It’s not unusual nowadays for artists to produce their own concert films that emulate the experience of their concerts and these artists have one movie to thank for this.

“Stop Making Sense” was released in 1984 and is a concert film by Talking Heads directed by Jonathan Demme, who reinvented the concert film genre.

What makes “Stop Making Sense” stand out among the rest of the concert films around its era is how it presents the band and the set they’re playing.

“Stop Making Sense” spends its runtime up close with the band, which helps place the viewer as a faux member of the Heads, almost as if they are playing alongside them. This feeling is largely due to the direction Demme took with the film’s production.

Before making “Stop Making Sense,” Demme was already a Talking Heads fan, and when his 1980 film “Melvin and Howard” was released, the movie was a critical success. As a result, Demme became an established director.

With this newfound credibility and after seeing Talking Heads perform in 1983, he contacted the band and pitched the idea of capturing their performance.

The two parties got together to discuss how the band would be portrayed, and with that, “Stop Making Sense” went into production.

While concert films of this era took their time introducing the band and any narrative that might be attached to the project, Demme decided to take a more direct route.

In August 1984, the band kicked off their “Stop Making Sense” tour which saw the four members — David Byrne, Jerry Harrison, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz — performing alongside five members of the expanded band.

The tour’s sets were then split into three half-hour segments, all loosely telling the story of how the band formed and evolved throughout its existence.

Demme’s direction focused more on capturing the essence of what makes Talking Heads their own thing with rapid cuts and camera work that follow the music.

With each of the segments, there were unique aspects of the concert that made each song in the set stand out on its own with different choreography, lighting and costume design.

All of these features, plus the added bonus of the band playing many of their biggest hits, made this film a critical and box-office success.

Several critics praised the film for just how well-made the production was, and The New Yorker critic Pauline Kael even went as far as calling this film “close to perfection” in her review from 1984.

All of this high praise simply added to the prestige the movie garnered throughout the years. The film’s influence has not changed since its release. If anything, it has continued topping several lists covering the “greatest concert films of all time.”

The film also got a re-release last year in collaboration with independent film studio A24, which not only restored the film in 4K but also saw a theatrical release including IMAX engagements.

This came in part with the rights of the film returned to the band, especially after the original film was self-funded by the Heads and produced under Talking Heads Films.

With the 40th anniversary of the movie coming up, Harrison talked about the band reaching out to “a few different folks,” including A24, which was at the top of their list.

What set A24 apart from other possible distributors was their interest in not only restoring the film but also giving it a theatrical release using most of the speaker systems in auditoriums.

To achieve this, the re-release also included a complete audio restoration which added Dolby Atmos audio technology to the track, allowing for spatial audio which is both clearer and easier to pinpoint.

The re-release ended up being a commercial success, earning an estimated total of $6.9 million compared to the original 1984 release which earned an estimated total of $5.4 million without adjusting for inflation.

Alongside this success came a newfound interest in the music that went into the film as A24 released “Everyone’s Getting Involved: A Tribute to Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense.” 

The album consisted of covers of the concert’s set from several artists including Miley Cyrus, Paramore and Lorde. 

The album received mixed reviews, but there’s no denying that having varying artists with different styles of music pay tribute to such a classic album is a nice representation of the film’s unique presentation of how the band became what they were in 1984.

“Stop Making Sense” is not only a staple in concert films, but it effortlessly captures one of the best performances of all time.

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