After writing about cinema, he would begin “writing cinema”, at Roger Corman’s invitation. In 1974, he started his career as a director (Caged Heart), which would be divided in (or rather would be completed with) fiction, documentary and works for television.
In 1980, the New York Film Critics Circle named his film, Melvin and Howard, the Best Film of the Year. His movie of the Talking Heads concert, Stop Making Sense (1984) was a major hit (with the critics and the audience) and is still regarded as one of the main references for film-concerts, a success which would later lead him to make music videos for artists such as Neil Young (with whom he would also direct the documentaries Neil Young: Heart of Gold, 2006; Neil Young Trunk Show, 2009 and Neil Young Journeys) and Bruce Springsteen.
In 1991, The Silence of the Lambs would give him further recognition, by winning the Oscar for Best Picture. He would follow it with Philadelphia (1993), one of the first fictional works concerning the drama of AIDS.
Lately, he has mostly devoted his time to television and documentaries, interrupted by the fictional Rachel Getting Married (2008) – a drama starring Anne Hathaway and Debra Winger – and A Master Builder (2013).
Producer and director, with over fifty titles, Jonathan Demme is one of the essential names of American cinema in the last decades.