"Rachel Getting Married"

Jonathan Demme has always been a huge inspiration to me. I read somewhere that when Orion was getting ready to make "Silence of the Lambs," and Demme's name came up, nobody (including Demme himself) believed he was the right guy for the job. Of course, that ended up being a huge success and swept the Academy Awards.

The versatility he's shown in his career, whether directing documentaries (like "Cousin Bobby") or breezy comedies (like "Married to the Mob") is really breathtaking. I even like his misfires, such as "The Truth about Charlie." He's always got something interesting going on, even when the movie itself doesn't entirely gel.

I recently saw "Rachel Getting Married," and he's really at the top of his game. It's a great movie by any standard. And yeah, it was shot on digital.

The thing that I really liked about "Rachel" was that the choice to shoot on digital really helped to tell the story. It was the rare case of a digital movie that I didn't wish had been shot on film. I felt like I was watching a real documentary, or somebody's wedding video (albeit a very well shot wedding video). Roger Ebert wrote a nice review that also comments on the film's wonderful "post race" mindset: Rachel Getting Married Ebert Review

One thing I've always liked about Demme is that he usually works with his good friend Tak Fujimoto. Long term director/D.P. collaborations give me warm and fuzzy feelings. This time out, Declan Quinn fills in (though I see from his imdb page that he's worked with Demme before on some docs).

Fujimoto has always been one of my favorite cinematographers; he's got such a great eye for natural detail and organic movement. Demme and Fujimoto shot some select flashback scenes for "The Truth about Charlie" on consumer-grade digital video and in the commentary track, Demme noted that Fujimoto was very excited by the results, and said that someday he'd like to do a whole project that way. Looks like Declan Quinn (who's pretty great too, BTW) got the gig this time (presumably Fujimoto was shooting "The Happening"?) but hopefully Fujimoto and Demme will find another great project for the DV medium.

-Dave Boyle