Tag: Talking Heads

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Music Video Monday Special Edition: Jonathan Demme

Music Video Monday was saddened by the news last week that director Jonathan Demme passed away at age 72.

Jonathan Demme (1944-2017) with Denzel Washington on the set of Philadelphia.

Demme was a 22 year-old film publicist when he had a fateful run-in with Francois Truffaut, in which the legendary French New Wave director encouraged him to switch careers and go behind the camera. In 1971, he got a break from Roger Corman’s low-budget production unit to direct movies about bikers and women in prison (the infamous Caged Heat). Over the course of a 46-year career, he would become the first director to ever win Best Picture for a horror movie with Silence of the Lambs (which is also one of only three films to complete the Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress trifecta.) His next film, Philadelphia, won Tom Hanks his first Best Actor Oscar.

Demme’s love for film was only equaled by his love for music. The movie that first brought him mainstream recognition was 1984’s Stop Making Sense, a documentary about the Talking Heads’ tour that today is recognized as the greatest concert film ever made. Unlike Woodstock, which split the focus between the multitude of performers on the stage and the cultural revolution going on in the crowd, Stop Making Sense is an intimate portrait of a band at work. In the film’s celebrated opening, David Byrne wanders out onto an incomplete stage and declares “I’ve got a tape I want to play.”

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The Talking Heads’ most famous song “Once In A Lifetime” was named as one of the most important musical works of the Twentieth Century by NPR and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But upon its initial release in 1981, it baffled American audiences, and didn’t even crack the Billboard Hot 100. Byrne’s vocals were inspired by listening to AM radio preachers as the band toured America, and in Stop Making Sense, Demme expertly revealed the song’s origins. In a single, unbroken 4 minute 34 second shot, the camera starts out on keyboardist Bernie Worrell before panning down to Byrne, who sings in an ecstatic, Pentecostal trance. Then Demme cuts to a slightly different angle, revealing a five-shot of Byrne, Worrell, Jerry Harrison, Lynn Mabury, and Ednah Holt arranged against black like a Caravaggio portrait. In all, there are four shots in five and a half minutes. No other moment in his storied career reveal Demme’s deft touch, his loving fascination with the human form, and his unerring instinct for marrying music and image. It was this performance, one of the greatest ever captured on film, that made “Once In A Lifetime” the classic it is today.

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in 1985, Demme directed two music videos. The first was for postpunk standard bearers New Order. Like Stop Making Sense, it concentrated on the process of musical creation, but instead of a thousand-seat theater in Los Angeles, the band is gathered in an anonymous studio recording “The Perfect Kiss” while only the director and the engineer looks on.

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Demme’s other 1985 video was “Sun City”. The fight against apartheid in South Africa was on top of the mind for many young people in the mid-80s, and E-Street Band guitarist Stephen Van Zandt helped organize an artist’s boycott of the South African resort Sun City. To call attention to the protest, he produced a star-studded song along the lines of “We Are The World”. Rarely heard these days, the hip hop inflected “Sun City” is clearly the best of the big benefit singles of the era, featuring verses from Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash, Afrikka Bambaataa, as well as Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffan from the Temptations, Hall and Oates, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, and, of course, the ubiquitous Bono. Demme’s video is a great little slice of 80s analog video cheese.

Music Video Monday Special Edition: Jonathan Demme

Demme would continue to work with his favorite musicians throughout his career, including making three documentaries about Neil Young. His final film has a Memphis connection. Justin Timberlake + Tennessee Kids, a chronicle of the last night of the singer’s latest tour, earned a rare 100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s been a huge hit for Netflix, who produced it, and is currently for offer in its entirety on the streaming service. It’s a fitting epitaph for Demme, who, more than any other director of his or any other era, understood musicians and loved the music.

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Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said (November 13, 2014) …

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Kevin Lipe’s post “Next Day Notes: Grizzlies 93, Pelicans 81” …

Tayshaun’s swagger was turned up to 11. It was amazing and terrifying to watch #TheTaykeover.

Youngblook_901

About Toby Sells’ story, “Study Says Bicycling Boom Could Bring Gentrification” …

I would refer the authors of the study to Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs.” If people are worried about how to pay their rent or feed their families, they won’t benefit as much from quality of life amenities as someone whose basic needs have been met. Gentrification can never be a bad thing. It rebuilds decaying neighborhoods.

Jenna S’ais Quoi

Jenna: “Gentrification can never be a bad thing.” I assume you’re talking about Memphis and not those cities like NYC and San Francisco where natives are forced out in droves.

Mia S. Kite

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s Letter from the Editor, “Talking Heads” …

The flip side is that artists now have fewer barriers to reach an audience. If you make good music, you can get discovered without having to go through a record label and without having to have some record exec agree to promote your music. You can record it at home, post it online, and create your own following, which you can then use to generate profits.

I know everyone hates him, but Justin Bieber is a prime example. He got famous due to YouTube videos, and he was discovered and channeled to make it big. Before, he would’ve had to go to numerous record labels and just hope someone felt he was worth their time.

The term “starving artist” exists for a reason. Only the best of the best (or sometimes the luckiest) make it big. That hasn’t changed, but the barriers between someone and their audience are gone now.

GroveReb84

About Wendi C. Thomas’ column, “Teen Makeover” …

As an African-American male in his 50s, I find this article somewhat perplexing. The behavior of those students at that Kroger indeed was barbaric and savage. It was the worst of an out-of-control mob that gained more and more power from those who were made helpless from the swarm.

The following statement concerns me: “None of the victims’ injuries were severe.” That certainly wasn’t for a lack of trying. They didn’t care whether the young man who was being stomped would be injured permanently or not. And of course, your statement does not include emotional damage. I hope that the young boy who was assaulted can recover emotionally. I think his dad is a hero. He has what I do not have, grace. I would not be as patient and understanding as he was. His son had the right to be left alone, and wasn’t.

As a community, specifically the African-American community, in this case, we should make it clear that this type of behavior is unacceptable and barbaric. It is not the behavior of civilized people who were the first to walk on the planet. There should not be any ambivalence in that regard.

Memphomaniac

It is a sad place where many of today’s black youth are. Some people think that this is a new type of violence, but it is not. It has always been around, but smartphones make the world a different, more exposed place.

TruthBeTold

Nice grab there, Bruce and the Flyer. [With Wendi] you brought some real quality journalism to what is generally one of the better alternative newspapers I’ve read.

Smitty1961

About Bianca Phillips’ story, “Sierra Club Proposed Alternatives to Shelby Farms Parkway” …

I live north of Shelby Farms. Farm Road in the current alignment and in the alignment proposed by the Sierra Club is inadequate. The current alignment is a scar across the park. It places those using the amenities of the park in undesired close contact with those using Farm Road as a thruway. Construction of Shelby Farms Parkway, as designed, will separate traffic and provide safer conditions for those using the park. I support construction of Shelby Farms Parkway as designed with the stipulation that it be made a “No Trucks” route. This stipulation has been discussed, endorsed, and will require approval.

Enrico Dagastino

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Talking Heads

“As we get older and stop making sense … ” — David Byrne

I’ve long been a fan of musician David Byrne. The Talking Heads were my soundtrack for a long time. Byrne, a brilliant artist and thinker, recently wrote an essay for The Guardian called, “The Internet Will Suck All the Creative Content Out of the World.” In it, he bemoaned the rise of music file-sharing services like Spotify, which pay musicians a pittance for access to their work.

Byrne made some great points, but he only got it half right. The internet does suck up all the creative content in the world, but then it spews it back out for consumption. The real problem for artists trying to sell their recorded music is not that it’s been sucked away; it’s that consumers are now inundated with creative content. They’ve been given a free bag of rice, and musicians are asking them to pick out a particular grain to eat — and pay for it.

Go to YouTube and type in the name of any popular song and you’ll get the original, but you’ll also get dozens of videos of teens in their room playing the song, as well as lots of wannabe local bands playing their version. It’s like music selfies.

The market for what was once a saleable physical product, whether vinyl, CD, or tape, has shrunk radically. Music — the creative content — can now be heard on demand for free or nearly so, streamed via various internet sites, including YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, etc., and stored on our phones or other devices.

Many of us used to proudly display our record collections, then, later, our stack towers of CDs; we gave friends “mix tapes,” a CD burned with our favorite tunes. No longer. We share playlists. We forward links. Why bother to “own” music when you can listen to it — and give to others — for free? The internet hasn’t sucked all the creative content from the world, but it has destroyed the traditional recorded-music business model.

Of course, it’s not just the music business that has been transformed by the internet. Everyone is a photographer now. We are inundated with pictures via Instagram, Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook. Nobody has photo albums anymore. Kodak is bankrupt. No one’s getting a dime from that gorgeous shot of a desert sunset that’s being viewed by thousands of people.

Travel agencies? No thanks, I’ll just use Travelocity or Expedia. Fight the crowds at the mall? Nah, I’ll just order online. Newspaper subscription? No thanks, I’ll just scan Huffington Post or local news sites. Free is the new black.

But even in the face of these technological challenges, writers still write, painters still paint, musicians still play their hearts out. They enrich our lives immeasurably, and they need to make a living. So close your laptop, put your phone down for a while. Buy a book, buy a painting, go out and hear a live band — maybe even, gasp, buy a CD. We shouldn’t take our artists for granted. They are vital to our quality of life and they need our support.

And we need them to help us make sense.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Stop Making Sense

What makes a great concert film? Is it a big event with dozens of stars, like Woodstock or Wattstax? Is it chancing into horror, like Gimme Shelter? Is it a gathering for a noble cause like The Concert For Bangladesh? Or is it a heartstring tugger like The Last Waltz?

Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense makes the argument that the key to greatness is catching a group at just the right time. In December 1983, Talking Heads were riding a wave of creativity that had started at CBGB’s in 1977. Rhode Island School Of Design dropouts David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, and Chris Frantz, along with former Modern Lover Jerry Harrison, were the art rock center of the punk movement. Their tour in support of Speaking In Tongues incorporated all of the band’s advances into a loose narrative stage show inspired equally by Japanese Noh theater and Twyla Tharp modern dance. Demme shot three shows over one weekend in Los Angles with eight 35mm cameras and edited together the mountain of footage into something that is not quite narrative, not quite documentary, and not quite rock show. Byrne is scarily committed to his onstage persona, the wide-eyed, borderline autistic geek, an alien reporting on the human race through twisted, polyrhythmic songs that stretched the definition of punk and Western pop music. Demme treats him like a leading man in a musical, making brave choices like holding on a single shot of Byrne for four minutes of “Once In A Lifetime” and not showing the audience until the very end of the film.

In Byrne’s book How Music Works, he downplays the myth of musical genius in favor of the genius of scenes — groups of artists who push each other to greater heights. Stop Making Sense is the perfect meeting of musicians at the peak of their power and a director finding his voice. Catch it on the IMAX screen Thursday, October 23rd at 7pm to see what it looks like when all of the pieces come together perfectly for an artist.