losing it at the movies: true stories (david byrne, 1986)
Saturday, August 05, 2023
Picking this up one last time, this is the fifteenth in a series, "Losing It at the Movies," which is explained here. It took me years to finish, but I've finally done it.
In 5001 Nights at the Movies, Pauline Kael wrote of True Stories:
This first feature directed by David Byrne, of Talking Heads, is laid out like a musical-comedy documentary about a town, except that the town--Virgil, Texas--is imaginary. Byrne, the narrator and observer, introduces us to the townspeople, who are about to take part in the pageantry of the Texas Sesquicentennial with their own "Celebration of Specialness." Byrne is looking for a true mythic image of America; Virgil is Our Town, it's Anytown, U.S.A., and the movie is about banality and eccentricity and consumerism--it's about the manners and mores of the shopping mall, where fashion shows are staged and miming contests are held to see who is best at lip-synching to records. In his polite, formal, and slightly ghostly matter-of-fact way, Byrne is trying for something large scale: a postmodern Nashville. Byrne sets up the material for satirical sequences, yet he doesn't give it a subversive spin. His unacknowledged satire is like a soufflé that was never meant to rise. But, working with the crack cinematographer Ed Lachman, Byrne shows a respect for pared-down plainness, and after a rather shaky opening the characters themselves begin to engage us--especially John Goodman as the big, friendly bachelor with a "Wife Wanted" sign on his lawn, who gets to sing the film's anthem, "People Like Us." Jo Harvey Allen is terrific as a crackpot liar, and Tito Larriva's high-speed dancing has a comic dazzle. Singing "Papa Legba," Roebuck ("Pops") Staples has a juicy richness about him; when he's onscreen a viewer can be completely happy. Also with Swoosie Kurtz, Spalding Gray, Annie McEnroe, and Alix Elias. The nine songs by Byrne are conceived as rock or country, Tex-Mex or gospel, depending on which character sings them. The Heads provide the instrumental work, and can be heard now and then on the words; it's their voices that the lip-synchers weave and sway to.
Kael liked this more than I did, but I liked it more than I expected to. There's a reason True Stories was the last movie I watched during this project (well, it was hard to find as well). When Byrne worked with Talking Heads (we saw them in 1978), his persona seemed wrapped inside the people and situations he described. The worlds were slightly cocked, but the Byrne persona was slightly cocked, too. In True Stories, Byrne is still quirky, but he is more of an observer than a participant. This distance, quirky as it is, means at times he seems to be looking down on the characters in his film. It's a fine line ... I don't want to make too much of it ... but that's why I didn't love this movie.
Best/kindest moment:
Comments