Byrne, baby, Byrne.
Stop Making Sense begins as Talking Heads mastermind David Byrne walks in with a tape player. Director Jonathan Demme’s camera only shows us the lowermost portions of Byrne’s stroll, his dull color trousers dangling above white sneakers. Byrne sets the boombox on the stage, pushes play and the sound of a TR-808 ushers in an acoustic rendition of “Pyscho Killer.” In actuality, the beat’s coming from an off-camera sound board but even in his illusions, Byrne is at the head of it all. The “it” just happens to be one of the grandest rock concerts ever committed to film.
The Majestic has dubbed their Friday night “Brew ‘n View” a “dance party,” a christening that’s to be expected with a fourth-wall shattering 80 minutes of spunky performance art. Even for New Wave neophytes, the Talking Heads put on a show (well, three shows cut into one) beginning with Byrne’s singular introduction and adding new layers as band members join in song by song. Backup singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt stomp and sway to funky rhythms while bassist Tina Weymouth holds things down for a cover of Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love.” The music grows subtly, and the simplicity of the opening notes are never betrayed.
In his 1984 review of the film, Roger Ebert remarked that unlike most concert films, Stop Making Sense‘s greatest strength lies in its “actual physical impact,” a strange compliment for a concert film that, at first glance, appears to be doing everything in its power to downsize its spectacle. At times, the Pantages’s stage resembles an ordinary living room, with nothing but a house lamp for the band to gather round. Other times, the atmosphere is dialed up while the lights are dialed down, silhouetting band members’ faces with the ominousness of Richard Donner’s Kryptonian council. Even with notes from Superman, nothing is gaudy. The effects are sparse, Demme is hyper-focused on two- and three-shots, rarely pulling out to photograph the band in full. Ebert’s right, albeit in a roundabout way. There’s an anxious spartanism to the window dressing, a perfectly plain tableau for isolating Byrne’s philosophy that music remain performative above all else (It’s a philosophy he’s continued to indulge in to this day.)
It would be easy to assume the director of the Silence of the Lambs is responsible for all this practically bleak sparseness, but Jonathan Demme was heavily influenced by David Byrne’s aesthetic insistences. And really, Byrne is the hyper-acute grandmaster behind Ebert’s “physical impact.” He stretches his vocal chords from shrill cries to deep-throated bellows, bobbing to the bass thuds in “What a Day That Was,” windmilling his arms to “Life During Wartime,” and of course, progressively swapping out his jacket for gradually larger sizes. The “big suit” gag is mildly amusing, but what’s truly remarkable is that it never feels big enough.
- Stop Making Sense plays Friday, Jun 12 at 10:00p at the Majestic. Tickets are $5. Doors at 9:00p.