Jonathan Demme’s Wild, Humanist Cinema Deserves a Reappraisal

There’s a Criterion Channel series paying tribute to director Jonathan Demme that, as short as it is, makes clear that Demme is due for a major reappraisal. It includes only four films — (1986), (1988), (1991), and (2008) — but each demonstrate both his confidence in mixing genre elements freely as well as his commitment to centering his films on engrossing characters and the actors who play them. This means his early movies especially seem loose and rangy but also kinetic and…