Both know that it is important to explicitly address the horrifying racism and brutality present in American society in order to try and forge any kind of path forward. Everyone is invited to this Spike Lee joint-it’s a pluralistic paradise, writ cinematic.īut Byrne and Lee know that it isn’t enough to blithely state that if we all stick together, the world will get better. His generous framing of the in-house audience beckons them into the fray, inviting them into the party happening onstage. Spike Lee knows exactly how to capture this euphoria and translate it into a bold cinematic experience, expertly cutting, fading and framing the concert so that the at-home viewer feels the dimensions that are lost on the 2D screen. But he soon deliberately contradicts this empty statement in the beloved Talking Heads songs “This Must Be The Place”, singing: “looking at people? Yeah, that’s the best.” Looking at a face, Byrne argues in one address to the audience, shouldn’t technically be more beautiful than looking at a bicycle, a sunset, or a bag of potato chips. “It’s wrong until you’re next to me” (“I Know Sometimes a Man Is Wrong”). “I know sometimes the world is wrong,” Byrne sings. It’s not until a few songs in that Byrne lays out the point of this elaborate stage show: he’s interested in the way we ‘prune’ our connections away as adults, contrasting this to the untethered performers on stage, unencumbered by wires and standing microphones. ![]() Released in 2018, American Utopia is Byrne’s first solo album in sixteen years, and forms part of his wider multimedia project Reasons to Be Cheerful, which posits itself as “a tonic for tumultuous times.” In this staged version of the album, which adds songs from his back catalogue both as a solo artist and with Talking Heads, he’s able to more explicitly perform his mission statement of optimism. The ex- Talking Heads frontman is now 68, but as nimble and enigmatic as he was in Jonathan Demme’s aforementioned 1984 concert film. But by gently, joyously, providing us with a flicker of hope to hold in our hearts, David Byrne’s American Utopia invites us to suck the marrow out of life and not lose sight of what keeps us afloat in the face of despair: other people.Īfter an intriguing opening in which Byrne holds a human brain aloft, decreeing “here is something we call elucidation,” (“Here”), we’re gradually introduced to David Byrne’s Greek chorus of unspeakably talented singers, dancers and musicians: Chris Giarmo, Angie Swan, Jacqueline Acevedo, Bobby Wooten Iii, Mauro Refosco, Tendayi Kuumba, Gustavo Di Dalva, Karl Mansfield, Stephane San Juan and Daniel Freedman. But Byrne and Lee don’t wallow in this widespread despair, nor are they so gauche as to suggest that a good time at a concert could ever be enough to overwrite our anxieties. “I’m a toddler / I’m a government man”-seems about right (“Born Under Punches”). In his bid to Make America Great Again, President Trump has created a canyon of fear and loathing, whipping up racial hatred and contributing to the deaths of hundreds of thousands with his mangled COVID strategy-and that’s just the start of it. The result is nothing short of wondrous.Įspecially in 2020, the words ‘American’ and ‘Utopia’ seem oxymoronic when put together. Spike Lee and David Byrne’s new venture combines the rapturous joy of Byrne’s music with Lee’s trademark style of confronting us with contemporary truths. Thirty-six years after Stop Making Senseset the bar stratospherically high for the concert film, an unlikely duo has created an urgently joyous match.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |