Jonathan Demme talks about making the Academy Award winning thriller "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991). June 7th, 2006 The full interview is available here : • Jonathan Demme: Good T...
I was working at Radio station RRR in Melbourne just before this was released. And Anthony Hopkins came live to the studio for interview. At that stage he was famous but not a superstar. So when we interviewed him (in our mind)..thought "okay it will be an ok movie" but we had no idea how much. We asked him to lunch in Skiza's cafe in Brunswick St Fitzroy and he said "sure". No one recognized him. After the meal, he said he had no money, so I paid. I got him to sign an IOU saying "I Hannibal Lecter owe Peter $21.80". The movie was 2 months from release & i lost the note . 😭😭😭 He was super polite at the 30 minute interview, came by himself and was sooo funny/nice the whole time.
A masterpiece to be sure. It's funny how he describes the production as a wonderful experience so much so that all the accolades to follow was icing on the cake. If you know anything about film productions, you know that the movie gods are not always on your side, and when they smile down on you, that's better than anything else you can receive.
Great film with one of the greatest set pieces I’ve ever seen. I’ve never come across a section of a movie that continually cranks up the tension so well for so long. The whole film is great but the escape set piece is outstanding
A friend and I stopped at a movie theater to see what was playing & received an invitation to screen a new movie starring Jodie Foster & Anthony Hopkins. We went, were blown away, then asked to stay and fill out a questionnaire about the film. When we left there were several men in suits hanging out in the lobby. A year went by & my friend & I wondered whatever happened to that great movie we saw. When it finally came out I was happy it was so successful & won all the Oscars.
It still is one of only three films that have ever won the big five Oscars, best picture, director, screenplay and male and female lead. (The other two films are "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" and "It happened one night".)
I could see Meg Ryan. Michelle Pfeiffer seems like a miscast to me, even though she's a better actress than Ryan. Jodie Foster is obviously by far the best choice.
@@razbigranicuI think Pfeiffer still would’ve nailed it, but Jodie has certain idiosyncrasies that made the character more believable, as is generally the case with all of her roles
I was studying in Oxford when this released. Only one small theatre screened it and in order to get a seat you had to queue early in the day for later shows. My friend and I walked to the Empire, queued and bought our advance tickets. Rather than make the forty minute walk back we killed the time by watching a subtitled Japanese film called "In the realm of the senses" about a troubled geisha who ultimately killed her master by castrating him.During the screening we could hear some of the music from the adjacent room. We heard some audience reaction too which certainly helped build tension for the main event. I thought Hopkins was possibly the most mesmerising character I'd ever seen on big screen. The tension in that film was layered up so beautifully.Even today if I hear Springsteen's "American girl" it instantly transports me back to Senator Martin's daughter singing in her car. By the end I wanted Lecter free and didn't mind his escape at the cost of unfortunate Sergeant Pembury. Never remake this or Jaws. Be a crime.
A masterpiece. I had heard that Michelle Pfeiffer was 1st choice, and think she could have been fantastic. I want to add that the film also had a very good promotional campaign. Nowadays you see the whole plot in the trailer. SOTL was creepy and mysterious - you just HAD to see it.
I strongly believe some things are just meant to be, like Hopkins getting cast as Dr. Lecter, Pacino in the Godfather or Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad. Without those actors, those pieces of art just wouldn't be half as good.
Heck yeah Jonathan Demme is awesome. I loved Stop Making Sense, The Talking Heads concert film he directed. Silence of the Lambs is an anomaly in cinema and remains a classic. Also loved Rachel Getting Married. Brilliant filmmaker.
Somehow the force of evil that is Lecter, and the force of good that is Clarice, bound together in a chemistry of desperation and ambition. Lecter plotted his escape, gaining opportunities for more murders which he perversely enjoyed. Clarice followed leads, gaining opportunities to rise within the ranks of her profession which would more than compensate for her past. Somehow between them they would each gain the fulfillment of their needs during the course of a psychologically intimate and unorthodox relationship. Jonathan Demme and cast had great material, played it straight, and built in all the suspense of story and the main character's journey into the unknown. (Strangely enough Jodie Foster had a similar arc as a true blue believer again in Contact, bringing fulfillment but not a perfectly happy, unrealistic ending.) When I saw The Silence of the Lambs in the theater I found it completely riveting and fascinating on every level. I can't think of anything it needed.
Wow! He's so humble??? He won an Oscar and the movie totaled 5 awards! If I had done that I would be running around shouting, "Look what I did!" Humble. Really had to be when all the right elements come together.
Trying to imagine Sean Connery as Lecter ... would have been interesting to say the least. But Hopkins is so darn perfect in every choice he made, it's hard to see anyone else in the role. Did anyone see Bryan Cox play him in "Manhunter"?
Only my opinion, but I think Cox played the genius psycho better than Hopkins, but Hopkins played the role 'bigger'and thus was more memorable. It helped that Demme portrayed Lector's world like a scene from a horror movie too. That enabled Hopkins to ham up Lector and give him 'otherworldy' quanities. Cox played the role 'straight', but Hopkins understood the cartoonishness of the character and played it that way.
Connery shure turned down shom intereshting projectsh and franchishesh in hish time, didn't he? Silence Of The Lambs, Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter, The Matrix...
why would anyone turn down Clarice? Amy Brenerman tuned down Edy in Heat because she said the film was too dark. Michael Mann delved deeper? "Why?" He said. She replied "Because i wouldn't want to be involved with that world of crime." He replied, "That's why you should do the part."
Connery???? Seriously? 🤦That would've been a disaster! He's never been 1/50th the actor Hopkins is. As for Meg Ryan 🤣👎 gimme a break. I think this dude got verrry lucky.
Connery would work very well. It would have been a different film for sure. But he has a very strong screen presence, that would have worked for that film. And people probably would have been shocked by the violence.
@@ghostviggen no way! With his distinctive accent, you'd keep thinking of Bond or his character from The Untouchables. Plus, with those intense closeups of his face, he just can't do those *piercing eyes* that Hopkins can. Sorry, I love Connery. His performance in The Hunt for Red October is one of my all-time faves. But playing Hannibal requires a different class of actor.
@@stepha5926 That’s because Hopkins has established what Hannibal should look and sound. If Connery had been cast you couldn’t imagine how the part have looked with Hopkins.
@@ghostviggen absolutely wrong. 🤦 You're just repeating the same cliched thing everyone says. Fact: This film would absolutely not have become *iconic* with Connery. Try to focus on that point. Yes, "you couldn't imagine what it'd be like with Hopkins" just like you couldn't imagine The Wolf Of Wall Street with Michael Fassbender - but he would've slayed DiCaprio, & the film would've ranked up there with The Godfather, instead of the overacted cheesy dogshit we received.
Movie sucked. I don’t know why it gets so much acclaim. If it had been a chess match between two brilliant minds, it would’ve earned its headlines. Instead Jodie Foster, who was set up as some impressive new recruit, is instantly overmatched by Lecter’s charisma like some pup, and the movie devolves into a chase scene. Save your time.
A completely over rated film and nowhere as good as Michael Manns Manhunter, the first Lecter film. Hopkins performance struck me as arch then and watching it now it’s an embarrassing caricature performance. I tried watching it a third time and found it unbearably bad.
@@ingvarhallstrom2306 the fecking thing popped up and I didn’t go looking for it. Like any human specimen I felt the urge to see what people were saying. First watch Manhunter then get back to me with any comments.
@@rajo741 I'm a big Michael Mann fan, I've of course seen Manhunter perhaps twenty times at least? But it doesn't make this film any worse, they are two completely different films made in completely different ways.
@@ingvarhallstrom2306 you’re absolutely right in your assessment. I just found Demme’s choices to be obvious whereas Manns depictions of psychological horror were more brightly lit in blue tones. In contrast Demme chose to shoot Lambs in a darker spectrum which struck me as cliche and had been done a thousand times. There were good things about his film but Hopkins was not one of them. Then again I’ve always felt he was an overrated actor and I’ve followed him since the start of his career . He’s a good actor but not great the way the press has always portrayed him. His finest performance I feel is in Titus.
@@rajo741 I think the difference between the films is how they depict psychopathy differently. Brian Cox played it for real, showing no emotion but callous manipulation, the way a psychopath would behave in real life, ultimately not likeable. While Hopkins turned it up to eleven and gave the audience what he thought they wanted, the most likeable psychopath they had ever seen. That's of course the difference in direction, ultimately the directors call on what direction the film should have quite literally.
