Sense and My Sensibilities

For years, I've heard it said that "the best concert movie ever made is Stop Making Sense," the 1984 movie featuring the Talking Heads live, captured over multiple nights by director Jonathan Demme. I liked Talking Heads well enough, I suppose -- as just one of many bands active in the 80s -- so the film slipped through the cracks. But I did recently sit down to see what all the fuss was about.

I can't really join the "best concert movie ever" chorus... though that's mostly because I really just haven't seen all that many concert movies. (Are there many?) But certainly, I was struck by the experience of watching this movie.

First and foremost, Talking Heads was clearly one of those bands that was way better live than on their studio albums. (The list of bands who have that the other way around is expansive, of course.) I'm not just talking about the orchestrated oddness of lead singer David Byrne as he flits around the stage... Byrning down the house. His endless front man energy is obviously a part of it, and maybe even the key part. But the entire band performed these shows that made up this movie with a clear "leave it all on the stage" mentality. It sweeps you up even from the remove of your couch nearly 40 years later.

Imagine having been there live to see one of these shows?! (Or any other Talking Heads concert.) The experience would have been truly... once in a lifetime. But the movie is here, and sure enough, it captures the infectious, toe-tapping joy to an effective extent. I may have turned out to know more Talking Heads songs than I'd have guessed, but I still knew less than half of the numbers in the movie -- and it simply didn't matter. Each song was outstanding, and delivered in a way that felt like it could have been another band's "best song of the night."

That the movie makes you feel all this maybe does sell the argument that this is the best concert movie ever made. Hard to argue with results, right? Yet I'd say that there's room for improvement, because there were aspects of the filming I didn't like. There are many points throughout the film where one of the musicians is taking a lead role in the performance, but isn't featured on screen. Sometimes, this is because David Byrne is wresting attention... but not always.

There are also songs that clearly incorporate a larger, presentational element that we really don't get to see. Amid many other small examples looms the song "What a Day That Was" in the middle of the set, where harsh upward lighting is casting ominous shadows on the back wall of the stage... which we get to see for only a tiny fraction of the performance. Sure, it's great to see faces and details you wouldn't get to see in a concert setting. But the people crafting the concert experience know what the audience will see, and design it for that. Stop Making Sense cuts out too much of that element for my taste.

But in any case, Stop Making Sense sure feels like it turned me from "sure, Talking Heads, they're ok" to "they're really good, I want to hear more of their music." I'm not entirely sure how to distill all that down into my usual, summary "grade" -- but I suppose I'll say it's a B+. I'm very glad I watched it.