Talking Heads Reunite for Once in a Lifetime 40th Anniversary Screening of Stop Making Sense

The post Talking Heads Reunite for Once in a Lifetime 40th Anniversary Screening of Stop Making Sense appeared first on Consequence.

The entire Talking Heads section at Toronto’s Scotiabank IMAX Theatre on Monday night stood up and danced during their landmark concert film, Stop Making Sense, instigated by enthusiastic audience members, especially at the back who were on their feet as if at a live show. One person even leapt over the railing, ran across the aisle, and sprinted up the stairs then back to his seat, lickety split.

It was that kind of atmosphere for the world premiere of the newly restored 4K version of the Jonathan Demme-directed concert film celebrating its 40th anniversary as part of the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival: Joyous. Fun. Clapping and cheering included, although it was hard to tell to if it was live or the December 1983 audience at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Such is the brilliance of digital surround sound.

It was also hard to see in the dark theater if all the former band members — frontman/guitarist David Byrne, guitarist/keyboardist Jerry Harrison, and bassist Tina Weymouth, drummer Chris Frantz (the rhythm section are husband and wife) — were on their feet, but the Q&A afterwards with Spike Lee seemed to indicate that they were.

“Although, it’s a little steep for dancing, but some people managed to,” said Frantz, while Harrison added, “I couldn’t sit at the side seat. I had to walk up to the back and watch it up there so I could dance around a little bit and just sort of experience. I didn’t want to be off at the side. I wanted to experience the wide screen.”

Mused Byrne: “When I was watching this just now, I was thinking, ‘This is why we come to the movie theaters. This is different than watching it on my laptop,’” he laughed. “This is really different.”

The restored 40-year-old film on the giant IMAX screen was the hot ticket at TIFF, the annual star-studded 10-day screening bonanza featuring some 200 films, many of them world premieres seeking distribution. That was due to the appearance of Byrne, Harrison, Weymouth and Frantz, who agreed to reunite for the first time in 20 years and sit down for an interview with Lee, following the world premiere. The once in a lifetime event —for which resellers were trying to get as much as $500 per ticket — was simulcast at IMAX theaters around the world. The film will be “everywhere” on September 29th.

Demme, who went on to direct and win Oscars for Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia, and who also slipped in some other music docs over the next 30 years, premiering Neil Young and Justin Timberlake concert docs at TIFF, died in 2017.

If there was any remaining resentment between band members after so many strained years, the band did their best to hide it. The 25-minute conversation featured mostly smiles, laughter, fond memories, and pride in their work. There was, however, an awkward moment when the band struggled to answer what they learned from each other that influenced their future projects.

Talking Heads, which formed in 1975 in New York and released eight albums — the first, eponymous, in 1977; the last in 1988, Naked — previously reunited in 2002 for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, even playing a few songs. At the time Byrne said there was still bad blood between them. However, two decades later the Talking Heads leader struck a more conciliatory tone. In the lead up to the film’s premiere, Byrne expressed regret for his role in band’s “ugly breakout.” Meanwhile, Harrison said working on the re-released proved to be a “healing experience” for the band.

Disappointingly, Lee never asked the questions we all wanted to hear: Will there be a reunion or new music? Likely told not to go there, he stuck to questions about Stop Making Sense, made at their height, when “Burning Down the House” was a top 10 US smash.

“This is more or less what we were doing on tour,” Byrne told Lee. “There were a couple, a few songs, that were cut out. The intermission, the encore gap was cut out. But other than that, this is kind of the show we were doing. It seemed like it had a kind of progression to it, a story. And I think it occurred to us, ‘This could maybe work as a film. It’s got a beginning and a middle and an end.’ And we started thinking about who would, who could direct this? How can we do this and how do we pay for it?”

When Lee called it “the greatest concert film ever,” expecting to hear from the band, there was humble silence, then laughter.

Then Franz responded. “Well, you know, Talking Heads was such a good band, and when we had that expanded lineup — I mean, excuse me for blowing my own horn, our own horn. It’s so good to be here with my bandmates tonight. Been a long time — with the expanded lineup, with [percussionist] Steve Scales and [keyboardist] Bernie Worrell and [backing vocalists] Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt, and [guitarist] Alex Weir, they just took us into a whole other dimension, you know? I’m very grateful to be here tonight and to be able to watch this and to enjoy it so much.”

Byrne noted how Demme took an “ensemble” approach to the film, the way once would in a movie: “You get to know each character one by one,” he says of the band.

“Because he did that,” added Harrison, “one of the reasons of the lasting power of the film is you see that we are having so much fun on stage and the audience. The audience is brought right into it to say, ‘You are part of this too.’ And I think every time anybody watches it brings back that wonderful emotion.”

Weymouth only talked a couple of times during the Q&A, but instead of answering which song performance she liked best in the film, as Lee asked, she said, overall, “I love that show. It was magical. Everything about it was so special. Love. Between us and the audience. The teamwork. Our crew. The film crew. It was all amazing.”

In 2016, when Demme — a regular at TIFF — did his own Q&A while at the festival for his concert film, Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids, he said of Stop Making Sense: “Right band, right place syndrome. That was that band at that moment in time and luckily we got to film them, and as a footnote, they never played together again. That was it. They made one more album. They never toured again. So we got there just in time.”

“The reason Stop Making Sense happened was I went to a performance, I guess it was late 1983, of the Talking Heads, a New York band; I’m a New York guy. I happened to be in California working and getting my ass kicked by Warner Brothers and we go to this concert and I knew the Heads; I’d seen them play in CBGBs and Central Park; I knew the band, but I hadn’t seen the tour. And as I watched that particular show, I was like, “Wow, this is really like a movie just waiting to be filmed. Look at this lighting; look at these characters David does; look at this great band,’ Demme said. “ I also felt there was this sense in that particular show of an implied narrative, that there was some kind of journey David Byrne was personifying as he went from song to song.”

Franz, who said how much they miss Demme, had these parting thoughts about the late director’s impact on them.

“He certainly dug the band and understood what we were about and helped us to celebrate the music — because when you get right down to it the music is greater than the band. Like we might be dead, but the music continues.”

He then added, “Jonathan gave us a lot of confidence and made us feel that it was something worthwhile and was something worthy of making a motion picture, and also something worthy of being remembered into the future. He was a very pure kind of guy a very sweet person and it was a great pleasure to have known him.”

Listen to the band’s Jerry Harrison discuss Talking Heads’ upcoming reunion on the Kyle Meredith With… podcast:

Talking Heads Reunite for Once in a Lifetime 40th Anniversary Screening of Stop Making Sense
Karen Bliss

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