STOP MAKING SENSE
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Palm Pictures Director: Jonathan Demme Cast: David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison, Ednah Holt, Lynn Mabry, Steve Scales, Alex Weir, Tina Weymouth, Bernie Worrell
In "The Merchant of Venice," Shakespeare conveys his feeling about song:
"The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils."
The playwright might have had no one in mind. I've never met a soul who disliked all music, have you? We differ greatly, however in our tastes. During the 1980s when the chic crowd went with the beat of disco and hard rock, one unique troupe emerged, led a man whose special sound might best be called funk, or perhaps avant-punk. David Byrne, whose band of four--expanded in concerts to nine-- electrified his followers with a more intellectual inflection than that found in, say, the performances of Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. His lyrics are filled with irony. His band was "The Talking Heads," and perhaps the great irony in the movie made in 1983 about his group is that Jonathan Demme's documentary is anything but a talking heads piece. There are no backstage interviews with the musicians, no conferences with his third-grade teachers. In fact we get to know nothing about the man except what we glean from his work, which is just the way a film of this sort should be.
"Stop Making Sense"--whose title comes from a verse in the group's song "Girlfriend is Better"--is a film put together from three evening concerts of the Talking Heads staged in Hollywood's Pantages Theatre in December 1983. While the three concerts have been superbly edited to give the impression of a single night's delirium, director Demme deliberately subverts traditional thinking by avoiding the usual MTV jerky-camera style. Using six fixed cameras together with one hand-held and another for pans, Demme focuses in on the principal's face when he spots particularly eccentric expressions, panning to Mr. Byrne's crotch when the man does his own rendition of Elvis's pelvic thrusts. For the most part, though, we in the audience cannot help feeling that we are present at the actual, live event, digging the music without the ambiance-destroying breaks that musicians frequently take. We sit back and listen to one hit after another, and given that this 1999 remake of the work on its 15th anniversary has been redigitalized to be played in theaters with improved sonic systems, we essentially hear purer sounds than did the lucky folks in Hollywood during the historic festival of funk.
If this gives you the impression that I'm a fan of David Byrne's music, you'd have the wrong notion. My taste is fairly eclectic, from Bach to acid rock, and the particular niche filled uniquely by the Talking Heads does not dazzle and hypnotize me or even knock my eyeballs out--as reviewer Chris Morris virtually guaranteed it would in his October 1984 interview with Byrne. We'll leave the judgments of music to the music critics. As a film, however, Demme's craftsmanship pays off mightily, perhaps the best movie of its kind since Martin Scorsese's 1976 "The Last Waltz," whose performers included Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and Muddy Waters. Leonard Maltin calls Demme's creation "one of the great rock movies ever made," citing its conception, editing and performance.
What fascinates me about Byrne is that he is the antithesis of what you'd expect from a lead musician. One reviewer put it best by calling Byrne a black man's send-up of a white- bread singer. Not that Byrne is another Eddie Fisher. He's tall and gaunt, with a mop of black hair cut in the most traditional of styles. He wears an open-collar shirt--nothing flamboyant in the costume, nothing that would make you think he's anything but a nice young man who escorts old ladies across the street and studies hard for his CPA. When he stolls onto the stage just after Demme's portentous image of a guitar's shadow, he says to his audience simply, "I've got a tape to play for you." There he stands, alone on a minimalist platform, putting a small machine on the floor to the knowing chuckles of an audience that has yet to become wildly enthusiastic. Warming up by strumming the beats of his first song, the witty and ironic "Psycho Killer," he is joined first by one, then another, and finally by all nine members of his integrated band.
Those not already familiar with his style may wonder what he's getting at when he moves across the stage, not in the exaggerated flamboyant style of Mick Jagger but in the spastic, nervous movements of a paranoid perpetrator who has just made off with the loot from the small local bank. As the minutes roll on, the entire band becomes seized with an almost other-worldly energy, its leader falling back, flat on his back like a turned-over turtle eager to right himself, belting out the avant-punk melodies as securely as though he were planted firmly on the ground. While Byrne has the modesty on stage to allow each member of his troupe to get his or her minute or so of fame, there is never a question about who is the leader. Only once does Byrne take a break, giving the rest of the group its head to perform in a comic style which does not quite come off. We are eager for the man's return.
As a physical force, Byrne is Elvis with variety. Not only does his pelvis undulate. As the mood strikes, he indulges in aerobic dancing, at one point waving his arms like The Golden Cockerel and at another pacing about the stage like Big Bird. Jonathan Demme's lighting designer has a ball aiming his beam at one point just under Byrne's chin, giving the effect of a schoolboy trying to scare his classmates on Halloween Eve. The comic highlight of the night displays the singer in a suit tailored for a man at least twice his size at which point he knocks out the gospel-influenced "Take Me To The River.
Byrne's presence is a commanding one, his charisma carrying over to his group, which consists of a drummer, a few female singers, a bass player, all of whom caught up in the syncopation as though they had just arrived from Kansas and were experience the thrill for the first time. Would I want to see the movie again? I couldn't say I would. For all the glories of the cinematography, for all the energy emitted by the artists, for all the genuine enthusiasm of the audience, I simply am not a fan of this unique type of euphony. Byrne found a niche amid the clutter of styles prevalent in the world since the sixties, capitalizing on his special niche with a particular audience. Whether his sort of audience exists today will have to wait until mid-September when the 15th anniversal revival is re-introduced to a changed America. Whatever you think of the music, though, you've got to hand it to director Demme for not falling into the trap of so many documentarians who talk their subjects to death.
Not Rated. Running Time: 88 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
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