director
Jonathan Demme
producer
Gary Goetzman
cinematographer
Jordan Cronenweth
music
Talking Heads
Tom Tom Club
editor
Lisa Day
cast
David Byrne
Tina Weymouth
Jerry Harrison
Chris Frantz
Bernie Worrell
Alex Weir
Steven Scales
Lynn Mabry
Ednah Holt
mpaa rating: PG
running
time: 88m
u.s.
release: November 1984
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
other jonathan
demme films
reviewed on this website:
- the
complex sessions
- the
manchurian candidate (2004)
- philadelphia
- the
silence of the lambs
- storefront
hitchcock
- swimming
to cambodia
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An exuberant, fully alive and
fully realized watershed work by director Jonathan Demme and
Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. The Heads (including Chris
Frantz, Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison) work together joyously,
even though in long shots they're positioned far apart. Byrne
was interested in the contrast of aerobic, mechanized, whitebread
energy with soulful, multicultural energy, and he gives you both;
in fact, the 88-minute theatrical cut is preferable to the longer
version previously available on VHS (which added three songs
that appear on the DVD as separate extras), because at 99 minutes
you do get tired just watching Byrne after a while -- not tired
of him, but literally tired. That white boy works his ass off.
He does take a break so that Tom Tom Club can perform "Genius
of Love" (later stupidly sampled by Mariah Carey); Frantz
and Weymouth, visibly happy to be front and center, rise to the
occasion.
Practically all the numbers
here can be considered pretty much the definitive performances.
There's the spooky, red-bathed "Swamp"; the orgiastic
"Take Me to the River"; Byrne's spasmodic reading of
"Once in a Lifetime"; the take-no-prisoners "Burning
Down the House"; the bare-bones "Psycho Killer,"
with Byrne alone on the vast stage with only his guitar and a
boom box laying down the impersonal yet insecure beat. The design
of the film, which Byrne meticulously storyboarded, is beyond
reproach, too. In "Naive Melody (This Must Be the Place),"
we get art-school backdrop images and Byrne dances languidly
with a tall floor lamp; for "Girlfriend Is Better,"
Byrne breaks out the famous Big Suit. Byrne conceived the show
with a definite eye for its cinematic possibilities -- it was
the next step in the ongoing art project that was the Heads.
The movie introduced Demme
as a master of shooting and editing performance, in every way
Martin Scorsese's equal as a concert filmmaker. The smoothness
of the unit onstage takes on an added poignance now, after the
rancor and break-up, so that the film now seems not so much a
snapshot of the Heads during their Speaking in Tongues
tour as a record of what turned out to be their peak. They continued
to make fun music after this (True Stories, etc.), but
somehow didn't seem to matter as much. The film is a summing-up
of sorts (a successful blend of old and new), as if some part
of Byrne knew it was the beginning of the end. Byrne's stage
concepts are still cool after all these years; it's always fun
to watch the band literally take shape onstage, while roadies
push parts of the set into place (Byrne and Demme graciously
give the stage crew a shout-out during "Take Me to the River").
This is an uplifting movie in the truest, most basic sense --
it just puts you in a good mood.
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