Boom, Boom, Boom
(lessons from Stop Making Sense)
My husband and I went to see the remastered version of Jonathan Demme’s/The Talking Heads “Stop Making Sense” last night at the Historic Holly Theatre. Struck by a few things, probably all are deserving of much more time and language, but it’s late in the morning, and recently it’s all I can do to dash something out.
1) Chris mentioned this, and I thought it too, that the film shows people as they are. Sweaty, moving, hair sticking to faces, shirts wet, pants a bit messed up. Rough. Faces are not crafted with plastic surgery or other bits and bobs. Plastic surgery certainly happened in the 70’s and 80s (and much earlier), but the faces, teeth, and bodies all looked imperfect and full of personality and character. And most of them were young, of course, 30’s at the time, so beautiful in their physicality. But the young now often look like they are 10 years older, harder, not quite identical, but like… well, we’ve all seen the Mar-A-Lago face, Fox News Face. Meanwhile, these faces were slick with perspiration and joy throughout the film.
2) I think NYC from the mid-70s into the mid-80s would have been a divine time to live there if you were an artist. Damn, the scene would have been so good, the shifts from disco to punk to new wave. The club kids and the musicians were making albums and films and running up to do modern dance with luminaries like Tharp. And no cell phones, nor social media to distract. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, I realize, but I think it was probably cooler in so many ways, than right now.
3) Social media distracts. Like, I am very clear that there are some potent and powerful artists using it, but so often what I see on Instagram and TT is work for views, for hatescrolling, for content-collabs, and while the phone tools make quality quite interesting, is it as good as film, shot with care, even if in a theater over four days and live music creating random moments? I just don’t think so. Film is hard.
4) Where are the kids? Where is the punk? I’ve seen some pretty incredible young TT creators who are doing this wild dada/perv pop/riotpunk stuff. I’m really fond of them. Some are on actual tour, but often I worry they are relegated to this weird box of visuals. Drop your favorite artists in the comments.
5) Theater, live performance, rock and roll-it involves this kind of possession by something. Someone? By a cathartic sublimation of everyone in the room, plus the music itself? Watching the performers on stage, they were… possessed. The skill, concentration, flow, passion, visceral bodies involved in the movement and music; wild, but also controlled. Choreographed to a point, music written, but room for the subtle improvisation that comes from skill and patience, the wildness of being live.
6) Fun. They filmed SMS over four days, so that’s basically four whole performances with a full “audience.” And yet every shot contained their happiness and glee at being onstage, lots of cuts between performers gazing at each other, laughing with each other, being silly, looking impressed by a guitar riff. Irrepressible. The audience looked so happy.
7) We need more of that. We need less time watching tiny screens. More time in happy groups.