For Once in a Lifetime, 'Stop Making Sense' Returns to Screens - Vanity Fair

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Spike Lee interviewed David Byrne and his Talking Heads bandmates at the restored concert doc’s show-stopping TIFF debut.

By Esther Zuckerman

September 12, 2023

For Once in a Lifetime ‘Stop Making Sense Returns to Screens

The new restoration of Jonathan Demme’s legendary Talking Heads concert documentary premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival Monday, and David Byrne was into it. During “Burning Down the House,” as members of the crowd started to get up to dance, you could look down the aisle and see the band’s frontman, wearing a bright blue (normal-size) suit, standing in his seat, bouncing up and down as he watched himself onscreen.

All four principal members of the Talking Heads—Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison—reunited for the screening at the Scotiabank Theatre’s IMAX screen, which was simulcast to IMAX theaters around the world, before A24 officially releases this pristinely revamped, 40th-anniversary edition of the film to IMAX theaters on September 22 and conventional theaters on September 29. (Sorry, Taylor Swift: This is the musical movie event of the fall.)

The band’s public reunion was significant, as their relationship hasn’t always been a happy one. As recently as 2020, Frantz was bad-mouthing Byrne in the press upon the release of his memoir Remain in Love, arguing that Byrne often took sole writing credit for songs he said the entire band wrote together. Last night, Frantz took a different turn during the Q&A moderated by Spike Lee. “It’s so good to be here with my bandmates tonight,” he said, to knowing applause from the crowd.

The crowd, of course, was all in for this experience—seeing the 1984 movie, which was shot over three nights at the Pantages in Los Angeles, in new fashion. From my seat in the same row, I saw Lee get up and groove to “Once in a Lifetime”; I also picked out at least one member of the audience who was mimicking Byrne’s iconic dance moves in a very specific fashion.

On the IMAX screen, the image was so crisp you could pick out every roadie onstage. The audio was so clear that you could isolate facets of the songs that might previously have gone unheard. Want to focus on keyboardist Bernie Worrell’s work? Now you can.

During the post-screening conversation, guitarist and keyboardist Jerry Harrison praised the advancements that allowed this incarnation of the film to come to life. “[The fact that] there is new technology…meant we almost have a burden to adapt and bring [the film] up to what people can hear now in theaters,” he said. Byrne jumped in to add, “When I was watching this just now, I was thinking, This is why we come to the movie theaters. This is different from watching it on my laptop.”

Lee’s questioning was blunt and to the point. Sometimes, he was barely asking questions. He addressed Byrne’s famously enormous tailoring, for instance, by yelling, “Dave! Fat suit! The origin?!”

The night was also marked by absence. While the screening was attended by producer Gary Goetzman, who occasionally shouted answers to the stage, Demme died in 2017, and the screening at TIFF was attended by his widow, Joanne Howard, and son, Jos Demme. “I miss Jon,” Frantz said. “He would have been so happy to see this tonight and to hear it.” He then added, “And I miss Bernie too.” Worrell died in 2016.

Byrne discussed how Demme saw the concert as an ensemble film, where you get to know each character individually before they merge together. “I think because he did that, one of the reasons for the lasting power of the film is you see that we are having so much fun onstage,” Harrison noted.

Lee then interrupted: “Can I put the word love in there too?” Harrison agreed. “Love and fun, and the audience is brought right into it and say, ‘You’re a part of this too,’” he said, choking up. “And I think anytime anybody watches it, it brings back that wonderful emotion.”

That was certainly the case at TIFF, and it will be for even more audiences very soon.