Dear Cinephiles,

“The overwhelming impression throughout “Stop Making Sense” is of enormous energy, of life being lived at a joyous high,” the great late critic Roger Ebert wrote in 1984 about the release of Jonathan Demme’s groundbreaking rock concert of the Talking Heads Band led by David Byrne. And is that joyous high that we need to embrace at this very moment – and I encourage you to experience it – to immerse yourself in it – whether you’re a fan of the filmmaker – a fan of the band – or initiated to both. Jonathan Demme – years before he directed his masterwork “Silence of the Lambs” – captured three live performances of the Talking Heads at the Pantages Theatre. The result is one of the most exuberant films. I greatly admire Demme’s usage of long shots and band member close-ups. The way he shoots it and edits the footage creates storytelling like you’ve rarely seen in a concert. Byrne at times recalls Fred Astaire, Marcel Marceau and David Bowie. His songs guide us through dark places but simultaneously encourages us to keep moving – to keep dancing. An extraordinary highlight for me comes when Byrne sings,

“And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!”

Another late great film critic Pauline Kael ascertained that this film is “a guaranteed cure for anyone’s blues,” and I couldn’t agree more!

Love,
Roger

Stop Making Sense
(Available to stream on Amazon Prime and Vudu. Available to rent on iTunes and Google Play.)

Written by Jonathan Demme and Talking Heads
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Starring: Bernie Worrell, Alex Weir, Steven Scales, Lynn Mabry, Ednah Holt, Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison, Chris Frantz and David Byrne
88 minutes

About Director Jonathan Demme
“Jonathan Demme was born in Baldwin, Long Island. Demme was educated at the University of Florida, where he became a film critic on the college newspaper. Demme met Roger Corman while working in London on publicity for the war film Von Richthofen and Brown (1971), and was soon recruited into the stable of writer-directors that had already spawned Francis Ford Coppola and Peter Bogdanovich. He shot one scene of the sex film Secrets of a Door-to-Door Salesman (1973) and wrote assorted scripts for Corman. Demme made his major studio debut with Handle With Care (1977). His film, The Silence of the Lambs was only the third in history to win all five major Oscars; it made more than $240m worldwide and its influence was strongly felt on the thriller genre, Aside from his fiction work, Demme was an accomplished documentary maker whose subjects ranged from family (his cousin, an Episcopalian minister, in the 1992 Cousin Bobby) to musicians (Robyn Hitchcock, Neil Young, Justin Timberlake) and politicians (Jimmy Carter in the 2007 Man From Plains).” (The Guardian)

Talking Heads
David Byrne, bassist Tina Weymouth and drummer Chris Frantz met at the Rhode Island School of Design and formed Talking Heads in 1975; keyboardist/guitarist Jerry Harrison joined later. They were chronologically punk, but spiritually post-punk, determined to dismantle the clichés of rock’n’roll and write their own rules. “No rock moves or poses, no pomp or drama, no rock hair, no rock lights, no rehearsed stage patter,” Byrne wrote in How Music Works. They questioned everything. What is a rock band? What is a pop song? Why this? Why not that? Even when he wasn’t singing in character – a psychopath, a televangelist, a domestic terrorist – he had a knack for making the familiar strange and unnerving. Animals, vehicles, buildings, TV, weather, haircuts… everything was seen with alien eyes. It’s no surprise to learn that his one attempt at writing a short story (“really not my thing”) was science fiction. “I’m not just going to take the received technique,” he remembers thinking when the band started. “I have to start from scratch and see what comes out. I thought there’s no rule that says you can’t do this, so let’s try writing about something that nobody’s written about before.” (The Guardian)

Making of Stop Making Sense
“We were all thinking that it would be good to document that particular tour. We had rehearsals for about a month to learn all the material. Right when we were about to get on the road, Jonathan Demme came to one of our shows along with his girlfriend at the time, Sandy McLeod, and Jonathan said, “We would like to make a movie of this.” And we thought, “How nice.” said guitarist/keyboardist, Jerry Harrison. “Jonathan Demme was a new director then. He had done this movie called Melvin and Howard, which we liked very much. One thing that nobody ever mentions, particularly our singer, David Byrne, is the fact that the band paid for the movie. Yes, we got a loan from Warner Bros., but it was against our royalties so the band, the four of us, really coughed up the money. We didn’t have a whole lot of savings at the time, so we were basically putting our life savings into this movie, which we did and I’m glad we did, because not only did we get it back, but we have a great movie.” (Rolling Stone)

David Byrne on Demme’s Influence on Stop Making Sense
Stop Making Sense was character-driven too. Jonathan’s skill was to see the show almost as a theatrical ensemble piece, in which the characters and their quirks would be introduced to the audience, and you’d get to know the band as people, each with their distinct personalities. They became your friends, in a sense. I was too focused on the music, the staging and the lighting to see how important his focus on character was — it made the movies something different and special. Jonathan was also incredibly generous during the editing and mixing. He and producer Gary Goetzman made us in the band feel included; they wanted to hear what we had to say. That inclusion was hugely inspirational for me. Though I had directed music videos before, this mentoring of Jonathan’s emboldened me to try making a feature film.” said Byrne. (NPR)