After director Jonathan Demme died last year, I heard someone praising Stop Making Sense. A 1984 concert film featuring the Talking Heads, it’s widely considered to be one of the best films of its kind. I was aware of the movie, but until last year, I didn’t realize what a big deal it was. Now that I’ve finally seen it, I understand why the critics love it.
Stop Making Sense isn’t just a film of a Talking Heads concert (actually, the footage was not all shot on the same night). It’s a visual treat. And as someone whose experience with Talking Heads had been limited to their music and one or two videos, it gave me a better feel for the band.
The concert begins when David Byrne walks on stage with a boombox and announces he wants to play a tape. Alone and supposedly accompanied by the tape (apparently the sound was really from a drum machine), Byrne performs “Psycho Killer.” My first thought when I saw him bobbing his head along to the music was, “Wow. He’s a bit geeky, but he can get away with it.” (I say this as a geeky person myself.) As I kept watching, I realized that Byrne is a true performer. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
Byrne is joined on stage by bandmate Tina Weymouth for the next song, and then by her husband Chris Frantz. With each song, more band members join the group, until the first part of the concert comes to a climax with “Burning Down the House.” At this point, there are nine musicians on stage — the four members of Talking Heads, two backup singers, and three more touring musicians.
Byrne brings boundless energy and wackiness to the performance. He runs laps around the stage. He dances with a floor lamp. And, of course, toward the end of the performance, he comes onstage in an enormous suit. As I watched him, I wondered if he had taken clowning lessons. He moved in a way that seemed natural, but I’ll bet he had to rehearse a lot to get there.
While Bryne was at the center of the action, the other band members also impressed me. Jerry Harrison switched off between guitar and keyboard. While I know there are plenty of musicians who know more than one instrument, I feel like I don’t see that sort of thing often in a performance. Weymouth had a chance to shine after Byrne stepped off stage for a costume change, leaving Weymouth, Frantz, and the other musicians to perform “Genius of Love” as the Tom Tom Club. Tom Tom Club is a band that Weymouth and Frantz had formed outside of Talking Heads; the couple were the only actual members of Tom Tom Club on stage. “Genius of Love” is very different in style from Talking Heads’ songs, but I enjoyed the energetic performance.
Although this is a concert film, there are few shots of the audience. Stop Making Sense is a performance for you, the viewer. When we finally get glimpses of the audience at the end, you realize that Talking Heads fans are as eccentric as Byrne. Come one, come all, and bring your unicorn — even if Pauline Kael disapproves. You and your weirdness are welcome.
I’m not going so far as to say that everyone will love Stop Making Sense. If you never listen to popular music or only listen to popular music of the past decade, you may not care for it. But if you have broad musical taste or an affinity for the ’80s, I urge you to check it out. It’s everything the critics say it is.