Widely hailed as the greatest concert movie ever made, director Jonathan Demme’s celebrated film captures Talking Heads live at Hollywood’s Pantages Theatre in December 1983.
Building from an image of a single pair of white sneakers into a sublime, almost surreal display of cerebral rock, Demme and Blade Runner(1982) cameraman Jordan Cronenweth filmed three of the band’s concerts and edited them into one.
What makes this such a memorable experience, though, is the ingenuity of Talking Heads frontman David Byrne.
In addition to writing and performing a mesmerising rendition of the 16 songs on the soundtrack, he also designed the show, which includes wonderfully atmospheric shadow-mime sequences performed on a triptych screen behind the minimalist stage.
The film opens with David Byrne walking alone onto a bare stage. There’s just a boom-box and a microphone.
“I’ve got a tape I want to play,” he says.
He launches into Psycho Killer, and the movie slowly starts to build.
As Byrne sings, the crew moves in pieces of stage equipment, and the other players join him one by one.
Two songs later, the entire group is on stage for a snapping version of Burning Down The House. They then proceed, metaphorically, to do just that.
There are no cliché concert shots typically associated with concert films, such as a shoe-level view of a guitar player striking the ultimate note, his face twisted in concentration.
And while most concert films look like they were filmed with a home movie camera in the midst of confusion and disorder, Demme filmed Stop Making Sense like he would make any movie – with painstaking attention to light, staging, shot selection and characterisation.
It is fabulously calculated, as illustrated by the famous set-pieces, such as Byrne’s visual catchphrase ‘big suit’ appearing before Girlfriend Is Better; the Fred Astaire-inspired dance with a standard lamp (pictured below) during the euphoric This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody); and his Pentecostal fire-startin on Once In A Lifetime.
David Byrne
Vocals, guitar Tina Weymouth
Bass, guitar, percussion, vocals Jerry Harrison
Guitar, keyboards, vocals Chris Frantz
Drums, vocals Alex Weir
Guitar, vocals Bernie Worrell
Keyboards Steven Scales
Percussion Ednah Holt
Backing vocals Lynn Mabry
Backing vocals
Director
Jonathan Demme
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What makes this such a memorable experience, though, is the ingenuity of Talking Heads frontman David Byrne.
Two songs later, the entire group is on stage for a snapping version of Burning Down The House. They then proceed, metaphorically, to do just that.
