Jonathan Demme – ‘Stop Making Sense’ movie review: Talking Heads put on the greatest ever concert film, now in 4K
A pair of white espadrilles, the epitome of anti-rock attire, totter out onto the stage, now more pristine than ever, David Byrne plonks down a boombox, utters the immortal line, “Hi, I’ve got a tape I wanna play,” and what unfurls thereafter is nothing short of a creative miracle. Stop Making Sense is a rare masterpiece befitting of the overused phrase. Talking Heads, at the peak of their powers, come together with a director in Jonathan Demme, who couldn’t be more perfectly paired to execute a vision that reimagined rock shows.
The band and filmmakers construct the show in front of the audience’s eyes, starting with Byrne’s solo acoustic rendition of ‘Psycho Killer’ before Tina Weymouth joins him on bass. The pair casually impart an almost hymnally spiritual version of ‘Heaven’, and they continue to race through hits as the show gathers like a rising sun behind them.
Prior to Stop Making Sense, the platitudinal pinnacle of a concert film was how well ‘it made you feel like you were there’. In reality, this is, of course, an impossible feat, and there are hours of pointless shots of sweaty crowds that stand as evidence of this folly. Nothing about the opening of Talking Heads’ effort aches to fulfil this futile goal. It is very happy to accept a divide between the band, the audience present at Los Angeles’ Pantages Theater in 1983, and those watching on from the comfort of a cosy, popcorn kernel-incrusted cinema seat.
The beauty of the film, however, is that by the end, this divide has, indeed, been eviscerated. You watch on, immersed in the magic of live music. It barely matters that you weren’t there because the filmmaking itself makes up for any shortfall in ‘live’ vitality. Soon, as you sip your red wine on a Friday night-in, you feel as though you have the best seat in the house anyhow. There is a rare swell of euphoria as the gathering grooves embalm you in rhapsody.
This energy only arises when there is steadfast confidence in a visionary idea. At no point do you feel like the band or Demme hummed and hawed over whether the opening of Byrne alone in a solo capacity was too low-key, whether the enlarged suit might be distracting, or even whether the steady introduction of new elements might become fraught and jarring. It feels simply like pure, unbridled creative flow, executed with sincerity and passion. That is an infectious force to behold—so infectious, in fact, that all the subtle messages behind the orchestration, the Japanese theatre inspirations, and commentary on culture are subsumed within a simple blunderbuss of fun.
By no means does that diminish the creative ingenuity or intellectualism that holds the show together; quite the opposite. As Kurt Vonnegut once said, “I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit.” The toe-tapping eudemonia among audiences watching Stop Making Sense is proof that the film achieves this with aplomb, and if you want to ponder the comments it makes within that joy afterwards, then there is plenty to be plundered.
In many ways, this new restored incarnation of the footage has little to do with the heightened quality or additions it houses. It simply seems like the right time to celebrate a masterpiece. The film showcases a collision between cerebralism and funk’s primordial capacity to induce a barnstorming get-together, while the democratic construction of the show illuminates the point that joy is a communal enterprise emboldened by the fusion of multicultural ideas on display. Not a jot of this is presented with any cynicism, sending home a message, to paraphrase Nick Cave, that it is beauty that is going to save the world now.
Stop Making Sense makes that point with such fun and pep in its step that you leave the cinema shaking the bastard’s hand next to you, life-affirmed and full of the unifying beans of humanity at its brilliant best.
