September 16–23, 1999

movie shorts

Stop Making Sense

by a.d. amorosi

A Palm Pictures release

recommended

Between 1976 and 1981, Talking Heads were a weirdly layered art-rock band from Manhattan whose surreal lyrics tagged them as "quirky white punks." But by 1982, David Byrne was getting funky. Between 1974 and 1981, Jonathan Demme was making weirdly layered art movies whose surreal characters tagged him as an "oddball." He too was getting funky, thinking about Haiti and infusing his films with new rhythmic sensibilities, new colors, new images.

That the two elements would meet in 1984’s Stop Making Sense is no surprise. Having witnessed the shows captured in the film — as well as earlier Heads shows and all of Demme’s films — it wasn’t hard to see these artists splitting at the seams. Still, this 15th-anniversary remix/remastering of the film and its soundtrack is a revelation. Witnessing Byrne’s development and seeing Demme’s visionary devices is a genuine thrill, like seeing a baby born with college tuition in its hands.

Though infused with glittering funk, Sense is gloriously slow in building. It removes itself completely from the sweaty, backstage school of tour flicks by erasing both audience and technical details from the equation. Starting with a gray-suited Byrne, accompanied by boom box and acoustic guitar, "Psycho Killer" is as razor-thin as its perpetrator. Starkness defines both music and movie. Sets move clumsily by, but it’s all part of the master plan. First, core Heads Tina Weymouth, Chris Franz and Jerry Harrison emerge from beyond the chutes and ladders. Then the auxiliary, all-African-American members enter, slowly infusing each moment with sturdy funk. By "Slippery People," gospel vocals and buoyant clavinet fill the air, giving each song a churchy feel.

But though band members sway, roll and play the devil out of "Once In A Lifetime" and "Swamp," the show is Byrne’s and Demme’s all the way. The band follows Byrne’s lead, imitating him as he moves like an epileptic Gene Kelly, hips swaying, arms swimming. By "Once In A Lifetime" Byrne has transformed himself into a bespectacled preacher shouting absurdisms like "Time is an asterisk."

But little is as crucial as the scenes where Byrne and Demme focus on the now-legendary Big White Suit. Introduced on "Girlfriend Is Better," the suit is a simultaneous totem of adulation and ridicule. Shoulder rolling, shimmying in place, it’s more a work of architecture than an article of clothing, and the perfect metaphor for Stop Making Sense: arty, furious funk captured as still life.