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.Neil Youngused a similar technique when he dressed his roadies up like hooded Jawas.As for David s dance, it looks like an elaborate stumble.It s as ifhe s about to lose his balance, but then he lurches into a simple dancestep.According to Tina, David was incorporating Fred Astaire s movesfrom the number called I Left My Hair in Haiti from the movie RoyalWedding. THIS MUST BE THE PLACENext Tina comes onstage.Her blond hair is long.Her big bass is coloredblue.David and Tina play Heaven. You know how something really weird happens in cinema, shesays. When you re filming a man running from a car, the car might be twohundred feet behind him, but on film it looks like it s just inches it looksenormous? That s what was happening to me.I looked huge.I always stoodright in front of my amps, right there.And looked huge. She looks huge because she is wearing a clown costume.It s onlywhen the camera finally changes angles that you can see that she is wearinga baggy pants suit.She looks like she s been fitted in service-station couture.The Kabuki roadies now wheel in a drum set and Chris climbs into the driver s seat and begins the galloping beat of Thank You for Sending Me anAngel. This is the one song that duplicates what Talking Heads soundedlike as a trio.It s a spare muscular sound.Here comes Lucifer with a guitar slung around his neck.It s Jerrywearing pink shoes.The band plays the song about fighting over what showto watch on TV, Found a Job. Jerry is the only Talking Head who looks likea rock n roller.He does a Rudolph Valentino seductive thing with his neckas he plays.Jerry remains the samurai of ladies men.Next, Steve Scales, Lynn Mabry, and Ednah Holt walk out as Jerryhops up on a riser to play keyboards.A black scrim lowers, hiding the backstage wreckage.The women are wearing matching gray shorts/baggy topsoutfits.Scales, bearded and skinny, crouches over his bongos as the bandplays Slippery People. Lynn and Ednah do a get-down dance.When thesong is over, Steve Scales jumps up and thrusts his fist at the audience,270yelling, Oh, yeah. It s as if he s saying, Now the show is really going to begin. Andhe s right.Alex Weir and Bernie Worrell come out and the band plays Burning Down the House. The camera lingers a bit on Worrell.He has amustache.He seems the oldest one onstage.He raises his arms above hishead.The funk patriarch.When the camera shows Alex Weir, he seems young.His hair is alittle out-of-date.It s almost a 1960s afro.He is playing an electric guitar.David is playing an acoustic one.Weir does this running in place thing withhis legs. S t o p Ma k i n g S e n s eWhat happens now that the entire band is onstage has a fascinating, andlargely unspoken, racial subtext.The additional musicians are all AfricanAmericans and they dominate the stage with exuberant joy and unwieldiness.At this point, in this song, even David looks like he should leave andlet the real musicians do their work.Chris remembered: We thought we knew how to rock and thenthese people came onboard.Just look.It s fantastic. If you were watching this movie at the San Francisco Film Festival, you d see271that many people had left their seats and were dancing in front of the moviescreen.The theater was literally shaking.You wouldn t know this, but thetheater manager was up in the projection room freaking out.He wanted tostop the movie and make everyone sit down.Someone, perhaps Demme himself, calmed him down.Back on the screen, David has taken off his coat for Life DuringWartime. When did he do that? Jerry is playing guitar again and dancingwith the women.These last three songs have been so tight and exuberant.The movie is a good document of a good rock show.But these numbers alsolull us into thinking that Stop Making Sense is just a regular rock show.Almost.David is doing a feminine New Delhi cum Berlin nightclub dancewhere he sways his hips and raises his right arm and lowers his left, thenreverses the movement.You could imagine Marlene Dietrich doing thisdance.Maybe Cyndi Girls Just Want to Have Fun Lauper.No need to consult Susan Sontag for this one this is pure camping-out gay style.Suddenly, David giving aerobic semaphore.Jogging in place.Thenracing in circles around the band.He crams as much energy into three minutes worth of gesture as you could find in a forty-five-minute Vegas act.Now we see David from the back, his white shirt drenched withsweat. Thank you, he is saying. Does anyone have any questions? There is an abrupt cut.The words DOLL FACE and PUBLIC LIBRARYappear in huge white letters on a red backdrop.Then the word ONION.This starts the Robert Wilson portion of the show.Does anyone have any questions? At the Pantages, this began theintermission.In the movie, the cut between Life During Wartime and thenew song Making Flippy Floppy is the first sloppy moment in a filmalmost devoid of sloppy moments
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