The Jonathan Demme movie that changed Paul Thomas Anderson’s life
Very few directors have managed to hone a career quite as wide-spanning but well-loved as Jonathan Demme. Finding his start under the wing of the so-called king of cult Roger Corman, Demme’s filmmaking remained suitably unpredictable and offbeat as he progressed in the industry.
The director flitted between genre and form with ease, creating one of the greatest concert films of all time for Talking Heads before flirting with major award success with The Silence of the Lambs. He helmed films steeped in humanity, Saturday Night Live episodes, and even documented a Justin Timberlake performance.
Until his death in 2017, he continued to prove his capability to take on any subject matter and bring it to life on-screen. The director’s impact on film fans and music enthusiasts has been huge, but he also had a major early influence on another director-to-be.
Like Demme, Paul Thomas Anderson has been continually lauded by cinephiles and critics alike. He’s the mind behind the shimmering Boogie Nights, the masterful There Will Be Blood and the elegant Phantom Thread, but he might never have made such a mark had it not been for Demme’s influence and one picture in particular.
“He was the first filmmaker who made me feel it was within reach,” Anderson enthused while explaining the early impact of the director during an interview with Rolling Stone, “What I mean by that is: He didn’t, he didn’t over shazam it, but he put some spit on it too. So it’s cinematic but it’s grounded as well.”
Anderson went on to acknowledge the particular impact of Demme’s 1986 film Something Wild, which he deemed a “gigantic turning point” for him. The film opened Anderson’s eyes to “how loose you could be with the rulebook. You know, having people look into the camera, having three different songs play at one time, simply ending your film on Sister Carol looking into the lens and nodding and wagging her finger. I mean, that’s fucking amazing to me.”
The director also admired Demme’s penchant for detail, noting how no element of his filmmaking, no matter how small, was left to accident or chance. “He cared about everybody,” he concluded. Anderson seems to have learned from this and incorporated it into his own work, honing a similarly meticulous style of filmmaking.
After Anderson spent his formative teenage years watching and learning from Demme’s filmmaking, he met his hero in the late 1990s, and the two became good friends. Still, even as they became peers and pals, Anderson’s enduring admiration for the director remained as he continually referred to Demme as his favourite director.
Watch the trailer for Something Wild below.
