Talking Heads reunite for ‘Stop Making Sense’ at Toronto Film Festival
Talking Heads reunited for the first time in 20 years on September 11th for a screening of their iconic concert film Stop Making Sense at the Toronto Film Festival.
The screening took place in Toronto but was also beamed as an Imax live event in 165 locations in North America. Stop Making Sense was also shown at the BFI Imax in London, including the post-premiere Q&A between acclaimed director Spike Lee with Talking Heads members David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison and Tina Weymouth.
Before the audience watched A24’s restoration of the Jonathan Demme movie, Lee described Stop Making Sense as “the greatest concert film ever.” During the event, band members along with Lee burst into dance while the crowd lapped up their performances of ‘Burning Down the House’ and ‘Once in a Lifetime’.
“While I was watching this tonight, I thought ‘This is why we go to movie theatres. This is different from watching it on my laptop,” Byrne told the audience.
The frontman also explained why Demme was given the task of directing the project. Byrne revealed they knew he was a fan of the band, they liked his work, and believed their Stop Making Sense tour “seemed liked it had a progression to it, a story, it occurred to us, this could work for us as a film.”
Meanwhile, in a recent interview ahead of the premiere, Byrne recently admitted he was “not pleasant to be around” during the band’s tenure and discussed his “regrets” over the way it unravelled.
“As a younger person, I was not as pleasant to be around. When I was working on some Talking Heads shows, I was more of a little tyrant,” he said. “And then I learned to relax, and I also learned that collaborating with people, both sides get more if there’s a good relationship instead of me telling everybody what to do.”
“I think [the end] wasn’t handled well. It was kind of ugly,” Byrne continued. Later in the same interview, he added: “I have regrets on how that was handled. I don’t think I did it in the best way, but I think it was kind of inevitable that would happen anyway. We have a cordial relationship now. We’re sort of in touch, but we don’t hang out together.”
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