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David Byrne: ‘Jonathan Demme inspired me to tackle feature film directing’

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Wenn

Singer-turned-director David Byrne has penned a touching tribute to Jonathan Demme, crediting the late moviemaker with mentoring him as he tackled his first feature film.

The Silence of the Lambs director lost his battle with cancer on Wednesday (26Apr17), aged 73, and celebrity friends and colleagues like Jodie Foster, Tom Hanks, Anne Hathaway, Thandie Newton, and Justin Timberlake were quick to offer up their condolences for Demme’s family.

Now Byrne has shared his memories of his late pal in a lengthy post on his website, recalling the close friendship they shared over the years after working together on his band Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense concert documentary in 1983.

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In the essay, Byrne recalls already being a fan of Demme’s “character driven” movies when they were introduced by a mutual acquaintance to discuss their first project, and admiring the way the filmmaker managed to make each bandmember’s personality shine onscreen while also capturing their live performance at Los Angeles’ Pantages Theater.

He wrote, “I was too focused on the music, the staging and the lighting to see how important his focus on character was – it made the movies something different and special.”

Demme also included the rockers in every step of the editing process to ensure they were happy with the finished product – a real learning experience for Byrne as he started to build up his own resume as a director.

“They wanted to hear what we had to say,” he continued. “That inclusion was hugely inspirational for me. Though I had directed music videos before, this mentoring of Jonathan’s emboldened me to try making a feature film.”

That feature film was 1986 comedy True Stories, starring John Goodman, for which Demme served as Byrne’s mentor, and they went on to collaborate on a string of subsequent projects, including Jonathan’s movies Something Wild and Married to the Mob.

Concluding the tribute piece, Byrne added, “The fiction films, the music films and the docs are all filled with so much passion and love. He often turned what would be a genre film into a very personal expression. His view of the world was open, warm, animated and energetic… Jonathan, we’ll miss you.”

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