The most thrilling movie Jonathan Demme ever made: “Just one ecstatic blur”
By the time the 1990s arrived, Jonathan Demme was going from strength to strength. Forging a successful Hollywood career off the back of a string of 1980s comedy hits, a creative gamble toward psychological horror paid off handsomely, 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs yielding unanimous critical acclaim and scooping up the Academy’s ‘big five’ Oscar wins the next year. He then followed his cannibal thriller with the landmark legal drama Philadelphia, credited with pushing the topic of HIV/AIDS and its surrounding homophobia further into the mainstream consciousness.
Demme’s passion for music has always been a prominent feature of his work. Directing several videos from the punk and new wave scene as it first exploded, coupled with heading definitive documentaries for Neil Young, Justin Timberlake, and Robyn Hitchcock, Demme stands shoulder to shoulder with Martin Scorsese in boasting a filmography littered with some of music’s most celebrated silver screen endeavours. He also likes to cast musicians such as David Johansen, Chris Isaak, and The Feelies, among scores of others, all enjoying credits across his many features.
It’s Stop Making Sense, which will forever stand as one of Demme’s greatest achievements, often touted as the best concert document of all time. “In early 1983, Gary Goetzman [producer] and I went to see my favourite band, the Talking Heads, at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles,” Demme told Time in 2014. “The show was like seeing a movie just waiting to be filmed. We tracked David Byrne down and pitched him on the idea of teaming up to make the picture.”
Talking Heads were enjoying a serious creative purple patch at the time Demme caught them. Jumping from Fear of Music‘s nervous post-punk to the immersive polyrhythms of Remain in Light, the band decided to part ways with Brian Eno and produce their next effort themselves.
What followed was Speaking in Tounges, the punchy, kaleidoscopic strut of skewed funk and idiosyncratic dance possessed with a beguiling Pentecostal gospel energy commanded by its wiry, preachin’ frontman.
A growing interest in narrative and stagecraft was evolving in Talking Heads’ work across the 1980s. Before their True Stories and accompanying album, Byrne was already obsessing over the cinematic potential of their live show, incorporating the famous big suits and distinctive choreography before Demme and his crew even followed the band’s 1983 tour for a week to learn their set.
The genesis of ‘Girlfriend is Better’s’ oversized corporate attire, and subsequent defining image of the film was dreamed up a few years earlier. “I was in Japan in between tours and I was checking out traditional Japanese theatre — Kabuki, Noh, Bunraku — and I was wondering what to wear on our upcoming tour. A fashion designer friend [Jurgen Lehl] said in his typically droll manner, ‘Well, David, everything is bigger on stage.’ He was referring to gestures and all that, but I applied the idea to a businessman’s suit.”
From ‘Psycho Killer’s’ cassette tape opening to bringing the house down with ‘Crosseyed and Painless’ joyous finale, Demme and Byrne’s joint filmmakers eye breathed distinct life into their set, some songs redefined by the Stop Making Sense over their prior studio cuts. Charged with joyous creativity and infectious fun, Demme’s passion for his towering concert picture shines throughout: “Those four nights of filming were four of the most thrilling shoots of my life. Everything went flying by so fast it was just one ecstatic blur for me.”
