Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense, Stopped Making Sense In 2024.
One of the best concert films ever is ruined by the modern theatre experience.
I was late coming to the Stop Making Sense party because I was too young to get Talking Heads on the first go-round. But, I loved the band from the first time I heard them in 1987 and still love them today. I first watched Stop Making Sense about 10 years ago and then again when it was rereleased on Blu-ray around 2020.
For anyone that doesn’t know about Talking Heads, they’re a successful New York art-rock band. Velvet Underground might have been the prototype for the 60s, but Talking Heads was the successor from the late 70s into the 80s and they invented countless visual motifs, most noteably, the “big suit”. It could be argued that they most defined the MTV video style. Their music is witty, fun and a bit sardonic, and most of the songs have a degree of human-yearning that makes them widely resonate. This is a thinking-man’s band, from an era where New-York-hip was still the defining centre of the world.
The movie is both a mixture of their music played live at the peak of their youthful ability, and also a successful integration of subtle film and stage narrative. Jonathan Demme directed it and managed to provide both a documentary quality so that you could feel like you were there in the front row, but also an odd 3rd wall distance where you felt that you were watching a magic show and things were not quite real.
The re-release in many ways technically outshines the original, however in aiming for a larger than life presentation, it breaks the magic that the film originally had.
Remember when you were a kid and you watched an iconic movie for the first time on a substandard medium, whether it was a copied VHS tape, DVD on a small flat screen, or even now Netflix on a phone. Because there isn’t a lot of bandwidth for either size or quality, your brain has to fill in the rest. If you were a kid, you likely filled in a lot, perhaps to the point of imagining scenes or colours etc. that were never in the film. This is where memories and legends come from, and in many ways it’s why Stop Making Sense grew into a cult favourite. With prior formats limited mostly on broad visual strokes, the musical energy, tightly choreographed movements, and the caricature of David Byrne “playing” himself allowed you to feel the essence of the band purely.
Plus, we always had the soundtrack recording as an accoutrement to the film. The soundtrack is excellent and the songs are quite close to the album versions but with a little added excitement from the crowd noise and the live-harmony of the band playing together. Bob Marley’s Babylon By Bus is a close sister to Stop Making Sense. Both are a perfect example of how best to translate a band’s studio sound to a live performance.
I saw the 2023 Remastered film in Tokyo in a state of the art IMAX theatre. If you know the Japanese, they don’t take quality lightly and I had high hopes to see it in such an environment to see just how much more could be gotten from a 4K transfer with modern Dolby Atmos surround.
Here’s the verdict:
PICTURE
The transfer is fantastic. There is a degree of realism in colour and detail that never existed on the previous mediums. I never saw it on film so I can only guess that the original theatre experience was good, but given the 1980s theatres I went to as a kid, none of them were particularly precise or calibrated. I’ll assume that this is as good as the public has ever seen it. There’s fantastic depth and no odd focus or weird visual distractions because of the high resolution or giant IMAX projection.
However, on a more philosophical level, do we need to see Talking Heads on a 100 foot screen? This is a comparatively small-time art-rock nuance band from New York. They’re not Kiss, they’re not Michael Jackson. They’re not Beyonce.
I found the experience unsettling at first, and as the movie progressed, it started to become annoying. I found myself looking at the 30 foot microphone wondering whether it was a Shure or a Sennheiser. Then wondering how David Byrne’s skin was so smooth. Is this a level of detail and scale that in any way adds to the movie? Definitely not.
Secondly, when the screen is that big, there is a very odd disconnect between the long and close-up shots. One minute I’m 8 inches from David Byrne’s giant face, the next I’m in the 10th row, then I’m in the wings back stage riding on the next set of band equipment coming out. All these angles work fine on a smaller medium because you never think you’re in the film (as IMAX touts). But they don’t work when the film is this big. Am I teleporting around the concert venue every 10 seconds?
In essence, the multi-camera motif was a perfect aid to your brain imagining you were at the concert when the screen was small because your field of vision is not entirely taken up by the screen. You know you’re not at the concert and the angles let your brain fill in the rest. But when you are in the concert (a la IMAX), your brain doesn't know where the hell you are most of the time. The logical extension would be to have an infinitely high resolution live feed of a real concert shot from the distance of your cinema seat. That is what high resolution can simulate. There’s no need to confuse it with “artistic” cinematography at that point. Also, because it was often times real or larger than real scale, it was wholly the uncanny valley phenomenon of where I simply noticed that it wasn’t real enough. This is 2024 tech, but the film is using techniques suited to 1984.
SOUND
There were never any complaints about the original soundtrack recording on vinyl or CD, and objectively the early Talking Heads albums were quite sparse and thin sounding, certainly by modern standards. The live record Stop Making Sense was a welcome natural sounding alternative to the studio versions with some ambiance and warmth.
The IMAX experience sound was an abomination. This is not entirely limited to the movie remaster itself but it’s hard to distinguish between what the theatre is imparting and what the remastering process has changed. Suffice to say, the sound experience in the theatre was nothing like the original vinyl or CD.
First off, the bass was so overblown that I could hear the speakers rattling and literally everything in the theatre vibrating. Was this a modern reinterpretation of the soundtrack or just how IMAX calibrates the system? The effect was so shocking that the opening song “Psycho Killer” which is just Byrne and his guitar with a small boombox on the stage sounded like a football stadium dance concert. The mismatch between the stark visual element and the pounding, booming, throbbing, farting bass was ridiculous. I’d hoped as the band came in that the mix would adjust to accommodate many more instruments but it did not. The drummer Chris Frantz’ kit sounded like a Roland 808. The 60Hz tones were so overblown and the overall compression and pump was so bad that all definition was lost. After 20 minutes it was monotonous like listening to your neighbours party through the wall. I’m a drummer and bass player so I know what these instruments sound like. Even with some artistic mixing, you would never arrive at such a blown-out presentation. If you’ve heard the Stooges Raw Power original mix and the remaster, you know what I’m talking about. Compress the hell out of the dynamic range, boost the 60Hz and make it as loud as possible.
Secondly, the theatre sound was so loud that I had to put paper in my ears. It was painful. There is a cheesy IMAX intro where they boast the system is as loud as jumbo jet taking off. The jet flies overhead and sounds positively horrific. It’s just loud. There’s no nuance or anything, no dynamic range. Did anybody stop for 1 second and question “maybe nobody should be listening to jet engines in a movie theatre?”
I went back and listened to the original soundtrack as well as the 2023 remaster. Yes, the 2023 has a boosted bass and treble, about 10%. The spatiality is wider and incorporates more realistic crowd placement. Is it better? I don’t think so. The original has the vocals and midrange more naturally balanced which conveys the musical value more, especially if you fall more on lyrical communication than rhythmic feeling. In general the original was already perfectly balanced and appropriate for the content. They didn’t need to do anything.
The next question is, how does the 2023 soundtrack compare to the abomination of the in-theatre sound? They’re miles apart. I don’t know how anybody could approve the mix and not set some limits to the in-theatre volume.
Just because this is a concert film, doesn’t mean it’s a concert. In real life concerts you have a huge dynamic range to start with, usually way more than the speakers can provide. After it’s been recorded, especially with early 80s technology, you can’t just magically crank it up and feel the same effortless dynamics that the best real concerts have. You just end up with ear fatigue. As with the picture, there is a serious disconnect between the 2024 reality they were attempting and what is available on the source material.
CONCLUSION
Whoever thought to release this beloved classic in the IMAX format is suffering from the all-too-common-delusion nowadays that more is more, technology can do anything our whim wants, and “we know best what they were thinking when they made this thing 40 years ago.” Like the Star Wars remasters or the aforementioned Stooges album, this is simply some jerk putting his spin on what he thinks will sell today, or perhaps what people “want.”
By contrast, a company like Criterion or Music Matters is nearly flawless in their rereleases, effectively only unearthing more original resolution of what is hidden and endeavouring to add no detracting side effects, either technically or artistically. We don’t need any new remastered Mona Lisa with added blush or scaled up to double size or with a QR code embedded because it’s modern technology. And none of us need more hearing damage.
Watch the existing Blu-Ray at home, or wait until your local art-house theatre is having a Tuesday evening showing to appreciate it in the Soho-hip and integrative spirit that built it into a classic in the first place.
AVAILABILITY
THE RATING
9/10 Absolute
1/10 Relative
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