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Los Angeles Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
New Jonathan Demme biography spotlights director's clashes with powerful stars — and his humanity
Before he set his sights on Hollywood, Jonathan Demme studied to become a vet. Movies may have mesmerized him since childhood, but animals were his 'parallel obsession,' writes film journalist David M. Stewart in 'There's No Going Back,' an uneven biography of the Oscar-winning director of 'The Silence of the Lambs.' In the end, chemistry classes proved too hard, and only one animal sustained Demme's interest long enough: the Alligator, the University of Florida newspaper that let him contribute film reviews. A career as a veterinarian was abandoned in favor of the movies. Demme, who died in 2017, forged a career defined by films that centered voices from society's ever-shifting margins. He spotlighted women ('Swing Shift'), Black people ('Beloved') and HIV-positive gay men ('Philadelphia') in narratives that celebrated their trials through an empathetic camera lens. Interspersed among Hollywood projects were documentaries such as 'The Agronomist,' on Haiti's only independent radio station; 'Right to Return,' about Hurricane Katrina victims fighting to access their homes again; and 'Stop Making Sense.' Demme himself witnessed the difficulty those at society's fringes faced entering spaces men (often white) had claimed and refused to relinquish. His grandmother retold rose-tinted stories of building aircraft equipment during World War II before being forcibly relegated back to her domestic life. Growing up Miami's Overtown neighborhood, Demme saw how Black people created their own unique 'music and communal energy' during segregation, a culture he would repeatedly honor in his own films. After college, Demme landed a publicity job at United Artists. During a chance encounter chauffeuring François Truffaut around, the master auteur told the desperate factotum that he had an eye for directing. Demme insisted he wasn't interested in being a director, even after the French filmmaker inscribed his copy of 'Hitchcock.' 'Yes, you are,' was Truffaut's reply. Despite these early protests, Demme moved west to Hollywood, working for B-movie producer Roger Corman on films such as the 1971 bike picture 'Angels Hard as They Come' and the salacious 1973 prison escape story 'Black Mama White Mama' before he directed 'Caged Heat' with a feminist take on the women-in-prison film that embraced satire and progressive politics. Demme directed socially conscious projects during the 1970s, tackling the disenfranchised and forgotten through action and comedy tales. 'Crazy Mama,' about a housewife intent on exacting vengeance on the men who murdered her husband, highlighted Demme's desire to recognize women's ongoing struggles against a patriarchal world. 'Fighting Mad' and 'Citizens Band' (subsequently titled 'Handle with Care') touched on corporate greed, ecological destruction and finding human connection in small-town America. 'Melvin and Howard' won two Oscars and was nominated for a third. But in an experience that would unfortunately repeat itself, the Goldie Hawn-produced 'Swing Shift' was a deeply demoralizing project for Demme. He had wanted to make a 'feminist perspective of women during wartime,' writes Stewart, while Hawn had imagined the film as a sugary rom-com. The veto power Hawn had meant the entire ending was reshot, mostly sapping Demme's dream of its political message. A decade later, Demme would suffer similar strife on the set of 'Beloved,' quarreling with Oprah Winfrey over aspects of characterization in the supernatural slavery epic. ( Winfrey told Stewart that she was banned from viewing the dailies for a brief period.) But creative comfort was found, as Demme repeated over the years, in music. There was his Talking Heads concert film 'Stop Making Sense' and several Neil Young concert films; 'Something Wild,' a Melanie Griffith movie he made after 'Swing Shift,' prominently featured Jamaican singer Sister Carol and her cover of 'Wild Thing.' Still, it was his passion for female protagonists who were 'reliable in a world of lying men' that also fueled his output, if only partly dealt with in Stewart's shorthand approach. 'The Silence of the Lambs,' 'Rachel Getting Married' and 'Ricki and the Flash' each etched, in equal parts, the strength and vulnerability of a different women — battling the criminal justice system, besieged by addiction and estranged from family — who reject victimhood as an option. 'There's No Going Back' stresses it's not a definitive biography but an effort to 'understand Demme as a filmmaker.' If Stewart can be forgiven for the light detail on Demme's upbringing for this reason (only a few pages), he is less absolved for his inconsistent, often abridged, treatments of Demme's films and what messages to glean from a long view of the director. Patchy approaches — 'Rachel Getting Married' gets some dissection with minimal production detail, while 'The Silence of the Lambs' gets extensive production detail with no film analysis — doesn't help extract Demme's thematic throughlines as a filmmaker. To end the book with his passing and without any final remarks only compounds this problem. What does somewhat redeem 'There's No Going Back' is the detail given on Demme's lifelong activism. Starting first with the freedom of expression movement, Demme moved to documenting Haiti's transformation from a dictatorship to a democracy in several energized documentaries. If political connections aren't always made back to his dramatized films, appreciating how Demme championed voices from the likes of Haiti and in the aftermath of Katrina does at least highlight his lifelong advocacy of society's most forgotten — on- and off-screen. When Demme was a young boy, his mother told him to write about the movies he so ardently watched 'to uncover the secrets behind the magic.' It may be an unfortunate irony then that this same advice Stewart recounts proves largely absent in 'There's No Going Back.' While well-intended and admiring, the biography often proves facile, showing difficulty reckoning with Demme's oeuvre and its deeper political and cinematic lessons. The book has still set some of the groundwork for a future project that may more adeptly synthesize life with art. Smith is a books and culture writer.
South China Morning Post
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Meet actress Catherine O'Hara's beau of 32 years, Bo Welch, a production designer for films including Men in Black and Beetlejuice – and director Tim Burton helped set up their first date
At 33, Catherine O'Hara wasn't so different from the average teenage girl who had just fallen for her crush. 'It was like high school. 'Oh, he talked to me today! He talked to me for three minutes! He talked to me for seven minutes!'' O'Hara, who has just turned 71, joked during a 2020 Q&A with Tiff. His 32-year marriage to O'Hara aside, Bo Welch, 73, is a critically acclaimed production designer, known particularly for his work on The Color Purple and Men in Black. Here's a closer look at his life and work. Bo Welch studied architecture Catherine O'Hara and Bo Welch attending the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, in 2022. Advertisement Born in 1951 in Pennsylvania, Welch didn't set out to become a production designer. As a boy he dreamed of designing buildings, which led him to study architecture at the University of Arizona. After graduating, he moved to Los Angeles to start his career as an architect but quickly became disillusioned with the industry's realities. 'It should serve people and be the framework for a more cohesive kind of country, world, state and town,' Welch told The New York Times in 1992. 'But everything in the fabric of our physical world works to alienate and separate people from each other.' This dissatisfaction prompted him to explore production design, where he could still apply the sense and taste he'd developed as an architect, he told the newspaper. After badgering a set designer at Universal, he eventually landed a position at the studio. What began with designing and building a door for a television show quickly expanded into bigger opportunities, including art-direction roles on films like Swing Shift and The Color Purple, which brought him the first of four Oscar nominations. But it was his first big appointment that really opened doors for his career. Despite Welch's having no prior experience as a production designer, director Joel Schumacher took a chance on him for The Lost Boys, a stylised vampire film. Catherine O'Hara and husband Bo Welch at the Batman premiere in Westwood, Los Angeles, in 1989.
Fox News
27-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Kate Hudson is teaching kids not to ‘lean on family' for financial support
Kate Hudson believes that children should learn to be self-sufficient early in life. The 45-year-old actress shares son Ryder, 21, with ex-husband Chris Robinson, son Bingham, 13, with ex-fiancé Matt Bellamy, and daughter Rani Rose, 4, with fiancé Danny Fujikawa. During a recent interview with Bustle magazine, Hudson explained that she has ensured that her oldest child, Ryder, who is a student at New York University, understands there will be expectations if he decides to move home after graduating from college. "He's like, 'I got to figure out what my life is going to look like and how I'm going to achieve the things that I want to achieve and how I can live,'" she said. "I think you should be teaching your kids those things way earlier on so that when they get to that point, they're not like, 'Oh my God, how do I afford my life and not lean on my family?'" The "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" star found her own fame and fortune at a young age after she followed in the footsteps of her celebrity parents. The actress is the daughter of Goldie Hawn, 79, and musician Bill Hudson, 73, though Hudson has said that she considers her mother's longtime partner, Kurt Russell, 73, to be her father. Hawn and Russell first met in 1966 when they co-starred in the comedy musical western, "The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band." The pair's relationship eventually turned romantic when they reunited as the leads of the 1983 film "Swing Shift." In 1982, Hawn and Bill, who also share son Oliver, 48, split after six years of marriage. After the divorce, Russell and Hawn raised the "Death Becomes Her" star's children together. The couple also share son Wyatt, 38, who they welcomed in 1986. Hudson, Oliver and Wyatt all went on to become actors. During a 2017 appearance on the ABC Radio podcast, "No Limits With Rebecca Jarvis," Hudson explained that Hawn and Russell always emphasized the importance of hard work when she and her siblings were growing up. "The work ethic in our family is really huge," she said. "They definitely instilled that in all of their kids ... It was just basically, 'Do your job. Do it the best you can.'" Hudson also reflected on how she almost attended NYU, where her son would enroll more than two decades later. "I think you should be teaching your kids those things way earlier on so that when they get to that point, they're not like, 'Oh my God, how do I afford my life and not lean on my family?'" She was accepted into the university's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts but chose to defer college in order to pursue her acting career. After making her film debut in the 1998 movie "Desert Blue," Hudson starred in a string of movies including "200 Cigarettes," "Gossip," "Dr. T & the Women" and "About Adam." When she was 19, Hudson landed her breakthrough role in 2000's "Almost Famous," earning a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar nomination for her performance. While speaking with Bustle, Hudson shared that Hawn and Russell raised her to be confident in her decisions from an early age. "I had parents that instilled in me that it was OK to be self-possessed and to believe in myself," she said. "I was very driven when it came to wanting to be in the arts. I didn't need to do a talent show with three people; I wanted to be out there by myself dancing." "Sometimes when you're that young and you're that self-possessed, there's a lot of people that want to bring you down," she continued. "And I did receive a lot of pushback from peers," she added. "But my parents always assured me that that wasn't about me. That it was OK to go out there and do a routine by myself." The "Knives Out: Glass Onion" star also experienced major personal milestones early in life. Hudson moved in with her first husband, Chris Robinson, just a few days after they met in May 2000. The couple tied the knot on New Year's Eve of that year when Hudson was 21. During an appearance on "The World's First Podcast," Hudson recalled meeting Robinson when she was 20 years old while on vacation in New York. Hudson said when she returned from her trip days later, she declared that she was going to marry the rocker. While appearing on the podcast, the "Fool's Gold" star explained why she decided to get married at such a young age. "I just jump into the deep end of everything I do," Hudson told hosts Erin and Sarah Foster. "People thought it was impulsive, but I was just like, 'You know what? I'm just going to dive right into this. I'm not going to second-guess it." "I'm in love with him. I'm not going to pretend like, 'Oh, we should wait.' I'm madly in love, and I want to marry him, and so I just didn't think twice. I'm kind of still like that, except with a little more wisdom under my belt." The two, who welcomed Ryder in 2004, ended their seven-year marriage in October 2007. However, the two have continued to amicably co-parent their son and Hudson credited Robinson with teaching her "what it felt like to be unconditionally loved." Hudson began dating Muse singer Matt Bellamy in 2010 after they met at the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California. The two revealed they were engaged in April 2011 and welcomed Bingham in July of that year. In December 2014, the actress and the musician announced that they had called off their engagement. However, they have remained on good terms since ending their romance. The actress began dating musician Danny Fujikawa, 36, a longtime family friend, in December 2016. Hudson first met the musician when she was 23 and pregnant with Ryder. During her interview with Sarah and Erin, Hudson remembered going on a hike with Fujikawa and then coming to the realization that it was a date. "There was something about Danny that it was coming from such an honest place that I could tell he just wanted me to see him," she said. "And so he was nervous, and I was like, 'OK, this is a date.' And I just had to wrap my head around it, and then, by the end of the hike, I was like, 'He's so great.' "He was just so kind and loving and pure, and in my mind, I was like, 'I think I'm ready for a guy that, like, is that kind, who actually like really likes me, like, I think this could be good.'" In April 2018, Hudson announced they were expecting their first child together, and they welcomed daughter Rani late that year. The two revealed they were engaged in September 2021. In November 2022, Hudson reflected on amicably co-parenting her three children with their three different fathers. "It might not look traditional from the outside, but on the inside I feel like we're killing it," the actress told the Sunday Times. "The unit that I've created with three children with three different fathers is a seriously strong unit, and it's ours." Though Hudson has always praised Hawn and Russell for how they raised her and her siblings, she previously shared that she has a different approach to parenting. "I'm so strict," Hudson told People magazine during a joint interview with Hawn in 2020. "I'm more lenient, like way more lenient," Hawn said before joking, "She's Attila the Hun." "You were strict when you needed to be. You were honest," Hudson told her. Hawn explained that she "got angry over bad behavior or kindness" while raising her children but she "didn't get mad over mistakes." The Oscar winner admitted that Hudson is the "more structured" parent, telling her, "You draw your roadmaps very firmly." "Listen, our children are our greatest teachers. And you should be, as a parent, available to learn, because you don't know everything," Hawn said. Hawn went on to remind Hudson that her children are "not you." "And you're not me," Hawn continued. "And that is the one thing that we have to remember." Hudson also shared the best parenting advice that she had received from Hawn. She recalled confiding in her mother when she didn't understand why she was "so sad" while pregnant with Ryder. "Mom's like, 'Because the second they leave your body, they don't belong to you anymore.' I think that was the most powerful thing you've ever said to me," Hudson remembered. "It's learning to let go. I think a lot of mothers, particularly with their girls, feel helpless when you don't think you're needed anymore. … It's just a phase," Hawn said. "There's an individuation and then there's a period of time when we come back together again." During her recent interview with Bustle, Hudson explained that her confidence comes from the strength of her family bonds. "At the end of the day, our family is what matters in life," she said. "From my brothers, to my nephews and nieces, to my sister-in-laws, to my mom, my dad, to my partner, his brothers. I think that's where the real kind of self-possessed nature comes from."
