“David Byrne’s A Night at The Movies” at the Charleston Music Hall

The Charleston Music Hall announced that they will present “David Byrne’s A Night at The Movies” featuring True Stories and Stop Making Sense on Friday, August 30th.

Doors for True Stories open at 6 pm, followed by a 6:30 pm start time. Doors for Stop Making Sense open at 8 pm, followed by an 8:30 pm start time. Tickets are $8 for a single film, or you can get a two film pass for $10. Tickets can be purchased here.

David Byrne is a songwriter, musician, record producer, artist, actor, writer, and filmmaker who was a founding member, principal songwriter, and lead singer and guitarist of the new wave band Talking Heads.

True Stories

Music icon David Byrne was inspired by tabloid headlines to make this sole foray into feature film directing, an ode to the extraordinariness of ordinary American life and a distillation of what was in his own idiosyncratic mind. Byrne plays a visitor to Virgil, Texas, who introduces us to the citizens of the town during preparations for its Celebration of Specialness. As shot by cinematographer Ed Lachman, Texas becomes a hyperrealistic late-capitalist landscape of endless vistas, shopping malls, and prefab metal buildings. In True Stories, Byrne uses his songs to stitch together pop iconography, voodoo rituals, and a singular variety show—all in the service of uncovering the rich mysteries that lurk under the surface of everyday experience.
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Stop Makin Sense

“Stop Making Sense” makes wonderful sense. A concert film by the New York new-wave rock band Talking Heads, it was shot during three performances at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre in December, 1983, and the footage has been put together without interviews and with very few cutaways. The director, Jonathan Demme, offers us a continuous rock experience that keeps building, becoming ever more intense and euphoric. This has not been a year when American movies overflowed with happiness; there was some in “Splash”, and there’s quite a lot in “All of Me”—especially in its last, dancing minutes. “Stop Making Sense” is the only current movie that’s a dose of happiness from beginning to end. The lead singer, David Byrne, designed the stage lighting and the elegantly plain performance-art environments (three screens used for backlit side projections); there’s no glitter, no sleaze. The musicians aren’t trying to show us how hot they are; the women in the group aren’t there to show us some skin. Seeing the movie is like going to an austere orgy—which turns out to be just what you wanted.
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