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The 4K restoration of the 1984 Talking Heads movie Stop Making Sense hits theaters this year
In December 1983, the great film director Jonathan Demme, who later went on to make Silence of the lambs, spent three nights filming art rock band Talking Heads at a Los Angeles theater. He cut the footage together, taking care to maintain the form of the band’s highly theatrical show, and released it as a concert film. Stop making sense. Most critics agree that this is the greatest concert film of all time.
Now film studio A24 has acquired the rights to the 1984 film and has announced that it will release a 4K restoration of it in theaters later this year.
A24 celebrated the announcement by releasing an adorable video of Talking Heads frontman David Byrne retrieving the film’s iconic oversized suit from a dry cleaner, taking it home, trying it on and practicing some of his signature lean-and-wobble dance moves in the. (Byrne is fresh off an Oscar nomination for his song for A24’s Best Picture winner, Everything everywhere at once.)
What makes Stop making sense special? It caught Talking Heads at the perfect time in their career, still on the rise, but with a host of their canonical classics on the setlist: songs like ‘Psycho Killer’, ‘Burning Down the House’ and ‘Once in a Lifetime’ . .’ The band’s unique, propulsive sound and Byrne’s surreal lyrics have aged incredibly well and retain their modernist cool nearly 40 years later. They are timeless, wonderfully weird.
For his part, Demme dispenses with much of the typical concert film imagery, such as audience reaction shots, and focuses entirely on the dynamic performance of the band, which gradually builds from a minimal, bare stage with Byrne performing solo to a large ensemble sweating. through energetic dance numbers. And then there’s the unforgettable suit, which gives Byrne the impression that he’s somehow playing his own body.
Demme went to great lengths to make viewers feel like they were in the audience on the live show, so a recovered Stop making sense will certainly be a special, time-warp treat to see – and, just as importantly, hear – in movie theaters.
To tie in with the release, record label Rhino will release a new version of the soundtrack album on vinyl and digital on August 18, supposedly featuring the full concert for the first time.
A24, fresh from dominating all six major categories at the Oscars with Everything everywhere And The whale, explores a new avenue for re-releasing classics of American indie cinema. It has also acquired the rights to Darren Aronofsky’s first feature film Piand screened a newly restored version in IMAX theaters in a one-night special event earlier this week.
Meanwhile, Byrne has never stopped exploring the intersection of rock concerts and theatre. You can watch Spike Lee’s movie of his great Broadway show David Byrne’s American Utopia now on HBO Max.
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