Demme is quoted wanting live music playing in the next room or garden rather than a traditional score; Robyn Hitchcock played a wedding guest. — Bill Simmons
Demme reportedly told crew to let Hathaway deal with the music, so her anger in the scene was real; Hitchcock likened the shoot to a real wedding without alcohol, much of it shot in real time. — Bill Simmons
The case for Demme: he bridged late-70s and 80s independent filmmaking with a subversive yet entertaining genre blockbuster, the reason something new appears on every rewatch, aided by his regular cinematographer Tack Fujimoto (as transcribed), who shot Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller; Demme had recently died.
After a joke answer naming Miggs's actor, the case for Hopkins is that his would be among the first performances named in any bar argument about the most memorable ever.
The Demme backer answers "You're not going to get any argument from me", just wanted to shout Demme out, expected the other to have Hopkins, and calls it "a 1A, 1B thing".
Ted Levine is a yes, called the apex not just for him but for all actors.
Jonathan Demme is a no from one host, who would choose Stop Making Sense or Something Wild; the other asks how a five-for-five Oscar sweep is not the apex, and the first host admits to being a hipster about it but sticks with that choice.
Chris Isaac's apex (as transcribed) is instead the Wicked Game video, called a top-12 video of all time.
Jodie Foster is a yes: after an initial 'I think so', the reply agrees this was her apex; her performance in The Accused is rated higher, she is called good in Panic Room and Inside Man without those being apex work, and her most iconic role plus a second Best Actress Oscar settle it.
Hopkins mocked Foster's Southern accent in their first scene; James Gumm combines Ed Gein, Ted Bundy and Gary Hednick (as transcribed); Gene Siskel gave the film a negative review; Brooke Smith gained 25 pounds for Catherine Martin; Goodbye Horses replaced a Bob Seger song and Ted Levine insisted on the dance; Levine and Scott Glenn did extensive research; the story was inspired by Robert Keppel and Ted Bundy; William Goldman got Demme to cut a 12-minute Crawford-Clarice sequence
According to Jodie Foster, Hopkins improvised mocking her Southern accent during their first meeting, so her horrified reaction is genuine; the hosts love when good actors unsettle their scene partners, and the accent is called not great and one of several problems with her performance.
James Gumm ('Jame Gum' variously as transcribed) combines three real killers: Ed Gein, who skinned victims, Ted Bundy, who escaped and killed again, and Gary Hednick (as transcribed), who kept captives in a basement pit.
Gene Siskel gave the film a negative review, and one host calls Siskel the movie equivalent of the host's perpetual disagreements with Greenwald.
Brooke Smith, who played Catherine Martin, gained 25 pounds for her first major role, and the hosts wonder whether she deserved a supporting actress nomination.
The dance song Goodbye Horses by Q Lazarus was originally supposed to be a Bob Seger song, which one host is glad it was not; the hosts joke about how men their age would react if it came on in a bar.
Ted Levine insisted the dance scene be in the film, and the screenwriter did not know it would be until he saw it; it was improvised, Levine needed two drinks first, and he researched by visiting trans bars and talking to people.
Scott Glenn researched child murder cases and worked with the real-life model for Crawford, with tempestuous political arguments because Glenn opposed capital punishment; a host jokes that Glenn then murdered him.
The story was inspired by the relationship between University of Washington criminology professor and profiler Robert Keppel and Ted Bundy, which is how the Green River killer was caught.
The second host's research, from a Deadline oral history: after an LA screening, William Goldman told Demme to cut a filmed 12-minute sequence in which the attorney general chews out Crawford and Clarice, kicks her out of the academy and takes him off the case; Demme and the editor resisted, cut it anyway, and the film became a tight hour and 54 minutes.
Goldman is also credited with telling the Good Will Hunting writers to drop the second half where Will becomes a spy; the host found the Goldman story the most interesting, the Hackman material having been covered.
The face-eating serial killer concept; the James Gumm name; the Lecter mask and stretcher; the elevator-and-ambulance escape; night goggles as a murder aid; the first murder being someone the killer covets; the music; the two endings; the behavioral-science investigation; Jonathan Demme's direct-to-camera close-ups
The concept of a face-eating serial killer still works in 2017; Buffalo Bill's real name, James Gumm (as transcribed), is a favorite, with jokes about interviewing someone named James for a Ringer job.
The Lecter mask and stretcher is called magnificent and underrated 26 years later, prompting an Artest melee joke, and the lamb chop, elevator and ambulance stretch is called outrageous.
Night goggles as a murder aid are the most prominent in any Hollywood film, with Manhunter's dark scene, Patriot Games and Zero Dark 30 (as transcribed) as comparisons; a host who rewatched the last half hour expected it to be dated and found nothing dated except the lack of cell phones.
The idea that a killer's first victim is someone he covets has aged well and changes how one host thinks about murder investigations.
The music is praised: a Bernard Herman (as transcribed) Hitchcock-style score and the song choices, especially Catherine Martin singing along to Tom Petty's American Girl, which establishes her in 20 seconds; the lesson never to help a stranger move furniture into a van is compared with The Vanishing, and the film's two endings, Clarice killing Gumm and then Lecter's call about having an old friend for dinner, both work.
One pick is the music, as a tribute to Demme's use of music and for the creepy, haunting score.
The other pick is the concept of the film's two serial killers, a genius psychiatrist who kills and eats people among them, which many films have gotten wrong.
The behavioral-science investigation feels authentic: the viewer learns alongside Clarice, as when she profiles the killer in the back seat on the drive to West Virginia, unlike older cop films such as The French Connection or Dirty Harry, or Dr. Loomis in Halloween; the covet realization in her scene with Cassie Lemons's (as transcribed) character is an earned light-bulb moment.
Demme is added to the list for making this film and then Philadelphia; the hosts say he won best director for both, which rarely happens.
Demme's actors deliver lines straight into the camera; he did not invent it, with French New Wave precedents, but it makes the viewer feel like Clarice in the cell and the FBI offices, and he reserves it for a few characters, never James Gumm, Catherine Martin or the victims.
Lecter appears 11 minutes and 50 seconds in, right after a credit sequence that follows Clarice through Quantico with men turning to look at her, setting up the sense that she is being watched before Lecter's question about her perfume; she is part of an early-90s run of strong female characters with Thelma and Louise and Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.
Gene Hackman co-owned the rights and planned to direct and possibly play Jack Crawford before backing out; Sean Connery and Jeremy Irons turned down Lecter; Ed Harris turned down Crawford because he wanted Lecter; Michelle Pfeiffer, the first choice for Clarice, and Meg Ryan turned it down; Redford, Hoffman and Robert Duvall are mentioned as Lecter possibilities
The book rights were originally bought 50-50 by Mike Medavoy at Orion and Gene Hackman, who was going to direct and maybe star or just play Jack Crawford; one host says Hackman still should have played Crawford, though Scott Glenn is amazing.
Ted Talley (as transcribed) was hired to write what is called one of the great screenplays of the last 30 or 40 years; after the controversial Mississippi Burning, Hackman's daughter told him the film was too violent, he backed out, Orion paid him back his half and brought on Jonathan Demme, who began looking for a Lecter.
Sean Connery reportedly refused outright, calling the role grotesque, and Jeremy Irons would not do it either, possibly because he did not want to play two villains in a row after Reversal of Fortune; the hosts try Connery's voice on the fava beans line and conclude it would not work.
Ed Harris turned down Jack Crawford because he wanted Lecter, which is jokingly called a heat check and a little Dion Waiters of him.
Michelle Pfeiffer, first choice for Clarice, turned it down as too violent after working with Demme on Married to the Mob, and one host thinks that would have been really cool; Meg Ryan also passed at a time she was offered everything, which led to her casting in The Doors.
With Gene Hackman as Lecter the film could have gone badly wrong, the hosts say, and it would now be stuck on a minor cable channel at two in the morning.
Later, during research, the hosts are happy with Scott Glenn as Crawford over Tommy Lee Jones, cannot see Jones as Lecter, are glad Lecter was not Redford, Hoffman or Robert Duvall, and wonder whether Daniel Day Lewis was too early for it.
