When we finished 'Stop Making Sense,' we went right to the San Francisco Film Festival for the world premiere, and people swarmed the stage and started dancing before the first song was even finished. Jonathan Demme More Quotes by Jonathan Demme More Quotes From Jonathan Demme I felt from time to time that shooting live music is the most purely cinematic thing you can do. Ideally, the cinema is becoming one with the music. There is little artifice involved. There's no acting. I love it. Jonathan Demme becoming-onecinemaacting When you're working on a script, every word that's on the page, somebody has to read it. Make every word count in your stories. Jonathan Demme scriptspagesstories Everything I've made - it doesn't mean they've all been good - but everything I've made so far, big or little, fiction or documentary, has been something that I've been really enthusiastic about. Jonathan Demme littlesmeanfiction I'm guided by my enthusiasm. Jonathan Demme enthusiasm I also feel that the only thing more gratifying than working with someone who you've worked well with is working with someone new and coming up with something great. Jonathan Demme wellsfeels If you're doing a music film, you've got to be singing about something. Jonathan Demme singingfilmifs I like finding a great shot and then just staying with it for a long time, not trying to pump things up with some kind of artificial energy by cutting. Jonathan Demme cuttingtryinglong It's a funny thing with documentary films - you want them to feel as entertaining and as gripping as a fictional film. With a fictional film you want it to feel as realistic as a documentary film. Jonathan Demme documentary-filmsfunny-thingswant As a kid, a little kid I loved going to the movies, and now I love making movies. Jonathan Demme love-makinglittleskids Music films are great, but they can never compete with a live performance. Live music is what it is. It's the whole point. You experience it in the moment. Jonathan Demme music-isfilmmoments I don't think it's sacrilegious to remake any movie, including a good or even great movie. Jonathan Demme sacrilegiousremakesthinking Extraordinary people are the Green Berets and the Navy Seals and the Olympic athletes - these are the ones who can face these extraordinary physical challenges and be triumphant. Jonathan Demme athletechallengespeople I love doing fiction. I love doing performance films and I love doing documentaries that don't have music. I love to shoot and I love to shoot things I'm enthusiastic about. Jonathan Demme documentariesfilmfiction Documentaries - my God, there is so much going on in our country and in the world today that every time you open the newspaper or turn on the radio or watch the news on TV there is another documentary subject. We're getting the headlines for a second, shaped by corporate delivery most of the time, but what's really the story there? Jonathan Demme newswatchescountry Nothing beats a live performance. Nothing. Jonathan Demme live-performancebeatsperformances I think music is just a wonderful ingredient that helps us understand a scene better. And certainly you can overuse music, and you can use the wrong music. I probably have been guilty of these things over time. But if you use music correctly as a friend of the theme, a friend of the narrative, ou can lend some terrific connective tissue to a film. Jonathan Demme tissuesusethinking I've never had a good game plan. At a certain point, making independent films became more and more appealing to me because I like freshness and originality. Jonathan Demme originalityindependentgames If you're doing a music film, you've got to be singing about something. Or, you have to be singing in a vocabulary that has tremendous appeal or else people are not going to want to sit there for eighty or ninety minutes hearing this stuff. Jonathan Demme vocabularysingingpeople I didn't go to film school so my learning was done out in public and showed up on the screen. Jonathan Demme filmdoneschool I had very strong feelings, so the chance to make a film that deals in an imaginative way with stuff you care tremendously about is a real high. It's a really amazing thing to be able to do. Jonathan Demme strongrealfeelings
