"When Silence of the Lambs did well commercially it was more than anything. My partner Ed Saxon and I were just so relieved that finally we had made a movie that had made some money!"
About this Quote
Relief is an oddly bracing lens for talking about one of the most lauded thrillers of its era. Jonathan Demme’s line punctures the myth of the director as untouchable auteur and replaces it with a working filmmaker who, like everyone else in the industry, has bills to pay and reputations to protect. The emphasis isn’t on glory, or even artistry, but on the unglamorous metric that decides whether you get to make the next thing: money.
The specific intent is modest, almost disarming. Demme isn’t claiming prescience about The Silence of the Lambs as a cultural event; he’s confessing the practical anxiety that hovers behind creative risk. That candor matters because the film’s legacy often reads as inevitability: Oscar sweep, iconic performances, endless influence. Demme reminds you that, at the moment of release, it was also a bet - on tone, on subject matter, on a director better known for humane, offbeat warmth than for prestige horror.
The subtext is industrial: “commercially” is the keyword, because commercial success buys credibility, leverage, and oxygen. His shout-out to producer Ed Saxon frames filmmaking as partnership and enterprise, not solitary genius. The phrase “finally” hints at prior projects that may have been admired but underperformed, the quiet career pressure that never makes it into poster copy.
Contextually, it’s a snapshot of early-’90s Hollywood where an ambitious, adult, psychologically jagged studio film could still become a hit. Demme’s relief reads like gratitude for a brief alignment between daring taste and mass appetite - and a recognition of how rare that alignment is.
The specific intent is modest, almost disarming. Demme isn’t claiming prescience about The Silence of the Lambs as a cultural event; he’s confessing the practical anxiety that hovers behind creative risk. That candor matters because the film’s legacy often reads as inevitability: Oscar sweep, iconic performances, endless influence. Demme reminds you that, at the moment of release, it was also a bet - on tone, on subject matter, on a director better known for humane, offbeat warmth than for prestige horror.
The subtext is industrial: “commercially” is the keyword, because commercial success buys credibility, leverage, and oxygen. His shout-out to producer Ed Saxon frames filmmaking as partnership and enterprise, not solitary genius. The phrase “finally” hints at prior projects that may have been admired but underperformed, the quiet career pressure that never makes it into poster copy.
Contextually, it’s a snapshot of early-’90s Hollywood where an ambitious, adult, psychologically jagged studio film could still become a hit. Demme’s relief reads like gratitude for a brief alignment between daring taste and mass appetite - and a recognition of how rare that alignment is.
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