
What’s The Movie? The 1984 Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense.
What’s It All About, JG? Watching a band at the absolute pinnacle of their abilities perform what is arguably the greatest concert film ever put together. Capturing the band towards the end of 1983, promoting the Speaking In Tongues album and just before they tilted over into the full-on pop of Little Creatures, Stop Making Sense highlights the band’s back catalogue but changed, warped, adjusted, and generally rearranged for the film. It was shot at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles over four nights, the final result being a blend of footage from different nights. The whole of Stop Making Sense was conceived of from the word go as a concert that would be filmed, and David Byrne serves as artistic director, pulling the whole project together. It’s directed by Jonathan Demme in his first outing behind the camera, not that you’d know it from looking at the – frankly amazing – footage. Why cover a 1984 film now? Well, because it’s been re-released back into the cinema in a glorious 4K IMAX restoration to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the original release.
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