Jonathan Demme Quotes

The movie business is not something that can come from the brain. It really comes from the soul and the heart.

My instinct is to absolutely recoil when talking about writing in a mechanistic way. Nothing could be dumber than writing a film or TV script based on prescriptions, on other peoples' ideas of what character should be.

Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances.

We make the kind of movies we like to watch. I love to laugh. I love to be amazed by how beautiful it is. But I also love to be moved to tears. There's lots of heart in our films.

The films I want to make, I really want to be passionate about.

A great byproduct of a TV show, movie, or play is when it can act as a catalyst for someone.

Now I can't wait to write my next play.

What's cool is when you're able to give your audience imagination and you don't have to cage them in like animals.

You always try to work for your audience, to entertain them, but that being said, obviously, within the studio system you feel the sense of responsibility to the bank.

The only way you can continue to make artistic films is to make an occasional one of those. They kind of keep your marketability going to the extent that people will employ you.

We make films that we ourselves would want to see and then hope that other people would want to see it. If you try to analyze audiences or think there's some sophisticated recipe for success, then I think you are doomed. You're making it too complicated.

I'm always curious about anyone who has enough passion to go onstage and say, 'This is what I'm really passionate about.' It's always worth listening to.

I would find the idea of compiling a setlist that doesn't wildly excite me to be too restricting.

I don't make judgments about my own work, and I don't analyze it; I just let it happen. That applies to everything I've done.

For us, we are interested in doing what's cool for us and what's cool for the audience. That's it.

It seems so cliched and obvious, but write the movie you want to see in the theater.

If you're making a film, you've got to have one eye to the audience and one eye to what excites you about it, and sometimes it's not the same thing.

Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol and an audience is electrified.

The trouble with a lot of people who try to write is they intellectualize about it. That comes after. The intellect is given to us by God to test things once they’re done, not to worry about things ahead of time.

It's incredible to see the creativity, beauty and hardships people capture when filmmaking is opened up and shared with the world.

It's a luxury being a writer, because all you ever think about is life.

I want to make all kinds of movies. I do want to make big movies that are a lot of fun to go to, but I also want to make movies that are going to stimulate some thought and maybe raise some awareness.

An audience is always warming but it must never be necessary to your work.

Art is spiritual.

And I don't have any specific steps to take because I don't start the same way every time. But there is a knowing when it's enough and you can leave it alone.