Jonathan Demme: Close Up
Saturday, November 18
At The Nyack Center
An evening of film clips and discussion, curated by Brooklyn Demme
Tickets will go on sale soon!
Here are three common observations about Jonathan Demme: he was well known to be liked and admired by all who met him; throughout his career his films revealed a belief in the goodness of people; and he sometimes used close-ups on an actor looking directly into the camera lens, as if to make a direct emotional connection between that character and the viewer. In Jonathan Demme: Close Up, we turn that gaze back at the filmmaker and his films with the help of those who knew him, using clips from his films for insights into what made him a preeminent director, a champion of overlooked films from around the world, a mentor and role model.
Scratching the surface of the most well known films by Jonathan Demme, from Black exploitation movies made for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures early in his career to Toni Morrison’s Beloved, through gently off beat stories of America and Americans to films made as an A-List director and Oscar winner, there are consistent experiments in form and content found in collaborations with musicians, ways of telling a story, explorations of society and psychology, and in his numerous documentaries. At times he enjoyed the luxury of being an A-list Hollywood Director, but at all times Jonathan Demme was an iconoclast.
Jonathan Demme: Close Up is funded by a Regrowth and Capacity Grant from New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and with from a Nyack Tourism Grant from The Village of Nyack.
