Stop Making Sense

Stop Making Sense is the highly acclaimed concert movie featuring Talking Heads live on stage. Directed by Jonathan Demme, it was shot over three nights in 1983, as the group was touring to promote their new album Speaking in Tongues. The movie is notable for being the first made entirely utilising digital audio techniques.

Related Topics:
Talking Heads - Jonathan Demme - Speaking in Tongues

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The movie is notably different from many other rock and roll concert movies:

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• It contains no audience shots until the very end, during the performance of "Crosseyed and Painless." According to David Byrne's comments on the DVD commentary, this is intended to enable the viewer to form their own opinion about the performance, which he hoped would be confirmed by the end sequence. The only other time the audience appears on film is during wide shots and whenever the camera is at the back of the stage.
• Byrne wanted no colored lights to illuminate the performers. This led to some unusual lighting methods being used for each song.
• Byrne wanted as few distractions as possible onstage. Water bottles were not allowed, and most props were painted with a black matte so as to avoid reflecting light.

The movie begins with the opening credits, utilising a style similar to Stanley Kubrick's (the movie trailer also makes references to Strangelove).

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Lead singer Byrne walks onstage with a portable cassette tape player and acoustic guitar. He introduces "Psycho Killer" by saying he wants to play a cassette tape, presumably from the boom box. In reality, the tick-tock drum machine was played from the mixing board.

Related Topics:
Cassette tape - Drum machine - Mixing board

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One by one, Byrne is joined by Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison. Then Talking Heads are augmented by several additional musicians: Two back-up singers Edna Holt and Lynn Mabry, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, percussionist Steve Scales, and guitarist Alex Weir. The first song to feature the entire lineup is "Burning Down The House." Byrne also leaves the stage at one point, leaving the Tom Tom Club to perform their song "Genius of Love".

Related Topics:
Tina Weymouth - Chris Frantz - Jerry Harrison - Bernie Worrell - Steve Scales - Guitarist - Alex Weir - Tom Tom Club

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The movie is also notable for Byrne's "big suit", an absurdly oversized business suit he dons late in the concert. The suit was partly inspired by Noh theatre styles, and became an icon not only for Byrne, but for the movie itself.

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The movie version of "Once In A Lifetime" was released as a single and also appeared on the opening credits to the 1986 movie Down And Out In Beverly Hills. Also, in Europe, "Slippery People" became a big single, appearing on a single disk greatest hits album released in 1991. And occasionally, radio stations will play the film's version of "Life During Wartime".

Related Topics:
Down And Out In Beverly Hills - Europe - 1991

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When the film was first released on home video, 3 songs were restored to the performance, thus forming what was dubbed as the "special edition" of the film. The songs were "I Zimbra", "Big Business", and "Cities". In the 1999 rerelease these songs were not part of the programme. Subsequent video and DVD releases have placed these after the film in an unrestored full-frame version.

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The film is currently available on DVD, and VHS in both the open matte fullscreen version and the widescreen version.

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A soundtrack album was released in 1984 featuring only 9 of the songs from the movie, with many of them being heavily edited. In 1999, to correspond with the theatrical rerelease of the movie, the album was extended and remastered, restoring all of the songs from the movie with only very minor edits.

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Stop Making Sense: Soundtrack list: ►