Stop Making Sense

Defining pure cinema is tricky, especially among those who devote many hours to its appreciation. You'll nary get a precise consensus as to what is cinematic (or filmic, for our friends across the pond) and what is not. How about what constitutes a film? Standard 3 act structure? That notion was shattered even before the French New Wave nearly 50 years ago. Plot? Narrative? Documentary? Some would argue the latter genre isn't pure cinema. How someone could say this after films like HEARTS AND MINDS, THE THIN BLUE LINE, and others is way beyond me. What about those other kinds of documentaries, namely, the concert film? Certainly WOODSTOCK changed what was expected from those. No more mere zooming up the lead singer's nostrils.

Concert films were cranked out quite regularly in the late 60s, 70s, and 80s. The Rolling Stones had at least 5 (!) of them. Various music fests in Monterey and the Isle of Wight were filmed and shown on theater screens. There were a few great ones, like Scorsese's THE LAST WALTZ. Most were unmemorable. The idea seems funny-showing a concert in a movie theater, where one doesn't usually get up and gyrate. If that's true, what a challenge it must have been seeing STOP MAKING SENSE, director Jonathan Demme's landmark record of a few Talking Heads concerts from the 1983 "Speaking in Tongues" tour. This is not passive viewing.

It played for well over a year at midnight on Friday nights at the local art house cinema while I was in high school. Never saw it there, regrettably. Even though I considered myself a Talking Heads fan. I purchased the VHS around that time and watched it obsessively. This film was really where my Heads appreciation started. I knew their hits; "Burning Down the House" was ubiquitous, especially on MTV. I had also enjoyed the video for "Once in a Lifetime" a few years earlier. Both of these songs are rearranged and opened up for live performance in ways that even the most astute studio wizards couldn't have mastered. Usually, live performances sound like crap to me. Throwaway audio. The artists can't recreate the editing and perfection of the record, and they often change the phrasing in ways that undermine the rhythm. Concerts are great fun (sometimes even transcendent) when you're there, but tiresome to listen to or watch back at home. STOP MAKING SENSE completely changes the rule, creating something so artful and unique, it's instead the original recordings that suffer by comparison!

I was not in the audience at these Hollywood, CA shows. I never did see singer David Byrne, guitarist/keyboardist Jerry Harrison, bassist Tina Weymouth, and drummer Chris Frantz do their thing live. It must have been amazing. Director Demme certainly thought so; after seeing the band on their 1981 tour, he and producer Gary Goetzman both realized that the act was just begging to be filmed. What was playing out wasn't merely a collection of songs interrupted by tired lead singer banter. Crazy narratives seem to be there. Each song, building some theme. Plus, Byrne was wildly theatrical. Once Demme and cinematographer Jordan (BLADE RUNNER) Cronenweth began filming, it was evident that the theatrical could also become cinematic.

STOP MAKING SENSE is indeed cinematic. Demme breaks many concert film conventions. For one, he does not give use the usual audience reactions during and between the tunes. They are usually phony anyway-that girl with her eyes closed, flailing the cigarette lighter, how do we know she's reacting to the song we're hearing? I was a camerman at my church several years ago, and was usually the one who got the audience shots. Invariably, when the program was later edited, the audience reaction shots were never in real time. Demme is interested in documenting a start to finish event as honestly as possible, and the director correctly asserts that showing the audience at all (until the very last moments) isn't really necessary. We also don't get backstage or fan interviews, silly fantasy sequences, or warm up acts. Just the stage, song by song being filled with more band members and instruments. Intricate (but rarely gimmicky) light design. Curious slides. Very tall floor lamps. Sum total = movie magic.

That's why it works so beautifully. I love the music-its polyrhythms, its energy, the amusing lyricism. But this is cinema, purely. Byrne has described the sorta narrative we get as we wind from the spareness (man, guitar, boom box) of "Psycho Killer" all the way to the grand (full band, backup singers, complex lighting, buckets of sweat) finale of "Crosseyed and Painless". We see an uptight man gradually shake it loose to the groove. Talking Heads' music draws from a wellspring of influence-Hank Williams to disco to Sunny "King" Ade. By the end, Byrne has flung off the famous big suit of "Girlfriend is Better" and completely surrendered to the joy. All captured brilliantly by the aforementioned filmmakers and Lisa Day's exemplary editing. This film is not merely seen and heard, but experienced.