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?”
