With Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour coming to theaters today and Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé set to arrive in December, 2023 could signal the return of the concert film in full force. At the very least, both projects are bound to break records. Swift's movie is already on the way to becoming the most profitable concert film in history, close to surpassing Michael Jackson's This Is It just with advance ticket sales. Hopefully, this triumph will be reflected in the picture's quality, though, with such titles, success is measured more in terms of the artists' popularity than the piece's cinematic verve. Still, it'd be erroneous to dismiss concert films for this reason – there are many masterpieces to be found in the non-fiction subgenre.
So, dear reader, what's your favorite concert film? My pick is after the jump…
Yes, it's a tremendous cliché, but clichés are often born from truth. My favorite concert film is none other than the late Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, recently restored and re-released in IMAX theaters by A24 after a much-talked-about TIFF screening that did double duty as a Talking Heads reunion. From its "Psycho Killer" opening to the last echoes of "Crosseyed and Painless," the picture's sheer perfection, finding endless ways to shoot the same, shockingly simple, performance space. Its plasticity is staggering while keeping faithful to a quasi-minimalist rule. Props are unexpectedly rare and far between, with the famed dancing lamp taking the place of honor. As far as costuming goes, it's similarly streamlined, only ever reaching for spectacle with Byrne's "Girlfriend Is Better" big suit.
Despite all this, to peer into Stop Making Sense is to dive headfirst into a vortex of creativity set loose on the screen, spiraling with visual ideas that defy its overall simplicity and beckon amazement. Demme shot it across three consecutive nights, relying on DP Jordan Cronenweth to capture the band's performance with an eye toward avant-garde lighting taken from Byrne's design. With around 20 angles, the filmmakers get all the material needed, later assembled by editor Lisa Day in a game of cyclical variation that's as prone to breaking a song in iconographic shots as to allowing a whole section of the concert to unfold without a single cut. In a way, Demme and his team are dancing with the on-stage artists, creating an experience that vibrates with a sense of radical immediacy and performance art freedom.
Engulfed by it all, the spectator can do nothing else but surrender to its wonder – a perfect concert film if there ever was one.