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A Talking Head as Filmmaker
| Article
# : |
12294 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1987 |
1,277 Words |
| Author
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Carlos Clarens
Trilingual author and film critic, Carlos Clarens has written
the definitive work, Horror Films. |
Middle America may well be making a comeback through the medium of mainstream movies and fashionable urban ways after more than two decades of being shunned - virtually scorned - by the country's cultural elite. One tangible sign of something of a return to traditional values has been the current interest in regional food from the South and the Southwest served in restaurants decorated like truckstop cafes. Another, and a rather more significant one, is the film, True Stories, by Talking Heads' David Byrne. The film sets out to rediscover, in its own highly individual way, the Great Lost Majority.
Byrne is dealing with, as he puts it, "people who seem to have found some kind of ethical center. They might be floundering around a little bit, but it's a noble kind of floundering." David Byrne has made a whole career out of being unpredictable. He is, in fact, as unpredictable, well, as only an intellectual rock star with the widest possible range of interests turned serious can be.
Even in the punk context of Byrne's earliest club performances in the Seventies, his songs written for his group The Talking Heads were already considered as too eclectic and simply too melodious to fit into any passing concept of New Wave or No Wave.
Avant-Garde Legacy
Byrne might be said to have found his latest persona when he composed the score for choreographer Twyla Tharp's The Catherine Wheel. From the world of the dance avant-garde, he took a sense of minimal effect, observed how props could be used in inventive
... (1997 of 7654 Characters)
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