filmmakers other than himself,
(06:18):
and I think where him he really wanted to make
sure that their stories were told in such an unobtrusive
and authentic fashion. And you think of, say, if not
Jody Foster's performance and Sons of the Lambs, and definitely
and Hathaway and Rachel getting married in terms of really
going into the depths of their their character or the
(06:41):
understanding of the character and bringing up with such love
and authenticity that Jonathan really abided by, if not with
the collaborations with the screenwriters, would be Ted would be
Ted Tally or Jenny Lumett or Ron Niswanner among many others,
but also just by his lions in the actors giving
(07:01):
as much authenticity to what was being resented, because he
he didn't like rehearsal as much as he enjoyed the
spontaneous nature of the actors working within the frame of
the camera, and the same with the Cassavetti's worked and
so many others over the last last century of cinema.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Yeah, you know something that kind of surprised me in
your book. I guess I never really looked at Silence
of the Lamb as a feminist film or writing, and
that was something that he kind of prided himself on
in terms of that, And I don't know, it just
(07:39):
kind of caught me off guard because I originally never
went in that direction.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
If that makes sense, Oh absolutely, And I know that
there is many listeners out there who would be surprised
that they would think sild slams being a feminist tone
are feminist text, but it really is. I mean, despite
some people claiming that Hamble Lecter is the hero of
the movie, it's not the case. If anything. When Jonathan
(08:04):
first was approached by Mike Metavoy to direct Sons to
the Lambs, he read the script by Ted Talley and
read the book by Thomas Harris, and I think there
was this instinct that Clarice had in terms of the
determination to find Catherine Martin, in terms of letting herself
open to Hannibal Lecter in the way she did in
the book as in the movie as well. That really
(08:26):
struck Jonathan in a sense of how much one person's
about the sacrifice or it's to save another person's life.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
At the end of the day, it's about a woman
saving another woman's life.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
And when I was researching for the book, I found
this amazing story of Jonathan was interviewed nineteen eighty eight
by Roy Blount Jr. And he gave this impassionate story
about how I was a kid he tried to save
a greyhound dog from a veterinarian clinic in Florida because
Jonathan initially wanted to be a veterinarian, and he got
(08:57):
in trouble for it along and short of it. But
there was something about that moment that I noticed when
I was watching Sons of Lambs for the one hundredth
thousand times over even yesterday when I rewatched the film,
I just felt man Like the scene where Jody Foster
goes in the elevator in the beginning of the movie
down to the forensic science department.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
It just all these tall men.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
It really gives you, since what the next two hours
is going to be like a woman just up against
all these difficult, manipulative men, And it just it really
struck me. And the more I see it, just the
more it has become so presient in the nature of
the strength and reliability of women in whether it be
(09:40):
in law enforcement, would be in just any position where
they are trying to circumvent a difficult and inherently masculine society.
And I think that's what really drew Jonathan in so
many ways to the movie as a celebration of violence,
as a celebration of the if me of a serial killer.
(10:05):
If anything, he wanted to really show the respect to
the victims who did die from the hands of serial
killers as well as from those who survive. I think
you see that even when Diane Baker, who plays Catherine
Martin's mother, talking directly to the TV, and you see
that montage of photos brook Smith who plays Katherin Martin
the movie, And I think Jonathan really wanted to get
(10:26):
this the audience that much focused rather than the salacious
nature of the blood, the violence, and you know the
chaos that comes into the third act of the movie.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah. Well, it's always interesting how or at least to me,
it's always interesting in how a director is looking at
the film, but yet the audience completely either misses it
or takes it in a completely different direction. And I
think Silence as the Lamb is a great example of that. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
I think even Jonathan mentioned once I think it's the
Awesome Film Society that he once said that it's better
to can use the audience for ten seconds rather than
having them think that they're ten steps ahead of the story.
So even like in a movie like Sonza Lambs or
even something Wild where you're believed you're in a position
where you feel like it's going to be a lovey,
dovey syrrapy romance between Jeff Daniels and Melie Griffith turns
(11:16):
on a dime when Reallyota dances into frame and the
whole movie just goes into a U turn. And I
don't think not since seeing most recently seeing the film
Nora by Sean Baker, has seen a film that had
that much breathless energy and madcap feverish delight that just
made me watch his films, listen to the soundtracks over
(11:36):
and over again.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Absolutely. Another film that he did was Philadelphia Strying Denzel Washington,
Tom Hanks. I think it was what poor Academy Award
winner's Best Song with Bruce Springsteen obviously Tom Hanks winning
the Best Actor. In terms of that even with all
the praise, it didn't go unscathed a little bit with
(12:00):
some of the critics correct.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
I mean, I think Jonathan managed.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
I think that was the sacrifice Jonathan was willing to
take because on the heels of Wayney Academy Award in
early nineteen ninety two, four Sons Lambs. Any director who
wins in Oscar, they pretty much have the opportunity to
direct almost anything they want after winning something as celebrated
by the industry as the Academy Award. And rather than
(12:24):
like working on a film version of Say TYPEE, which
he was so narrow with in the early seventies, or
focusing on his attention on Connell Drift by Russell Banks,
he really was impassioned by the AIDS crisis and also
by the personal connection he had to friends and even
friends of his family who were diagnosed with HIV and
(12:47):
who perished during that tumultuous.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Period of the.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
AIDE scare of the eighties into the early nineties.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
And granted I was only five years seven years old
when all this was emerging, seven years old, but seeing
as a teenager when I was fourteen years old seeing
that movie, I was so naive that I didn't think.
I didn't see Tom hankson down what says A Watch?
And I saw Andrew Beckett and Joe Miller. That was
just the believabilia Jonathan brought in terms of where the
camera was being placed, and also did you want to
(13:17):
shake your hand with these people?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Just you know, the extension of the hand and the
eye contact.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
And I think you know, with the reviews that the
film gave that the film received, It's granted many people
are entitled to that opinion about how the film fared.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
But I'm of the opinion where I.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Think the film really did cement this viewpoint of the
importance of allyship in terms of going against the grain
of personal ideology or dogma and really looking at the
humanity that's out there in the world and people just
trying to survive. And there's a beautiful quote by Kathleen
Catherine Witt in the movie where she says, on the stand,
(13:55):
I'm not guilty, I'm not innocent, I'm just trying to survive.
And I think that also solidifies Tom Hanks's conceit in
the movie. We don't see him as a hero in
the traditional sense of the word, in the sense, but
also as someone pragmatic and accepting the reality of what
is going to happen to him. And I think in
the same way, Jonathan felt that way when he made
(14:17):
the movie and realized it was going to get some flak,
particularly by the LGBTQ community, primarily Larry Kramer. His unforgiving
review of the movie for The Chicago Reader. But nevertheless,
I think the film still stands today. It's hard to
make a movie, as Tom Hanks mentioned in a recent interview,
it's hard to make a movie with heterosexual cast portraying
(14:41):
gay characters. But I really think that at the time,
you know, you can see William hurt Wim the Oscar
for a Kiss the Spire Woman in nineteen eighty five,
and you know it was still a rare issue that
was barely discussed. In the same with the Vietnam War,
it took a decade or so for films like Platoon
in full, mel Jack and Born the Fourth July to
really make is understand perceive the full sense of what
(15:03):
happened with America's involvement in Vietnam. And I think the
same thing with the AIDS crisis that Jonathan really tried
to crystallize in Philadelphia, that this is not about just
one person. It's about the millions of others who were
afflicted with the illness and also their families and just
how they managed to survive and move on. That's why
(15:23):
you have so much of that whole movie footage of
Andrew Becket and his family in the middle of the
movie as well as at the end during the moral service,
because it really emphasizes that life moves on and the
memories of those are still with everyone.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Absolutely, you know, David, obviously Jonathan, we've talked about two
films that had pretty good success. We could argue, but
not everything was roses when it came to some of
his films, right.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Right, correct.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
I meantin even at the get go, he had difficulties
trying to maintain a strong, viable audience. I mean, if
you think of film like Swing Shift as quickly received
as I think of a film like either Swing Shift
or Citizens Band, as quickly luke warm as those films were,
it didn't get the box office attraction. To say Sons
of Lambs readings stopped making sense in its most recent
(16:16):
re released by A twenty four or even its initial
release back in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
But you know, the film like Beloved or even The
Truth about Charlie Craigs did give Jonathan the benefit of
the doubt.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
But in terms of the audience, you know of going
on a Friday night seeing a movie about you know,
Tony Morrison's jarring depiction of the slave trade and realistic
depiction of the slave trading beloved or Jonathan's love letter
to French cinema truth about Charlie. It just didn't wrap
(16:46):
with the same kind of audience or attention that Say
Sounds to the Lambs received in nineteen ninety one, and
with the director who has received his only OSCAR for
that movie and then every other movie afterwards is from
the director of Sons of the Lambs. It's a hard
watermark to really swim up to, and Jonathan tried to
do that in various formations and also trying to appeal
(17:09):
to the audience. But for some of the audiences at
the time, they either a weren't receptive to issues like
slavery or nuclear weaponry as in Charlie. But he really
tries to solidify those aspects in the movie, even if
they didn't make a huge return on investment. I think
(17:31):
in his later life he just made movies the sake
of making them, and I think with just that kind
of ambition and audacity and realizing he was going to
lose money in the long run, it was very valiant
of him to really make these stories rather than kout
out to the will of the studios who saw something
totally different from what he wanted to make.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Absolutely well, David, I know we're getting close here on time,
But one last question for you is what surprised you
do the writing and the research of this book.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Oh, I could give you another twenty minutes on that one,
but yeah, everything, I mean. I was so thankful to
look at Jonathan's father's journalist and.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Journalism acts.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
I should say his reviews, that his journalism events that
he published in the late thirties and forties, that really
solidified this idea of Jonathan being in a growing up
amongst us a delusion of storytellers, whether it be his
father and his plies a travel journalist, to his mom
(18:41):
as an artist, and even his grandparents who worked either
at Browman's Air Force Base during World War Two or
playing drums at local Long Island jazz club. It's just
that mix of music and humanity storytelling that really I
think was ingrained in his DNA that he managed to
carry with them throughout his career. Because I always sudden
(19:03):
myself bically the ending of Sans and the Lambs why
I was shot in Beminy as opposed to in the
book where it shows Clarice Starling going off with one
of the doctors in a romantic evening. I think Jonathan
really wants to highlight the area close to where his father,
you know, started his career as a jurist in the
kat Key Islands, which is not far from Beminy. So
(19:25):
I think like all that really crystallized in my perception,
in my hypothesis of why Jonathan was so enamored with
a love of storytelling and how that was really inherited
through his parents.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Absolutely well, David, thank you so much for coming on
into our listeners. At least go out and get a
copy of the book. There's no going back to life
and work of Jonathan. To me, I think you're you're
not going to be disappointed, and we really just touched
the tip of the iceberg on this. And we also
want to give a shout out to the University Pressive Context,
(20:00):
who is the publisher of this book. But yeah, you
can go out there on their website, you can go
out to Amazon or wherever you buy your book and
get a copy of There's No going back. You're not
going to be disappointed in Jonathan Jonathan. David, thank you
so much for bringing Jonathan's work to us.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Thank you, Doug.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
I appreciate you reading the book and hope your listeners
enjoyed as much as I enjoyed writing about his life.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Absolutely well, Thank you for listening to this episode Forgetting Hollywood.
You search for Doug Hes or Forgotten Hollywood. You can
also find me on Twitter, Instagram at hestep fourteen. If
you listen to this podcast on iTunes or another podcast service,
please subscribe to rate and review this episode. Tune in
next week for this episode Forgotten Hollywood. Thank you for
listening and we will see you then
Let's go bye Forgotten Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
We don't forget.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Forgotten Hollywood. You'll remember Forgotten Hollywood. Well, we came from
Forgotten Hollwood.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Hello everyone, and welcome to Forgotten Hollywood, your podcast and
memories of Yesteryear. My name is Doug Hess and if
you're turning in for Hollywood for the first time, what
I do on this podcast is take you on a
journey back in time and share with you pieces of
Hollywood that you may or may not know about. And
in this episode we have a very special guest with us,
David M. Stewart, and he is here to talk about
(00:49):
his book There's No Going Back, The Life and Work
of Jonathan Dimmy. David, Welcome for the Hollywood. Thanks for
having me, Doug.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I enjoy your show and glad to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Ah well, thank you very much and thank you, like
I said, for taking a few minutes out of your time.
So one of the things we always like to start
off with is to allow the author to kind of
give an overview in their words, of what the book's about.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
This book that I wrote is about the.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
I think beyond the life and work of an amazing
American filmmaker. I think it's in my way, it's an
investigative love letter into his life and who is his
enriching career. I mean, I grew up watching Philadelphia Sansa
Lambs and most of the Neil Young concert films well
(01:42):
as a teenager. So no matter where I was, Jonathan
films were always in the ether somewhere, whether it be
at my school library or whether it be at the
movie theater. And when he passed away in twenty seventeen,
it felt like there was this gaping hole that, if
not an American cinema them definitely in the loss of
(02:02):
an amazing humanitarian behind the camera.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
And for the next five years or so, from twenty.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
Twenty up to now, for the last twenty nineteen to
twenty twenty four, before the most publication, that I managed
to find as much information as I could on Jonathan's
life and talk to forty or so people who are
very generous enough to remember Jonathan and for me to
record it in this book.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah. Absolutely. You know, probably two of the films that
he's most known for is Silence of the Lamb in
Philadelphia in terms of that, but obviously he was known
for much more than that. You were talking about some
of the music biography slash not really biographies but more documentaries.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
I would say writ very performance films if you want
to put it in that category as well.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. In terms, so he was more than
just a director as we think in today's.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Termsbsolutely, he was beyond the measure of a commercial director.
I think commercial really didn't really pique his interest.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
If anything.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
As many filmmakers, they have a unique sensibility of what
they see as the perfect movie in their eyes. For Jonathan,
he managed to bring out the best in people, whether
it be through his characters that were written by their
screenwriters as well as flesh out individuals that he saw
(03:28):
in everyday life that made him pick up his camera
and want to record the livelihood of such influential individuals
that not many people recognize or know of, whether it
be his cousin Bobby, Robert Wilkinson Castle, or Carolyn Parker
and I'm Carolyn Parker who was very adamant in returning
to her home in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Half
(03:49):
many others of the Lower ninth Ward and Jimmy Carter
in Man from Plaines, among many other influential people that
Jonathan managed to capture with his camera. I stayed in
the introduction Jonathan was What surprised me was that he
was an ornithologist or he studied birds as much as
(04:11):
he studied.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Films and music.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
And I always thought the best metaphor for him was
that he was a cultural magpie.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
He was someone that swooped down from his nest.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
And collected the people, the artistry, the imagery of anywhere
and anywhere he was around, and brought up to his
various nests, whether it be his film offices in Times Square,
Clinicosettiko or at Who's Homan Nayak and in turn sharing
it to the film loving community, be it local or worldwide.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah. Absolutely. What was he like with the director Slash
to his actress's relationship.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Jonathan loved actors.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
There's no denying that when it comes to getting the
best performances out of the film of an actor, it
takes a director to really help push an actor into
the right state of mind or into a place where
they're not comfortable being before, but in turn giving such
a very impassioned performance in the long run. And on
(05:13):
top of that, he was someone that advocated for women's
agency throughout the majority of his movies. If you go
back to the Roger Corman New World production of films
like kh Ted or Crazy Mama, or even when you
think of films like Married to the Mob before Song
Slambs Married to the Mob, when you think of just
Michelle Pfeiffer as this single widow try and survive and
help her son, it really epitomized Jonathan's view of just
(05:37):
the strength that women had that was not really as
calcified or crystallized in film as it should be, and
given today in the recent decade or so, with the
eclectic stories told by women and about women's issues, I
think Jonathan would have been on the sidelines cheerleading all
(05:57):
these incredible filmmakers have come out in the last decade
or so, whether it be Chlode Shou or Mariel Heller
or you know, Gina Prince, Blivewood, so many others that
he really was he was inspired by other people's work
as well, I mean beyond director, beyond actors, like he
was also inspired by the creativity of filmmakers other than himself,
(06:18):
and I think where him he really wanted to make
sure that their stories were told in such an unobtrusive
and authentic fashion. And you think of, say, if not
Jody Foster's performance and Sons of the Lambs, and definitely
and Hathaway and Rachel getting married in terms of really
going into the depths of their their character or the
(06:41):
understanding of the character and bringing up with such love
and authenticity that Jonathan really abided by, if not with
the collaborations with the screenwriters, would be Ted would be
Ted Tally or Jenny Lumett or Ron Niswanner among many others,
but also just by his lions in the actors giving
(07:01):
as much authenticity to what was being resented, because he
he didn't like rehearsal as much as he enjoyed the
spontaneous nature of the actors working within the frame of
the camera, and the same with the Cassavetti's worked and
so many others over the last last century of cinema.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Yeah, you know something that kind of surprised me in
your book. I guess I never really looked at Silence
of the Lamb as a feminist film or writing, and
that was something that he kind of prided himself on
in terms of that, And I don't know, it just
(07:39):
kind of caught me off guard because I originally never
went in that direction.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
If that makes sense, Oh absolutely, And I know that
there is many listeners out there who would be surprised
that they would think sild slams being a feminist tone
are feminist text, but it really is. I mean, despite
some people claiming that Hamble Lecter is the hero of
the movie, it's not the case. If anything. When Jonathan
(08:04):
first was approached by Mike Metavoy to direct Sons to
the Lambs, he read the script by Ted Talley and
read the book by Thomas Harris, and I think there
was this instinct that Clarice had in terms of the
determination to find Catherine Martin, in terms of letting herself
open to Hannibal Lecter in the way she did in
the book as in the movie as well. That really
(08:26):
struck Jonathan in a sense of how much one person's
about the sacrifice or it's to save another person's life.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
At the end of the day, it's about a woman
saving another woman's life.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
And when I was researching for the book, I found
this amazing story of Jonathan was interviewed nineteen eighty eight
by Roy Blount Jr. And he gave this impassionate story
about how I was a kid he tried to save
a greyhound dog from a veterinarian clinic in Florida because
Jonathan initially wanted to be a veterinarian, and he got
(08:57):
in trouble for it along and short of it. But
there was something about that moment that I noticed when
I was watching Sons of Lambs for the one hundredth
thousand times over even yesterday when I rewatched the film,
I just felt man Like the scene where Jody Foster
goes in the elevator in the beginning of the movie
down to the forensic science department.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
It just all these tall men.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
It really gives you, since what the next two hours
is going to be like a woman just up against
all these difficult, manipulative men, And it just it really
struck me. And the more I see it, just the
more it has become so presient in the nature of
the strength and reliability of women in whether it be
(09:40):
in law enforcement, would be in just any position where
they are trying to circumvent a difficult and inherently masculine society.
And I think that's what really drew Jonathan in so
many ways to the movie as a celebration of violence,
as a celebration of the if me of a serial killer.
(10:05):
If anything, he wanted to really show the respect to
the victims who did die from the hands of serial
killers as well as from those who survive. I think
you see that even when Diane Baker, who plays Catherine
Martin's mother, talking directly to the TV, and you see
that montage of photos brook Smith who plays Katherin Martin
the movie, And I think Jonathan really wanted to get
(10:26):
this the audience that much focused rather than the salacious
nature of the blood, the violence, and you know the
chaos that comes into the third act of the movie.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah. Well, it's always interesting how or at least to me,
it's always interesting in how a director is looking at
the film, but yet the audience completely either misses it
or takes it in a completely different direction. And I
think Silence as the Lamb is a great example of that. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
I think even Jonathan mentioned once I think it's the
Awesome Film Society that he once said that it's better
to can use the audience for ten seconds rather than
having them think that they're ten steps ahead of the story.
So even like in a movie like Sonza Lambs or
even something Wild where you're believed you're in a position
where you feel like it's going to be a lovey,
dovey syrrapy romance between Jeff Daniels and Melie Griffith turns
(11:16):
on a dime when Reallyota dances into frame and the
whole movie just goes into a U turn. And I
don't think not since seeing most recently seeing the film
Nora by Sean Baker, has seen a film that had
that much breathless energy and madcap feverish delight that just
made me watch his films, listen to the soundtracks over
(11:36):
and over again.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Absolutely. Another film that he did was Philadelphia Strying Denzel Washington,
Tom Hanks. I think it was what poor Academy Award
winner's Best Song with Bruce Springsteen obviously Tom Hanks winning
the Best Actor. In terms of that even with all
the praise, it didn't go unscathed a little bit with
(12:00):
some of the critics correct.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
I mean, I think Jonathan managed.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
I think that was the sacrifice Jonathan was willing to
take because on the heels of Wayney Academy Award in
early nineteen ninety two, four Sons Lambs. Any director who
wins in Oscar, they pretty much have the opportunity to
direct almost anything they want after winning something as celebrated
by the industry as the Academy Award. And rather than
(12:24):
like working on a film version of Say TYPEE, which
he was so narrow with in the early seventies, or
focusing on his attention on Connell Drift by Russell Banks,
he really was impassioned by the AIDS crisis and also
by the personal connection he had to friends and even
friends of his family who were diagnosed with HIV and
(12:47):
who perished during that tumultuous.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Period of the.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
AIDE scare of the eighties into the early nineties.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
And granted I was only five years seven years old
when all this was emerging, seven years old, but seeing
as a teenager when I was fourteen years old seeing
that movie, I was so naive that I didn't think.
I didn't see Tom hankson down what says A Watch?
And I saw Andrew Beckett and Joe Miller. That was
just the believabilia Jonathan brought in terms of where the
camera was being placed, and also did you want to
(13:17):
shake your hand with these people?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Just you know, the extension of the hand and the
eye contact.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
And I think you know, with the reviews that the
film gave that the film received, It's granted many people
are entitled to that opinion about how the film fared.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
But I'm of the opinion where I.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Think the film really did cement this viewpoint of the
importance of allyship in terms of going against the grain
of personal ideology or dogma and really looking at the
humanity that's out there in the world and people just
trying to survive. And there's a beautiful quote by Kathleen
Catherine Witt in the movie where she says, on the stand,
(13:55):
I'm not guilty, I'm not innocent, I'm just trying to survive.
And I think that also solidifies Tom Hanks's conceit in
the movie. We don't see him as a hero in
the traditional sense of the word, in the sense, but
also as someone pragmatic and accepting the reality of what
is going to happen to him. And I think in
the same way, Jonathan felt that way when he made
(14:17):
the movie and realized it was going to get some flak,
particularly by the LGBTQ community, primarily Larry Kramer. His unforgiving
review of the movie for The Chicago Reader. But nevertheless,
I think the film still stands today. It's hard to
make a movie, as Tom Hanks mentioned in a recent interview,
it's hard to make a movie with heterosexual cast portraying
(14:41):
gay characters. But I really think that at the time,
you know, you can see William hurt Wim the Oscar
for a Kiss the Spire Woman in nineteen eighty five,
and you know it was still a rare issue that
was barely discussed. In the same with the Vietnam War,
it took a decade or so for films like Platoon
in full, mel Jack and Born the Fourth July to
really make is understand perceive the full sense of what
(15:03):
happened with America's involvement in Vietnam. And I think the
same thing with the AIDS crisis that Jonathan really tried
to crystallize in Philadelphia, that this is not about just
one person. It's about the millions of others who were
afflicted with the illness and also their families and just
how they managed to survive and move on. That's why
(15:23):
you have so much of that whole movie footage of
Andrew Becket and his family in the middle of the
movie as well as at the end during the moral service,
because it really emphasizes that life moves on and the
memories of those are still with everyone.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Absolutely, you know, David, obviously Jonathan, we've talked about two
films that had pretty good success. We could argue, but
not everything was roses when it came to some of
his films, right.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Right, correct.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
I meantin even at the get go, he had difficulties
trying to maintain a strong, viable audience. I mean, if
you think of film like Swing Shift as quickly received
as I think of a film like either Swing Shift
or Citizens Band, as quickly luke warm as those films were,
it didn't get the box office attraction. To say Sons
of Lambs readings stopped making sense in its most recent
(16:16):
re released by A twenty four or even its initial
release back in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
But you know, the film like Beloved or even The
Truth about Charlie Craigs did give Jonathan the benefit of
the doubt.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
But in terms of the audience, you know of going
on a Friday night seeing a movie about you know,
Tony Morrison's jarring depiction of the slave trade and realistic
depiction of the slave trading beloved or Jonathan's love letter
to French cinema truth about Charlie. It just didn't wrap
(16:46):
with the same kind of audience or attention that Say
Sounds to the Lambs received in nineteen ninety one, and
with the director who has received his only OSCAR for
that movie and then every other movie afterwards is from
the director of Sons of the Lambs. It's a hard
watermark to really swim up to, and Jonathan tried to
do that in various formations and also trying to appeal
(17:09):
to the audience. But for some of the audiences at
the time, they either a weren't receptive to issues like
slavery or nuclear weaponry as in Charlie. But he really
tries to solidify those aspects in the movie, even if
they didn't make a huge return on investment. I think
(17:31):
in his later life he just made movies the sake
of making them, and I think with just that kind
of ambition and audacity and realizing he was going to
lose money in the long run, it was very valiant
of him to really make these stories rather than kout
out to the will of the studios who saw something
totally different from what he wanted to make.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Absolutely well, David, I know we're getting close here on time,
But one last question for you is what surprised you
do the writing and the research of this book.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Oh, I could give you another twenty minutes on that one,
but yeah, everything, I mean. I was so thankful to
look at Jonathan's father's journalist and.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Journalism acts.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
I should say his reviews, that his journalism events that
he published in the late thirties and forties, that really
solidified this idea of Jonathan being in a growing up
amongst us a delusion of storytellers, whether it be his
father and his plies a travel journalist, to his mom
(18:41):
as an artist, and even his grandparents who worked either
at Browman's Air Force Base during World War Two or
playing drums at local Long Island jazz club. It's just
that mix of music and humanity storytelling that really I
think was ingrained in his DNA that he managed to
carry with them throughout his career. Because I always sudden
(19:03):
myself bically the ending of Sans and the Lambs why
I was shot in Beminy as opposed to in the
book where it shows Clarice Starling going off with one
of the doctors in a romantic evening. I think Jonathan
really wants to highlight the area close to where his father,
you know, started his career as a jurist in the
kat Key Islands, which is not far from Beminy. So
(19:25):
I think like all that really crystallized in my perception,
in my hypothesis of why Jonathan was so enamored with
a love of storytelling and how that was really inherited
through his parents.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Absolutely well, David, thank you so much for coming on
into our listeners. At least go out and get a
copy of the book. There's no going back to life
and work of Jonathan. To me, I think you're you're
not going to be disappointed, and we really just touched
the tip of the iceberg on this. And we also
want to give a shout out to the University Pressive Context,
(20:00):
who is the publisher of this book. But yeah, you
can go out there on their website, you can go
out to Amazon or wherever you buy your book and
get a copy of There's No going back. You're not
going to be disappointed in Jonathan Jonathan. David, thank you
so much for bringing Jonathan's work to us.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Thank you, Doug.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
I appreciate you reading the book and hope your listeners
enjoyed as much as I enjoyed writing about his life.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Absolutely well, Thank you for listening to this episode Forgetting Hollywood.
You search for Doug Hes or Forgotten Hollywood. You can
also find me on Twitter, Instagram at hestep fourteen. If
you listen to this podcast on iTunes or another podcast service,
please subscribe to rate and review this episode. Tune in
next week for this episode Forgotten Hollywood. Thank you for
listening and we will see you then
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.