Stop Making Sense

'Stop Making Sense' is more than simply a concert film. It is pure cinema. It engages all of the senses, it creates a mood, it establishes an atmosphere, it has narrative logic, and it jolts the viewer with electric energy. You can't sit still while watching this. You can't keep your head from bobbing, or your mouth from moving, if you know the words to the songs.

Twenty years later, the sound and image of Talking Heads still feels new, maybe even post-new. It's frightening to look at this film and then consider that all of the Talking Heads are now in their fifties, and David Byrne's hair is as white as Steve Martin's. Byrne's music has mellowed just as people mellow with age, and his fascinating career along with the direction it's taken is emblematic of the excitement that youth brings to an artist's work. To watch 'Stop Making Sense' is to be alive, and for someone who never had and probably never will have the opportunity to see Talking Heads live, and even for those who have, it is a blessing to have a film such as this to preserve the unmatched innovation and energy of this band. Watching David Byrne perform in this film is an awesome sight. Schwarzenegger and Stallone were never this thrilling.