And they carry their instruments, which means that instead of a drummer sitting down at a full kit, the show includes four or five or six percussionists all simultaneously playing parts of a drum kit that they can carry with them. ![]() So Byrne and his 11 musicians, all dressed in gray suits and pale blue shirts, and all barefoot (or in some cases, wearing sheer or flesh-colored socks), have the stage to themselves. The idea of the show, Byrne says at one point, is to eliminate everything from the stage except what we want to look at most, which is people. ![]() Like all of Byrne’s work, it is sly performance art masquerading as rock ‘n’ roll, or maybe it’s sly rock ‘n’ roll masquerading as performance art definitions are elusive but the impact is both cerebral and visceral, just the way Byrne likes it.Īlso Read: 'David Byrne's American Utopia' Broadway Review: Stop Making Sense, Start Making Music “Stop Making Sense” sets a very high standard for “American Utopia,” but the new film is after something very different – a performance that illustrates David Byrne’s concept of home, perhaps, which with the eager collaboration of his director turns into a portrait of America at a time when the very idea of home seems hard to hang onto. In the strictest sense, “American Utopia” is just a filmed performance, but so was “Hamilton” and “Springsteen on Broadway” and “Stop Making Sense,” the 1984 Talking Heads film by Jonathan Demme that is widely considered one of the great concert films, and the great rock ‘n’ roll films, of all time. Then again, the word just really has no part in any discussion of the work of Byrne or of director Spike Lee, who turned the former Talking Heads front man’s Broadway show into a film that premiered at the slimmed-down TIFF on Thursday, and will come to HBO in October. But it’s the first that you could say is just a concert movie. Alex Timbers served as Production Consultant.“David Byrne’s American Utopia” is the third music-oriented film in the last 10 years to serve as the opening-night attraction at the Toronto International Film Festival, after “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band” last year and U2’s “From the Sky Down” in 2011. Choreography and Musical Staging was by Annie-B Parson. Karl Mansfield and Mauro Refosco were Musical Directors. The show’s design team included Rob Sinclair (lighting) and Pete Keppler (sound). Both albums are available digitally and on vinyl and CD: the cast album here, the original album here. Nonesuch Records released both the original 2018 American Utopia album, which inspired the Broadway show, as well as the cast album for David Byrne’s American Utopia, with music and lyrics by David Byrne. Club said, “David Byrne and Spike Lee found the spectacle in the performers simply performing.” ![]() The film has been called “a life-affirming, euphoria-producing, soul-energizing sing-along protest film that’s asking us to rise up against our own complacency” ( IndieWire) and “an all-time-great concert film” ( Vanity Fair). And it rocks.”Īcademy Award®-winning director Spike Lee’s acclaimed filmed version of David Byrne’s American Utopia made its world premiere opening the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival and is currently streaming on HBO Max. ![]() Christine Amanpour said, “It’s all about hope and connection between people. Featuring “altogether astonishing choreography by Annie-B Parson” ( The New York Times), with Tony-nominated Alex Timbers (director of Moulin Rouge! The Musical) serving as production consultant, it’s “an artistically stunning tour de force” ( Variety) brimming with “total, buoyant joy” ( New York Magazine). In American Utopia, Talking Heads superstar David Byrne was joined by 11 diverse musicians from around the globe in a “knockout theatrical concert, honoring the pleasures of music, dance and song as collective celebration” ( The Hollywood Reporter).
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