Stop Making Sense: The perfect concert movie

Image Courtesy: Austin Film Society

Stop Making Sense, a newly remastered concert film following the band Talking Heads, hit theaters in early September. The film was not on my radar until clips online showed a glimpse of what the lead singer David Byrne brought to the stage, convincing me to catch a screening as soon as I could. Talking Heads was a four-piece pop band in the eighties that hit the scene running due to its artistic presence and genre-pushing sound. The concert starts in a strange direction—the stage background is not set, and no other band members are present. All that is present is a boombox on the floor and Byrne with his guitar on center stage. The history of the band is followed through with each member joining in following a song from the set list. Byrne’s strong stage presence through his mannerisms and choreography carries the experience that made the theater experience.

David Byrne truly puts his artistic skills on display throughout the whole performance. I wanted to put an explanation on what the title meant but I only found that he was trying to make his performance make no sense. In the song, “Making Flippy Floppy” random words and phrases were projected behind the band in massive letters such as, “video game,” “sandwich,” “Star Wars,” “pig”, and “bedroom.” All of these words having no meaning or justification made me feel as if Byrne wanted this confusion. Another memorable moment was near the middle of the performance when he asked the audience, “Any questions?”. This all led me to stay alert during the film to catch more of Byrne's artistic expressions throughout.

Byrne as an artist was something that I wanted to put further emphasis on. He is truly an artist who loves his craft and puts a lot of time and dedication into it. Byrne would talk about his early days of being a college performance artist and his original band name “The Artistics,” this is important to understand how he incorporates his art in his work. He wanted his film to have a beginning, middle, and end. This for me was fantastic to see play out as it led me hooked to see what was going to happen next. What starts as a solo performance slowly turns into an ensemble of musicians creating beautiful music. Each musician of the band had their moment, bassist Tina Weymouth would get to perform the song “Genius of Love '' with her taking the lead vocals, and drummer Chris Frantz would provide backup vocals, this made for a great moment outside of Byrne’s roller coaster of performance art.

Image Courtesy: Esquire

This film was nonstop action and didn't give me a second to breathe but it honestly made it a lot more enjoyable. Each song had its place in the performance and each member got their moment to shine. Talking Heads as a band will go down as an iconic piece of history and I hope that Stop Making Sense will bring in a new wave of listening heads.

Strike Out,

Writer: Adrian Botton

Editor: Isabel Wilder

Tallahassee