Review of Stop Making Sense (1984) by Matthew M — 16 Apr 2008
A well regarded concert film from The Talking Heads, directed by Jonathan Demme. I like the Talking Heads, but I wouldn?t say I?m a huge fan. I like a bunch of their songs, but I don?t listen to their albums all that often.
Their performance here is not bad at all, David Byrne has a lot of energy on stage, and it shows. There?s a pretty simple formula most concert films follow, but this film ignores it. Demme never cuts away to the audience and the audiences cheers are not as audible as they usually are.
More importantly he?s able to get the cameras really close to the performance. The concert itself is not entirely conventional, it opens up on a bare stage when Byrne walks out with a boom box and acoustic guitar and does a stripped down solo performance of ?Psycho Killer.
? The rest of the band comes on one by one in the following songs and once everyone (including the backup singers, synth/keybord workers, and bongo players) shows up the back screen begins to be illuminated, later Byrne shows up in an oversized suit.
I?m not quite prepared to call it a performance for the ages, but this is definitely a really good concert flick.
This review of Stop Making Sense (1984) was written by Matthew M on 16 Apr 2008.
Stop Making Sense has generally received very positive reviews.
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