Stop Making Sense vs. The Last Waltz | Movie Death Match

24:49Self-care September is here, which means it's time to rethink what self-care actually means. Yes, self-care can be a long walk. It can be an everything shower. It can be putting your phone on do not disturb, but sometimes it's actually about sitting with the uncomfortable stuff and understanding your patterns, your boundaries, finally figuring out why you keep doing things that you swore you would never do again. I'm Gemma Spegg, the host of the Psychology of Your 20s podcast, and each week we unpack the psychology behind the experiences that shape your 20s, from relationships and friendships to money, anxiety, confidence, attachment, just becoming more comfortable with who you are.

25:25Unlike the quarter-life crisis, which is depicted as the collapse, the quarter-life reinvention is the expansion and growth of something. When we develop the ability to be happy by ourselves, nobody else can take that from you. So this Self-Care September, don't just take care of yourself, get to know yourself as well. Listen to The Psychology of Your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Bobby Bones. Join me and former NFL quarterback Matt Castle every Wednesday on our podcast, Lots to Say, with me, Bobby Bones, and Matt Castle. We also bring in friends, they're mostly Matt's friends, who are current or former NFL players, some of the biggest names in music and entertainment, and then we have some really great conversations that can pretty much go anywhere.

26:10The great Pac-Man Jones. After the game, the whole National Task Force for Police Officers was at the stadium. Like, hey, buddy, yeah, you, Adam, come on. And one of my favorite segments we do is called Situational Awareness, where Bobby and I give each other real-life situations and figure out what we'd actually do. You're in training camp, and the rookie quarterback has one good throwing session in front of the media. Suddenly, everybody online says he should start over you week one. How do you handle this? You just go back out to practice the next day and wait for him to mess up. Listen to Lots to Say with Bobby Bones and Matt Castle on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

26:50it is one of the great casts really for any music film ever i i would say it's the greatest cast of characters even more than a woodstock and it truly was a once in a lifetime assemblage of all these people coming together at once collaborating even if the band wasn't quite at the height of their powers i think a lot of these other people were and i think that snapshot of a period of time in music just takes the last waltz to another level where the equivalent for stop making sense is if talking heads were joined by a half dozen other great bands of that period and you had them all together in this film it would have i think the kind of scope that the last waltz has clearly you watch Stop Making Sense.

27:42It's great on its own. You don't watch that film and feel like, oh, there needs to be more people here. But if we're going to compare these two films, The Last Waltz just has a greater scope. It encompasses more music. And I think that is the thing for me I would lean on in terms of making the case for its greatness. Okay. So applying the same unreasonableness with which I have apparently declared that Only Prince Can Wear Purple. I'm going to award you the full three points for that answer, but deduct one because you described it as once in a lifetime because only talking heads can say that in my unreasonable worldview.

28:19So two points for Stephen. Well said, sir. It's a real fascist show here, apparently. We are like, no, you can wear purple. You can say once in a lifetime. All right. Wow. There are no appeals. This is a repressive regime we're living under. Okay. I'm going to, this despot that I am, I am going to invert the question as I direct it towards Elizabeth. Does the less fussy documentation of Stop Making Sense make it a more pure film? than The Last Waltz? I mean, first of all, I do just want to say, at a certain point, comparing the two films is, it feels like they're two separate types of things, right?

29:01They are attempting two different things. They are doing two different things. That said, I would argue that Stop Making Sense is not simply just a pure, more distilled, less curated, in your words, film, because it's not just, oh yeah, I stood with a camera in the back of an auditorium and filmed the concert, right? Demi is actually taking different pieces from, I believe, four different performances that are stitched together in different ways. So actually, I think it's a pretty impressive work of curation to make it feel like one continuous performance when it's actually pieces of different performances.

29:44And I think it's, I would argue, harder to create the immersive experience of feeling like you are in a room for a singular concert than it is to throw in different pieces of here's this interview with this person, here's this shot of this person, you know, we've got this nice setup here framed with these band members talking. I think Martin And Scorsese's job was actually a little easier than Jonathan Demme's, if I want to be a little targeted about it. But I do think that even preserving the chronology of the set list is itself a type of curation, is a specific choice about how to convey this material to the audience.

30:25And I think that it allows for that constraint of making it feel like a singular concert allows for more play when it comes to camera angles. You know, where are we? Are we on the stage with the performers? Are we in the audience? Are we, as we do at the very end, looking at the audience? I'm still waiting. I'm still waiting. I'm still waiting. Are we scanning? Are we in one of those sort of vertiginous moments where the camera drops and you're not really sure where you are, which increases that sort of immersive feeling? So, yeah, I think it's pure, but I also think it is deceptively simple. I think it's actually a very complex work of filmmaking.

31:11All right. Can I respond to that? Are we allowed to respond to each other? Please. Okay, I would just say I agree with what she said 100 % about the curation part of it. I think Stop Making Sense is actually, it feels like one of the most controlled concert films in a lot of ways where you really feel Jonathan Demme's presence as a director and how he is guiding you as a viewer to looking at each member of the band and experiencing it in real time in a way that you could never really experience it as a concert goer. I do disagree, however, that it's easier for Scorsese to do The Last Waltz. I actually think it's easier to shoot four concerts and assemble the best parts of each concert in the final edit and make that feel like a concert film than it is to shoot a movie where you only have one shot.

31:58It's only going to be this event and you've got to get everything on film. There's a famous story about how they were shooting muddy waters and they almost ran out of film when he was doing his performance because it's a chaotic situation. You're at Winterland. It's Thanksgiving. Everyone's on cocaine. Everyone is drinking whiskey since like five o 'clock in the morning. And they almost didn't get this great performance because just in the chaos of shooting the concert. So I think that just the act of setting up this concert was part of the filmmaking of The Last Waltz. And to stage this event and to be able to document it with as much elegance and as much grandeur as The Last Waltz has, I would argue that that's more difficult than shooting four concerts and assembling the best cuts of each performance for one film.

32:50I think I was somehow aware of The Last Waltz before a long time, but like for many years before I ever read that the evening included that full Thanksgiving dinner. Whenever I hear, you know, Scorsese and Robertson talk about the complexity of the shoot, I'm like, well, introducing a whole food services element to it probably doesn't help. You could let them go get dinner somewhere else. Yeah, they had the food service. Robbie Robertson also did this thing where he had a guitar dipped in gold. so he's playing this literal gold guitar on stage which is why he's sweating almost immediately because it's a super heavy guitar i don't know again there's a lot of drugs involved in these decisions i'm sure but deciding to play a heavy gold-plated guitar on film maybe not the best decision but it looks amazing on camera so agreed all right so i i have three points for a little there and a warning for Stephen for kindness and reasonableness.

33:47Your totally empathetic and decent and generous acknowledgement of your opponent's argument there is going to cost you dearly if it happens. Is only Prince allowed to be kind? Is it going to lose another point? Oh, come on. We can come up with some examples of Prince being kind of mean, too. You know, I'm on the lookout for the deducting one point thing I think is pretty ticky-tack. You know, whatever. Truly, truly. All right, Stephen. Unreasonable question. I'm going to ask you to pick a single standout musical performance for The Last Waltz, if you can only have one. Man, well, yeah, I mean, that's really, really hard to do.

34:20Because there's so many great performances in the film. Can I list all the ones I'm not going to mention? Oh, see, that would be devious. I encourage you. You know, because I could say, baby, don't you do it at the beginning of a film. I could say Caravan, which you've already referenced by Van Morrison, Ronnie Hawkins doing Who Do You Love.

34:42I turned 41 and I don't mind dying. That, oh boy. I got a tombstone hand in a graveyard mind. I turned 41, I don't mind dying.

34:55Big time, Bill, big time. Yeah. Which M.J. Lenderman quoted on his record. I'm going to go with It Makes No Difference, which I think is a beautiful song, wonderfully sung by Rick Danko. And it makes no difference where I turn. I can't get over you when the flame still burns. Really the definitive version of that song, no one really remembers the studio version, which came out on Northern Lights Southern Cross the year before the film was shot. And it became a rock standard because of the film.

35:41Don't shine anymore This film's a little unusual in comparison to Stop Making Sense in that this wasn't really like the band at their peak. It was, however you want to look at it, it's either at the end of their career as a touring band or it's at the end of the Robbie Robertson era of the band. But there's so many things that became definitive with the band because of the movie, because it's so famous. starting with, I think, It Makes No Difference. I think just the way it's shot, too, really speaks, again, to the craft involved in this film. Just the camera movements and how incredible it looks.

36:21There's this great shot toward the end of the song where Robbie Robertson's playing his guitar solo, and you're on the side of the stage, and then Garth Hudson starts playing a saxophone solo.

36:40And he just appears, like, in the foreground of the frame. He just kind of steps forward.

36:51And it's so dramatic. And it's actually the first thing I thought of when Garth Hudson passed away recently. It's like such a, it's like one of the great film entrances, not just in a concert film, but I think in any film. and then you see Garth and Robbie in profile playing together at the end of the song and you can see Levon playing drums in the back beautifully shot beautiful song that feels like one of the moments that people single out when they talk about how much they love this movie all right it makes no difference is the answer full three points because and you know extra credit for for trying to cheat a few other titles in there again it's a dirty damn game and you are you are playing the dirty damn game dirtily so well well done Elizabeth, standout individual performance from Stop Making Sense.

37:37I mean, I tried really hard to think of a creative answer to this question because I felt like maybe I would get points for creativity. It's tough with Stop Making Sense because it's David Byrne's film, really. Again, I could come up with like there are moments where like in Burning Down the House, I think Alex Weir really shines. I think there's some great moments with Lynn Mabry and Edna Holt and just their dynamic energy on stage. But I would be incorrect if I said anyone but David Byrne. And if I'm trying to pick a specific David Byrne moment, again, it's boring. So I'm willing to lose points for boringness.

38:19But I really do think that the opening Psycho Killer is just such an indelible way to open the film. It takes you off guard so quickly. It immediately tells you this is not going to be what you expect. Putting down the little boom box and saying, Hi, I got a tape I want to play.

38:42And that great moment where he gets really off kilter and is kind of like skipping around. And you're like, is this man having a seizure? Is he falling down? Like, is he OK? And then it is almost like the moment in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Gene Wilder comes out with the cane and then some results and you're like, oh, it's a performance, right? Like, I feel like this is that coming out of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka Gates moment for David Byrne. Can't seem to place up to the facts. Intense and nervous, can't relax. And it is so, so weird. and also so intimate.

39:23And so I think that for me that the intimacy that you get in that opening kind of takes you into this very intimate film.

39:43So again, I think it's a boring answer. I'm acknowledging it's not very innovative, but I also can't not say that it is the right answer. I mean, I don't think that is a boring answer, actually, because I think there are more obvious things you could say. I think a lot of people would probably pick like one of the big flashy band numbers. Or where he's wearing the big suit or something. The big suit, yeah. But I think the big suit comes in in a separate way in my mind. I love that pick because I think, again, I'm going to say nice things about set making sense, but I love the way it builds. You've been warned.

40:19I love how it starts with David Byrne and then they keep adding members and adding stage equipment and everything. To me, that's like the most brilliant stroke of it. And just start with David Byrne at the beginning. All right. Yes. Well, I'm going to award Elizabeth a full three points for having the courage to offer a cold take, you know, instead of just trying to choose chaos. Moving on, the self-canonization, the all-star guests in The Last Waltz. We've named most or all of them already. The Staple Singers, Emmylou Harris, Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell, Neil Diamond, and A Safe and Effective Vaccine's Worst Nightmare, the twofer of Eric Clapton and Van Morrison.

40:58these players don't don't don't put van in there van is not a vaccine guy no van didn't they collaborate on an anti-vax single no no van didn't like the shutdowns okay he's not an anti clapton is an anti-vaxxer van is not an anti-vaxxer he was he was against like the i'm not defending him being against shutdowns but just to be clear because van has been painted with that brush. Just for the sake of accuracy, he's not an anti-vaxxer though. You were going to tell me that Van Morrison is as much a karate expert as Dirk Diggler is next. Well, no, Van is a crank and he's the grumpiest man in rock.

41:38And he just doesn't want to be told what to do. And every album he's ever made, there's like one song where he's accusing people of ripping him off. There's a song about childhood, there's a song about God, and there's a song about people ripping off Van Morrison. That is the holy charm. I'm in the green grass while someone lifted my wallet. Yeah, or like stealing my ideas usually. You know, that's the big thing. Like he has a song called Jealousy and Professional Jealousy. Those are two different songs from Van Morrison. He had a song called Jealousy and he's like, no, I need to be more specific.

42:13I'm going to have a song called Professional Jealousy. So he's a grumpy guy in a lot of ways, but I got to push back against the anti-vaxxer thing. So anyway, I'm sorry. Sorry to interrupt. I'm keeping the line. Anyway, you have already said, I think wisely, correctly, that Stop Making Sense is about a band and The Last Waltz is about rock and roll, you know, broader genre, broader tradition. But is The Last Waltz, is it watered down a little bit by the presence of these guests, by the interviews shot at Shangri-La some months later? Do you have any sympathy for people who see these elements as equivocating, not just giving us the pure band in isolation?

42:52Well, okay. So I think what you're setting up here is you're going to make a case that Les Waltz is overstuffed and Stop Making Sense is the more austere film. Like you'll probably ask Elizabeth, is it too austere? And she can answer that when you ask her that. But like for me, is it overstuffed? Yes, it is. But I think like anything that becomes iconic, the overstuffedness of it becomes part of the attributes of the experience. That the fact that Neil Diamond is here, like why is Neil Diamond here? Well, Neil Diamond is here because Robbie Robinson produced an album called Beautiful Noise that came out in 1976 that nobody remembers.

43:33but it was relevant in 1976. So you get Neil Diamond showing up playing this song called Dry Your Eyes, which is from said album. No one remembers that song, but it's immortal because it's in The Last Waltz. Yeah, I mean, I think some of those more bloated aspects of The Last Waltz, I wouldn't take it out. I don't think that The Last Waltz would be a better film if it were 90 minutes long. I think part of the greatness of it is the indulgence of it. In the same way that stopped making sense, if it were longer, it wouldn't be better. It's perfect as it is. It is an austere, lean, propulsive film.

44:07Like, you never get a chance to really catch your breath. And if you added 20 minutes to it, it would make the film worse. And I think if you took Neil Diamond out of The Last Waltz, I think it would make it worse. Do the interviews need to be there? Let me ask you now, now that The Last Waltz is over, what are you doing now? I mean, then we don't have Rick Danko sitting in a dark studio listening to Sip the Wine. And having this existential sort of ennui drift over him, this little moment in the film, which is so great. I want to lay down beside you. You know, Levon Helm talking about the midnight rambles that he went to when he was a kid.

44:54The master of ceremonies would come out, you know, just before the finale and explain that after the finale, after the kids go home, they'd have the midnight ramble, right? The midnight ramble. And the songs would get a little bit juicier and the jokes would get a little funnier. And the prettiest dancer would really get down and shake it a few times. It's great. You know, Richard Manuel, who looks gacked out of his mind, him kind of talking about shoplifting salamis, you know, like when they were poor. All that stuff is great. I wouldn't want any of it to go anywhere. So, you know, it's like talking about an album, a great album.

45:33Would it be better if you cut this song out? Well, it's a classic album. Like you need revolution number nine in the white album. It's part of the white album. And yeah, maybe it would be a more consistent listen if you took that out, but it wouldn't be the same thing. So I think that shagginess of The Last Waltz is actually part of the classic rockness of it, really. So I like the sprawl, if we want to call it a sprawl or a bloat of The Last Waltz. All right. This is consistent. I know you are generally like pro-excess in just having read your criticism for many years. Yes, I go on too long, too, in my writing.

46:08So, you know, I'm not propulsive either or austere. So, you know, I think you are a magnificent, cogent, insightful critic in all sincerity. All right. So now I'm going to pivot to Elizabeth and invite you to make the case that Talking Heads perform Take Me to the River better than the band performs Don't Do It. Going to the well of R &B, soul, classics. Can you make this case? Well, I just wanted to say, I mean, Stephen's response about like thinking about it as an album and, you know, the bloat, it was making me put on my teacher hat and think about when I teach books, there's like two types of books that I love to teach.

46:49And one is the gigantic epic novel, right? I love teaching War and Peace. I love War and Peace. There's a lot of stuff in War and Peace that doesn't need to be in War and Peace. But if you took it out, it wouldn't be war and peace. Right. And I love that. Same with like Infinite Jest, like this giant, sprawling, footnoted thing that is its own entity that kind of like allows for all these different entry points. And it's beautiful. But I also love The Great Gatsby and I love The Haunting of Hill House, which are these slim little volumes where every sentence matters, right? Where every line is there for a clear reason.

47:28But that's doing a different thing than the big book. So, yeah, if we're going with I love big books and I cannot lie where it's the last wolf. But I think Stop Making Sense is like a beautiful little almost maybe a little poem. But yeah. OK, so I mean, I'm going to argue for Take Me to the River because I do think Take Me to the River, the performance even specifically in Stop Making Sense is so it's so embodied. Like it feels, and I know it's different from the original version and it's David Byrne doing his take on this song, but it does feel like you're at some kind of insane baptism. baptism.

48:19Where you've got these shining bright neon blue lights at the sides of the stage. He's like slicked with sweat at that point in the show. And so it's like dripping off of him like this baptism. And I think he's very sexy in this number too, which we can talk about later if we want to.

48:41And then he gets out the beach ball. That's at the end of Take Me to the River, right? The beach ball. And you're like, we're at the end of the movie. What's happening? But I mean, obviously, they're both great performances. Okay. I lost, but I have no choice but to award you full points for that answer. If only for I like big books and I cannot lie, Elizabeth. I, you know, so full. Did I get points for mine? I don't remember getting points for mine. Which one was yours? You should have gotten points for yours, Stephen. What was your Bon Mo? You asked me about the bloat versus... Yeah, three points for access.

49:15Okay. I would just say, I think that Elizabeth is probably right. The case I would make for Don't Do It in the Last Waltz is just where it is in the film. That you see the band playing it over the opening credits. and it just sets up the fact that these are five of the coolest looking grizzled bearded people that have ever appeared on film and i love that it's the last song of the concert but they put it at the beginning so it's a bit of a flash forward in the film so i just think i don't know if the performance is better but i love how it's used in the film that would be my case for don't do it.

49:54Okay. One thing I didn't realize was how recent a song Take Me to the River was when Talking Heads started performing because it showed up in their set in the 70s, right? And I mean, I thought that was an older song, but I think 74 is when the Al Green version comes out. So like, I sort of thought it was already a classic at that time and maybe it was, but I don't know, I think the Talking Heads version became more famous than the Al Green version pretty quick. All right. Well, in the spirit of excess and bloat, before we wrap up the movies in their time segment, I want to call out one specific extra from the Criterion edition of The Last Waltz that I was just earlier today delighted to discover.

50:33This is an April 1978 excerpt from the CBC chat show 90 Minutes Live where Scorsese and Robertson come on on their initial press tour for The Last Waltz. And the first guest on that episode who moves down the couch as they show up is my old boss, Ricky Jay. 27 years before he hired me to be his assistant back when he was not much older than I was when I started working for him. His hair is down to his butt. He's wearing this beautiful periwinkle blue suit with large lapels. doesn't say a word. He's just standing there listening to Martin Scorsese and as the host calls him Rodney Robertson talk about the last waltz at one time.

51:11But I was excited to see it and I was saying that to buy some time for the scoring panel in my brain as they crunch the data. So I can say that as we come to the end of round one, I have Elizabeth in the lead nine to eight. But it's close. It's close. Yes. Plenty of time, Stephen, even in this, you know, arbitrary fascist regime for you to turn things around.

51:55That call was really pivotal for me. Hey, it's Emily Tisch-Sussman, and this season on She Pivots, the podcast where women share bold career moves and personal turning points that changed everything. I sit down with culture-shifting women who share their pivots, like Paralympian Allie Truitt. I was like, I'm a month out from a shark attack. There's no way in 11 months I'm making the Paralympics. Advocate Elizabeth Smart. I still feel that drive that I can still make a difference, so I'm going to keep going. Celebrity chef Carla Hall. Was that scary to walk away from such a stable career after just two years?

52:28No, I was more afraid of being unhappy than I was broke in a dead end job that I didn't enjoy. And feminist legend Gloria Steinem. All of us were trying to express women's real lives. We need a meeting place of our own. And if I can contribute to that, I'd like to maintain that and leave this house for that purpose. Listen to She Pivots on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

53:19And each week we unpack the psychology behind the experiences that shape your 20s. From relationships and friendships to money, anxiety, confidence, attachment. Just becoming more comfortable with who you are. Unlike the quarter life crisis, which is depicted as the collapse, the quarter life reinvention is the expansion and growth of something. When we develop the ability to be happy by ourselves, nobody else can take that from you. So this Self Care September, don't just take care of yourself. Get to know yourself as well. Listen to The Psychology of Your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

53:56By age 11 or so, at least 70 % have a phone. Middle school is a different world than the one we grew up in. I'm Dr. Joy, and this is Therapy for Black Girls. We spend real time on it in our surviving middle school run, bringing in a child psychologist and a psychiatrist who's raising two Black girls of his own to talk about what's really going on with our kids right now. So it's literally physiological and neurological and psychological chaos happening all at the same time. We got into group chats and gaming, friendships and bullying, and how to tell the difference between healthy monitoring and the kind of surveillance that erodes trust.

54:31There's belonging. You could think of belonging as I can be myself and I can still be accepted. And then there's fitting in. Fitting in says I have to change who I am in order to avoid rejection. Then we turned the conversation toward the fathers. sitting down with therapist Kier Gaines on Black fatherhood and what it means to raise a daughter through this stage. You don't have on shorts, so you can't do flips. You have on the dress, so you have to cross your legs. That's the range of this run, from screen time to identity to the fathers doing the work at home. You have to get off your device.

55:02But the reality is there's a lot of life out there that we don't want you as your adult and your life to miss out on. This has been our Surviving Middle School Run, brought to you by the people who spend their careers thinking about exactly this. I'm Dr. Joy. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's up? I'm Toni Gonzalez. And I'm October Gonzalez. But you can call me Toby. We want you to join us on our new podcast, No Safe Words with October and Toni Gonzalez. We get real about marriage, parenthood, sex, divorce, and all the nitty gritty stuff we all think about.

55:38But just don't say out loud. I hate that job. You're probably just going to meet some rich guy and he's going to whisk you away and I'll never see you again. Oh, this is awkward. Would you say D-list actor? D? I don't even know there's such a thing as D. No, no, no. I mean, like... I can't even get on the C-list. Like, I'm not even average. I'm not even passing. I'm failing. Listen to No Safe Words with October and Tony Gonzalez, part of My Cultura Podcast Network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Round two. The movies in our time, we will consider what these films have come to represent in the more than four decades since they were new.

56:16So to give a little context here for where each of these directors were in their career at the time of these films, Scorsese shoots the Thanksgiving 76 concert that makes up the bulk of The Last Waltz right after he finished his shooting, but is far from done editing New York, New York. Taxi Driver had come out early in that year. So as messed up as he seemed to be personally, as he was later described himself in that period, creatively, he was riding high. And this fast friendship with Robertson, this is the beginning of a collaboration that will certainly last the rest of Robertson's life. But I want to point out that just in the, actually, I think you already said this, Stephen, like, I mean, in the 17 month interval between when most of The Last Waltz was shot and when it was released in April 78, punk happens, Star Wars happens, all these seismic pop cultural events come out.

57:06And that, for me, kind of reinforces the sense that this is a document of the past, you know, a sort of a farewell to an entire tradition and musical idiom in the same way that, to me, 40 years later, Stop Making Sense still kind of feels like the future. And we also know Jonathan Demme has said he's coming off of making Swing Shift, this movie that he had a miserable time making. He said he briefly thought about giving up filmmaking altogether and making Stop Making Sense so quickly. And in such close collaboration with David Byrne, renews him. David Byrne writes a song for his next feature, Something Wild.

57:41So just to use Jonathan Demme's own words, he's down and out after Swing Shift. So in the universe where he doesn't make Stop Making Sense, maybe we don't get The Silence of the Lambs. We don't get Philadelphia, Rachel Getting Married, you know, all these great Demme movies. Is this a critical entry in the Demme oeuvre in your mind, Elizabeth? Yeah, I mean, I think if you're looking at the filmography, it is at a hinge point, right, for him in terms of you can see him doing some interesting stuff. up until 1984. And then I think post Stop Making Sense, it really does feel like his style opens up and becomes what it ultimately will be known as.

58:22I mean, I was thinking about this when we put together the Jonathan Demme issue of Bright Wall Dark Room that you mentioned earlier. He's such a difficult director to pin down in terms of style because he really does do so many types of things. He has huge range, but anything that you're looking at that's going to talk about sort of what is the iconic Jonathan Demme turn is going to mention his use of close-ups, his use of the close-up, and that's where I'll return to that idea that like the intimacy of this film through these sort of close shots of David Byrne, I think really does segue into the intimacy you see with close shots of, say, Clarice from Silence of the Lambs, right?

59:06And you also see her as an outsider, the way you see David Byrne as an outsider, right? To hop onto what Stephen was saying about David Byrne's sort of awkward, I don't know if awkward's the right word, persona, right? His sort of strange compartmentalized persona feels very of a piece with the types of characters that Jonathan Demme would go on to focus on in his fictional films as well. These people who are sort of a little bit offbeat, a little bit not fitting into their circumstances. And so I think you could, I mean, obviously, I think I'm not going to pretend like if he hadn't made Stop Making Sense, he couldn't have made these other films.

59:47I think Jonathan Demme was a genius and probably would have gotten to those films no matter what. But I do think you can make the argument for Stop Making Sense as this sort of hinge point in his filmography where you see him kind of tap into like, oh, this is this is working for me in a really interesting way. Stephen, we already know once again, the deck and circumstance and this arbitrary fascist regime is stacked against you. But, you know, Martin Scorsese was like he was in the middle of editing New York, New York, to the point that Erwin Winkler, that film's producer, was furious when he found out that Scorsese had flown off to San Francisco to work on this other movie while he was supposed to be doing New York, New York.

1:00:25So it's tougher, I think, to argue for The Last Waltz as being an essential piece of the Scorsese mosaic. But if you're willing, make that case. Yeah, it's ironic that he was in the middle of editing this musical that ended up being a bit of a boondoggle. I mean, there's people that defend New York, New York, but it's definitely a difficult film. But he ended up making a musical of sorts that ended up being much more successful, I think, ultimately, than New York, New York. I mean, I would make a case for The Last Waltz. I think the case for Scorsese makes it difficult. He just has so many great movies.

1:00:59So if you're going to make like a top 10 Scorsese films, like is Last Waltz in there? Like, where do you put Last Waltz after Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Mean Streets, The Departed, Killers of the Flower Moon, on and on and on? And the case I would make for The Last Waltz for being a great Scorsese film, I think similar to Demi with Stop Making Sense, is that these are two of the great music film directors, directors that know how to use music in a film really effectively, where usually we're talking about needle drops with their films. But I mean, certainly with Demi, for instance, the way that he will interpolate musical performances into films that aren't really musical films, you know, the feelies being at Something Wild.

1:01:43Or what's that film where Meryl Streep plays the singer? Oh, Ricky and the Flash. There you go. Ricky and the Flash. It's like good musical sequences even in that film. Scorsese is one of the great users of rock music in cinema history. And I think The Last Waltz is an important part of that lineage. I would also say that it kind of depends on how you look at this. If you look at it purely from like a cinephile perspective, the case for The Last Waltz is harder in terms of it being an essential Scorsese film. But from a musical perspective, I don't think there's any question that this film has a life beyond its release that is very large.

1:02:24It has an outsized cultural footprint that I think can rival a lot of the great Scorsese films. I mean, I would just say if you look at any Americana artist right now, they dress like the people in this film. And that's true in 2026. Like the stock costume for a certain kind of artist comes from this film. And it has a contemporary relevance for that reason. So in that respect, I would definitely make the case for it being one of his essential films. An essential, Marty. Yeah, something I had never really noticed before is in the soundstage numbers in The Last Waltz, which are what? The Wait, the Overture for The Last Waltz, and what's the, Evangeline?

1:03:04Is that the other one? Evangeline, yeah. Yeah. At the end of one of them, I can't remember, it might be The Wait, since that's clearly, you know, like the showpiece song. And, you know, Scorsese has talked about it as, you know, in his mind being like the quintessential band song that he needed to capture for all time. And at the end of that soundstage performance, the camera holds on the crew kind of coming in. And there's just kind of like, well, was that a peek behind the curtain type thing? That is not at all different from, again, that idiom of the speaking in tongue stage show where the gear is being rolled out and they're building the show even as it's being performed.

1:03:38And I wondered if that – that's not something I've ever heard Demi talk about. But I mean, I wondered if that maybe planted the seed or – or I guess the question would be for David Byrne since it was, again, as we've said, already the speech. speaking in tongues show as it already existed when Jonathan Demme saw it. Well, both of these films, I think, are unique for concert films in that they largely don't show the audience. Yeah. You know, The Last Waltz actually does show the audience at the beginning, like standing outside Winterland. Yeah. But once you get into the concert, you don't see the audience at all.

1:04:07Unlike a film like Woodstock, where you're in the audience like forever, it feels like. You're just talking to these people forever. Or Gimme Shelter, where the environment is a big part of the movie. But like Stop Making Sense is even more focused on the band. Like you don't, I think you see people dancing at the end a little bit. Yeah, well, that's where the plushy unicorn shows up. The child with the plushy unicorn. Yeah. But it's a big part of what makes these films, I think, so immersive that you do feel like you're in the audience because you don't see the audience. Like you are in the audience and you're just watching the band.

1:04:41I fully agree. I think it's the trick is if you see the audience, then you automatically feel distanced from the audience and the experience. And if you don't see the audience, you are the audience. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, totally. Yeah, it's a difference between like watching a documentation of a concert and like being at a concert where I think it feels more like a regular documentary. If you see all the behind the scenes stuff and everything that goes on around the show. But I mean, definitely would stop making sense. Like you feel like you're seeing the talking. I mean, I remember seeing, I saw that re-release too, where it was on, it was an IMAX.

1:05:16Yeah, yeah. And it was incredible. I mean, it is the greatest concert, really, that you're going to see. And now I'm saying nice things about Stop Making Sense again. Yes. I've never seen it. Well, I will agree with you, Stephen, that Martin Scorsese, I think, is better at using music in his films than Demi. I think Scorsese is so good at using music in his films. So that's a point you get. Demi's really good, though, too. This is the, yeah, my one note on one battle after another last year is like the very end when American Girl comes in, you know, and I was like, wait, doesn't Jonathan Demme own that song?

1:05:46I mean, even though American Girl was already, what, at least a decade old when it was in Silence of the Lambs. And it's such a weird thing, too, to think of a needle drop in Silence of the Lambs because, you know, it's this procedural film. You don't think of it having like a needle drop, especially that kind of needle drop where you're with that character in a car and she's singing along to the song. But it's so great. It's such a great way to humanize her in like 30 seconds, you know, and oh, she's singing along to American Girl. I relate to her. Like you're with her immediately. Like she's a human being.

1:06:21And so it's not just like, oh, this is a cool song to put in a movie. It's using it in a brilliant character building way. Again, I'm saying nice things about your person, but it's true. He's great. He's great. Okay, so I'm giving Elizabeth two points there and Stephen three, despite his patently illegal compliments and concessions and general empathy for his opponent, just because it was the more lopsided question. All right, I'm going to pivot back to Elizabeth here. I think you, not just from watching the films, but from learning more about how they were made and the nature of the conception and the editing process.

1:06:57stuff. It seems to me Jonathan Demme has a crush on David Byrne. Martin Scorsese has a crush on Robbie Robertson. I think the Robertson-Scorsese union was a little more chafing to the other members of the band maybe than the Byrne-Demme brain trust was to the other heads. Feature or a bug, the fact that Demme is so in love with David Byrne and his ideas. I mean, I do think it's a feature of this film. I think that whatever impact it may or may not have had on the band's relationship with Byrne. I do think that the film benefits from that loving gaze. Could we call it a male gaze? A male gaze of David Byrne.

1:07:37And I think that what's unique about the way the camera loves David Byrne is that you're not seeing him in gauzy soft light like you would in Casablanca, right? Like you don't have like a, what you're doing is you're sort of stripping away those ways that we usually see celebrities or musical personas and you're seeing I know I've already talked about the sweat but there's a whole lot of sweat in this movie you're seeing that the physical effort that goes into this performance I mean I feel like when I watch this film I constantly am like worried about David Byrne where I'm like do you want to take some Gatorade breaks?

1:08:19Do you need an energy bar? If it were my child on that stage doing those things, I'd be like, honey, you got to come off into the wings and sit down for a few minutes because you're going to overheat. But ultimately, it is this sort of celebration of the human body, of what it means to be a committed artist, to be a committed musician, to leave it all on the floor. and I just love the way the camera looks at his face in different ways and even transforms like he feels like he almost transforms throughout the film as well I mean his hair certainly changes sometimes it's slicked back sometimes it's coming forward you've got different outfits but it almost follows his sort of chameleon-like persona as the film goes on and it is a fascinating 88 minutes of watching a really weird, interesting artist.

1:09:16And I think that the film would be less compelling to me if there were a little more democracy in the way people in the film were shot. But maybe I'm only saying that because I've been so convinced by Jonathan Demme's camera that David Byrne is the most compelling person to watch ever. But yeah, I do think he's not only in love with David Byrne in his camera work, but he's also impressed by David Byrne. Like you feel him going, wow, I want that level of commitment or that level of, it's not even just commitment, right? It's like almost a masochistic lack of care for the body in pursuit of some sort of artistic perfection.

1:10:02I don't remember exactly what year Jonathan Demme died, but I know the commentary track that I just watched on Stop Making Sense was recorded in 99. And he, during the Girlfriend is Better segment, he says, you know, everybody talks about how Robert De Niro gained and lost all this weight for Raging Bull, and no one ever talks about how David Byrne did it so quickly to fill that suit. And I was like, wait, is that a Scorsese dig? Is that a Last Waltz dig? I mean, Michael Chapman did shoot Raging Bull and the primary DP on the Last Waltz. All right, three points for concern for the stars' hydration there, Elizabeth.

1:10:34The first time I saw an E Street Band show from behind the drum kit, I was keeping track by the number of chords of Gatorade that Bruce pounded, which as a sweaty person, I appreciated. All right, Stephen, can you convince me that Scorsese's QPI adoration of Robbie Robertson is a selling point, is a virtue? I mean, can you blame Scorsese? I mean, Robbie Robertson's hair in this film is unbelievable. I mean, it's just his wide-collared shirt and the scarf. I mean, he's like the most dashing-looking guy. No, I actually think that the focus on Robertson and even the focus on Byrne, I actually think it's overstated a little bit.

1:11:17I mean, clearly these are the leading men of the respected films. But I actually feel like you do get a lot of character moments with other people in the bands. with stock making sense i mean one of the things i love about that movie is that you do feel like you get a little bit of time with each person on stage like i feel like i know alex weir and steve souls and lynn mabry like i like i fall in love like with each member of what they're doing like i know how they're moving around on stage and i know their little ticks and how they're smiling at each other like i i do think that it's not just david byrne in that film i would actually say that Tina Weymouth is the most attractive person and stop making sense.

1:11:59In the same way, I might argue that like Levon Helm is actually the best looking guy in The Last Waltz. I mean, he has incredible leading man moments in the film, which is funny because he hates the movie. I mean, he's trashed The Last Waltz. He trashed it in his book, His Wheels on Fire, and he talked about how much he hated it, how much he hated Scorsese. But I mean, come on, when he's singing the night they drove all Dixie down, he's wearing that kind of see-through shirt, and he's got like, his hair is kind of poofed up, and his beard's looking great. I mean, it's the best-looking Levon Helm has ever been, ever on film.

1:12:37If you look at other performances of him from the 70s, and certainly after that, he never looks as good as he does in The Last Waltz. Same thing with Rick Danko. He looks incredible. All of the other guest stars that come on stage, they all look great. The only person that really gets short shrift in The Last Waltz is Richard Manuel, who you don't see. And if you only know about the band from The Last Waltz, you wouldn't be aware of how important he was to the band in their early history. And the justification for that has always been that he was in really rough shape. And Scorsese felt like he was doing Manuel favor, basically, by not showing him on camera.

1:13:18And you can see that a bit in some of the interview footage and even some of the performance footage. You know, he's wearing this, like, plaid suit, and he looks pretty pale. A little worse for wear. He sings Shape I'm In, ironically. You know, he's not in very good shape in the film. I just be looking for my maker. And I hear that's what you're going on. Out of night line, I've spent seven. All in the world, yet to heaven. But yeah, I mean, Scorsese especially has taken a lot of grief, I think, for how much he featured Robertson in the film. But I don't know. I feel like I come away from that film remembering a lot of other people and what they did.

1:14:05So I feel like there are instances where people have their moments in that film enough where it's not overbearing to me how much Robertson is featured. His floppy hair and all that stuff. Right. I'm going to give you the full three for that one. Yes, I was thinking, watching this movie again, and the criterion 4K of The Last Waltz just looks so, so damn good. I know from reading your book, Stephen, you watch this film on VHS. I was unaware of The Last Waltz during the analog video era, so I have only seen it in its pristine form. But yeah, looking at every band member, regardless of what their health, substance abuse, etc., whatever status was in that, I thought of the Fablemans where the bully, you know, tells the Spielberg stand-in, like, I don't know how you made me look like that.

1:14:54And why did you make me look so heroic? And yeah, everybody looks super hot in that movie. So that brings me to the next category, cinematography. Here again, you know, just by the numbers, the Last Waltz would seem to have the advantage because we have primarily Michael Chapman, again, taxi driver, Raging Bull, etc. Laszlo Kovacs is the guy who happened to catch that Muddy Waters performance, is the only guy whose camera was operating at that moment. Vilmos Zygmunt, who I was either still shooting Close Encounters or had just shot Close Encounters, hard to tell. Close Encounters comes out November 77, the year after that Last Waltz concert.

1:15:29But clearly this is as much a murderer's row of DPs as it was of great singer-songwriters. On the other hand, it stopped making sense. Demi's usual DP, Tak Fujimoto, was unavailable. So he got Jordan Cronenweth, who had done Citizen's Band for him. But he is coming off of Blade Runner, one of the most visually influential films of the last 45 years. And Demi said he had to talk him into it because he didn't really think Cronenweth was much of a rock fan. Stephen, make the case, if you wish, that The Last Waltz is the better looking concert film. Look, Stop Making Sense, I think, looks fantastic.

1:16:05I mean, especially the way it's lit and the way it takes you, again, through all these different parts of the show while also having a pretty bare bones stage. I mean, it seems like that was done primarily through lighting and then with the filmmaking, just like where he's putting the camera and the way it's edited and all that. So it looks great. But come on, it's The Last Waltz. I mean, it looks like Gone with the Wind, you know? It just looks like this classic Hollywood production. Just the browns and, like, the greens and, like, those dark kind of autumn colors in The Last Waltz and the reds of it.

1:16:44I mean, it really looks like autumn in a lot of ways. Like, it feels like a Thanksgiving film. It feels like the end of the year. It feels like the end of an era. and it's just rendered so gorgeously and it adds to the feeling that this is a momentous occasion, that this is, I'm not going to say the phrase that got me dinged. I almost said it. A unique, unprecedented, in a generation. A mono occurrence. A mono, yes. A singular thing in a span of time, one could say this event is. I feel like we could punch up your phrasing there. I'm trying not to say any talking head song titles as I'm describing this.

1:17:24But yeah, I just feel like the way that he shot it too, I think that it afforded a level of grandeur to a rock concert that we really hadn't seen before. I think that when you look at the older rock films, there's a grittiness to them. You know, they kind of look like they're shot on 16mm a lot of the time. And for him to come in and shoot it like it was an MGM musical, you know, similar to the flair that he brought to New York, New York, I think really makes The Last Waltz unique. I think even now, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a concert film that just looks as good as this. And you probably won't again.

1:18:01I mean, I can't imagine what it would cost to employ all those people now, like in 2026 dollars, if you're going to shoot the last concert of whoever now. I think it'd be impossible. So I think not only is this a singular event in terms of the musicians involved, but also all of those great cinematographers coming together for one concert film. It just adds to the specialness, I think, of the enterprise. All right. So you are swayed by those those rented chandeliers, Stephen. We should say about Boris Levin, the production designer from West Side Story and other classic musicals who worked on The Last Waltz that that worked for you.

1:18:38You know, based on that, I think for a lot of people, certainly me, like I hadn't been to a lot of concerts when I saw The Last Waltz for the first time, you know, as a teenager. So it really sets you up for a grandiose experience that you are not going to have replicated, you know, in your life. But as great as Stop Making Sense looks as a film, and it does look great, you can't look better than The Last Waltz. I just think that's self-evident to me. Okay. Persuasive, three points, Elizabeth. To stop making sense, please your eye more. I mean, listen, I am going to concede that Michael Chapman, I think, is fantastic.

1:19:16Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of my all-time favorites. Oh, the 1978? Yes. Yes, with baby Jeff Goldblum. It goes back to the greens in that movie. Just blow me away. What Michael Chapman does with colors, I think, is amazing. And I did watch The Last Waltz a couple nights ago, just so I could remember what I was up against. And I did instantly go, ah, the colors here are so great. So I'm going to acknowledge that I think Chapman's colors and the colors of The Last Waltz and the way it looks are fantastic. I was thinking about comparing the cinematography of these two films like drinks, right?

1:19:58So like The Last Waltz is super smooth. it's like a really well-crafted like herbal gin cocktail that doesn't even really taste like it has alcohol in it right where you're just like oh i could just keep drinking this right like it's amazing it's so artistic i think stop making sense is like a strong dirty martini right where you're like oh it's like it's burnt it's a little salty it's it's gonna like make you want to get up and dance, but it's not necessarily going to soothe you. It's a little bit in your face. I do think the cinematography of that film works for what the film wants to do. Does it look better than The Last Waltz?

1:20:38I don't know if I can say it looks better, but I think that it is ultimately so good at achieving the effect for the viewer that the movie wants to achieve, which is that immersive, hot, like you could feel the heat of the lights on you almost when you're watching it. You feel like you are up there on the stage with the band. And I think that the way it looks is central to the way it creates an experience for the viewer. So in that way, I think it would be, that's the way I could argue for Stop Making Sense. Not, like I said, not looking better, but like having more effective cinematography for its purpose.

1:21:19Can I just say that there's this shot in Stop Making Sense that I think is like one of the greatest shots in any music film I've seen, which is during Found a Job at the end of the song where the camera's on the side of the stage and you see the two guitar players and the bass player bobbing and weaving. Yeah. I love that shot. I just think that's one of the greatest sort of performance and showing how a band works together shots ever. And it's not flashy, but it is so evocative and it says so much. I've rewound that part many times, like whenever I've watched that film. I just think that's like one of the most amazing shots in any concert film.

1:22:16All right. So I had three points for Elizabeth for a expressive and salivating cocktail metaphor, but I am docking her one point for empathy, reasonableness, kindness to her opponent. We don't want to see that. So that's a warning for you. Why do I get docked? Because I just went on a thing about how good this shot was. Well, you've already been penalized. That's in character for you right now, Stephen. All right. Well, it's just fun. I want to talk about how Good Stop Making Sense is, too. I love both these films. You know, Stephen, Elizabeth, like other regimes, this one is not merely fascistic, but also incompetent.

1:22:50You know, we're not consistent in our evil over here. All right. I need you two to vamp for a moment while I do some simple addition. Okay. We'll take the whole of my mental faculties here. No, I mean, I do think it's fun to talk about how good each film is because they are two of the best music films around. And like I said, I think Stop Making Sense opened me up to seeing that a concert film could be something more. In my younger, you know, 20-something head, it was like, you're just listening to the music. And I think both of these films really are doing something so much bigger than just listening to the music.

1:23:27Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of concert films that are just shot for just being watched at home. Like, they're basically just things for fans to watch where it's just as straightforward. But these are, like, really cinematic. They're real films. They are. And I think for this show to really work, if I can offer another comment, please, write it down, drop it in the mail, is that you need to have, like, one insane person who's going to argue for something that is totally off base. That's totally unhinged. Yeah. Yeah, so you need to have, like, stop making sense. And someone who is like, Jonas Brothers Live at the Rose Bowl is the greatest concert film of all time.

1:24:03Well, Stephen, I have. Because then it would be like, it could be something really at stake. Because maybe the insane person is like a brilliant debater. And they'll win the debate, even though they're clearly wrong. You know? That might make the show more interesting. We could talk about like M. Night Shyamalan's trap and argue for trap as a concert film. That would be interesting. Isn't his daughter the pop star in that movie? Yeah. And it is like 90 % a concert. It's true. And I saw that on a plane and loved it. So it was a great plane. It's a fun movie. It's actually a fun movie. A great plane movie that's a fake concert film.

1:24:42There you go. It's in that genre for me. We just need to come up with one more of those so that we can have a death match. Oh man, plane movies would be a great category. I'd love talking about plane movies. I cried twice watching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 on a plane. It was like Turns of Endearment or something. I mean, was it just not that you liked one of the songs on the... I mean, those are famously soundtrack-forward movies, right? They're well-curated. I think it was like the Kurt Russell being his dad. Oh, okay. And also you're like 30 ,000 feet in the sky. I've heard that you cry more on planes.

1:25:15You're dehydrated. I believe that. Your blood pressure is different. Yeah. So, all right. Well, Stephen, your wish for more chaos. I will warn you, you have emboldened me for something I wasn't sure whether to do in round three, but now it's coming. So coming to the end of round two, the movie's in our time. I have this, a very tight 20 to 19 game in favor of Elizabeth. Still, still very close. He's going to take, he's going to take what he wants whenever. He's going to say, he's going to say I'm his only treasure. He's gonna fake, he's gonna fake Till he got me tethered A cliche overplayed Gotta choose him better That call was really pivotal for me.

1:26:02Hey, it's Emily Tisch-Sussman and this season on She Pivots, the podcast where women share bold career moves and personal turning points that changed everything. I sit down with culture-shifting women who share their pivots like Paralympian Allie Truitt. I was like, I'm a month out from a shark attack. There's no way in 11 months I'm making the Paralympics. Advocate Elizabeth Smart. I still feel that drive that I can still make a difference. So I'm going to keep going. Celebrity chef Carla Hall. Was that scary to walk away from such a stable career after just two years? No, I was more afraid of being unhappy than I was broke in a dead end job that I didn't enjoy.

1:26:40And feminist legend Gloria Steinem. All of us were trying to express women's real lives. We need a meeting place of our own. And if I can contribute to that, I'd like to maintain that and leave this house for that purpose. Listen to She Pivots on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Self-Care September is here, which means it's time to rethink what self-care actually means. Yes, self-care can be a long walk. It can be an everything shower. It can be putting your phone on do not disturb. but sometimes it's actually about sitting with the uncomfortable stuff and understanding your patterns, your boundaries, finally figuring out why you keep doing things that you swore you would never do again.

1:27:21I'm Gemma Spegg, the host of the Psychology of Your 20s podcast, and each week we unpack the psychology behind the experiences that shape your 20s, from relationships and friendships to money, anxiety, confidence, attachment, just becoming more comfortable with who you are. Unlike the quarter-life crisis, which is depicted as the collapse, the quarter-life reinvention is the expansion and growth of something. When we develop the ability to be happy by ourselves, nobody else can take that from you. So this Self-Care September, don't just take care of yourself, get to know yourself as well. Listen to The Psychology of Your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:28:00By age 11 or so, at least 70 % have a phone. Middle school is a different world than the one we grew up in. I'm Dr. Joy, and this is Therapy for Black Girls. We spent real time on it in our surviving middle school run, bringing in a child psychologist and a psychiatrist who's raising two Black girls of his own to talk about what's really going on with our kids right now. So it's literally physiological and neurological and psychological chaos happening all at the same time. We got into group chats and gaming, friendships and bullying, and how to tell the difference between healthy monitoring and the kind of surveillance that erodes trust.

1:28:36There's belonging. You could think of belonging as I can be myself and I can still be accepted. And then there's fitting in. Fitting in says I have to change who I am in order to avoid rejection. Then we turn the conversation toward the fathers, sitting down with therapist Kira Gaines on Black fatherhood and what it means to raise a daughter through this stage. You don't have on shorts, so you can't do flips. You have on the dresser, you have to cross your legs. That's the range of this run, from screen time to identity to the fathers doing the work at home. You have to get off our device. But the reality is there's a lot of life out there that we don't want you as your adult in your life to miss out on.

1:29:13This has been our Surviving Middle School Run, brought to you by the people who spend their careers thinking about exactly this. I'm Dr. Joy. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Bobby Bones. Join me and former NFL quarterback Matt Castle every Wednesday on our podcast, Lots to Say, with me, Bobby Bones, and Matt Castle. We also bring in friends, they're mostly Matt's friends, who are current or former NFL players. Some of the biggest names in music and entertainment. And then we have some really great conversations that can pretty much go anywhere.

1:29:48The great Pac-Man Jones. After the game, the whole National Task Force for Police Officers was at the stadium. Like, hey, buddy, yeah, you at them? Come on. And one of my favorite segments we do is called Situational Awareness, where Bobby and I give each other real-life situations and figure out what we'd actually do. You're in training camp, and the rookie quarterback has one good throwing session in front of the media. Suddenly, everybody online says he should start over you week one. How do you handle this? You just go back out to practice the next day and wait for him to mess up. Listen to Lots to Say with Bobby Bones and Matt Castle on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:30:28for round three the movies for all time where we consider how these films echo through eternity i have gone to more arbitrary and perhaps even irrelevant lightning round style questions to allow someone to make the difference and i will uh i'll begin with steven this time can you tell me that 33 year old robbie robertson is hotter than 31 year old david byrne yeah yeah no question Okay. Briefly, briefly, let's make this a, is it the hair? Is it the, what are we talking about here? Yeah. And I think it's clear without getting vulgar that he's done more of that sort of thing than David Byrne has.

1:31:08It would probably be more skilled. He just looks like that kind of person at that age, you know, at that time. David Byrne did not get an offer from Ronnie Hawkins that he could not refuse. But again, what I was saying before, I mean, I would actually, if you want to say Tina Weymouth versus Le 'Veon Helm, that's a whole other issue. Okay. But if it's Robbie versus David Byrne, I mean, I know, Elizabeth, you were talking about how sexy he is. So, you know, this is all in the eye of the beholder. I think of David Byrne as being like an asexual person. I kind of do too. He's very magnetic, but he's not very sexual to me.

1:31:43Whereas Robbie, I mean, let's be real. If you're alone with Robbie in 1976, I don't care what persuasion you are. I would be nervous myself around Robbie. I would be like, oh, those eyes. Where are we going, Robbie? I'll go wherever you want to go. So I just think he's got the rock star thing. He's more of a rock star than David Byrne is, I would say. As great as David Byrne is. Not a rock star. Okay. Again, I'm only giving you two points there because once again, you conceded a point to your opponent. Elizabeth, let your horn. I thought I was docked because I said I would go home with Robbie Robertson.

1:32:21I thought I made it weird there and you didn't know what to do. I don't know what to do with that one. Don't worry. Weirder questions yet to come. Let's get primal here, Elizabeth. Make the case for the sexual or intellectual or whatever magnetism of 31-year-old David Byrne. I think sexiness is totally divorced from beauty, looks, also experience, if we're going to go with experience, Stephen. To me, something sexy, someone sexy is someone who carries an aura about them that is unique, unrepeatable, that makes you go like, wow, I want to get into this person's bed because there's no one else like them, right?

1:33:05because they are so out there. There's so, there's no, like I said in my opening statement, there's no one like David Byrne, right? And I feel like that makes him sexy, that sort of compelling, like I have no idea what's going on with this man and maybe if I got closer to him, I could figure it out a little bit. Also, I do think that the way that he's shot and stopped making sense is more tangible than Robbie Robertson. I think he feels like a very tangible body. And you can't tell me that when he takes off the big suit, there's not a moment where you're like, yeah, just keep going, right? Like, just keep taking it off.

1:33:45I think he's so compelling and, like you said, magnetic. But to me, that is very sexy. And I am also a weirdo. So, like, maybe sometimes my picks for people I think are very sexy bother my husband because he's like, wait, do I look like that guy? But it's about the aura. Okay. Stephen, you've been hurt a little bit on this subject. Can you convince me that Van Morrison, again, I'm going to say inventing Jack Black's entire persona during his performance of Caravan in The Last Waltz, that that is less embarrassing than Chris Franz's vocal on Genius of love when he's trying to do the James Brown yelps and squeals and everything, in addition to just going, James Brown, James Brown, check it out, y 'all, in his golf shirt.

1:34:34Does Van still come out a winner in this equation? Well, I mean, I sort of reject the premise of this question, actually, because I don't think either one is objectionable. I think they are both doing something where they are normal looking guys who are doing something extraordinary on stage. And I think that's a appeal of both of them, you know, where if you watch it, yeah, it's not David Byrne, it's not Robbie Robertson, but it is like people kind of stepping out from the audience almost and being extraordinary. I mean, I would say that Van Morrison is a better performance than Genius of Love in Stop Making Sense.

1:35:14I just think he's such an incredible singer. And I always love that magic trick that Van Morrison pulls, like where he comes out on stage and you're like, what is this guy going to do? Like this schlubby looking guy. And then he opens his voice and it's like this voice of an angel.

1:35:36I can't hear that Mary just say play. You know, and he has such great magnetism. I feel like I'm a bigger Van Morrison fan maybe than certainly you, Chris. I don't know if you, we had the whole anti-vaxxer thing. I don't know if I'm like fighting against that still, but I don't know. It's hard for me to believe that people watch Caravan or Genius of Love and just have their head in their hands and like, oh my God, I can't even watch this. This is awkward or uncomfortable. If someone is doing that, I put that on them being a killjoy and having just like a superior attitude about things. Because I think that they're both extraordinary.

1:36:19But I would say if I had to pick one, yeah, I think Van doing Caravan is one of the greatest performances ever in a film. But I'm not going to knock Chris France at all. I don't think, I don't find that embarrassing. I mean, come on. It's Chris France. Yes. You know, no one here on this show is as cool as Chris France was on his worst day. You know, he's the drummer of the Talking Heads. What have any of us done, you know, that is as cool as that? Like, nothing. Just because he's dressed like he works in a cell phone store. That's part of the great thing about him, though. That's part of the great thing about Chris France.

1:36:54In the same way that David Byrne was a guy who looked like a normal guy at the beginning, and then he does all these extraordinary things. And you're like, wow, that guy did that? That's amazing. And I always feel like that was part of the cool thing about the Talking Heads is that they didn't dress like a rock band. They dressed like college students or people that work in an office. And yet they could make some of the most forward thinking and funky music of their time. You know, if they had looked more exotic, I don't think it would have been as interesting, you know? Right. So you need that tension, I think, that normal people doing extraordinary things, I think, is a big part of certainly stop making sense.

1:37:36Van does not look ordinary. I mean, he looks crazy, but it's amazing. He totally kills it. Steven, I want to give you three points for knowing which Chris to defend and which Chris to antagonize. But once again, you're defending your opponent's champion here. So I'm going to dock you one point there and give you two points. I'm attacking the premise of the question. You are. I'm attacking the fascist state here. Full point for combativeness and rebellion. But I don't think it's cringey. I don't think either one is cringey. Elizabeth, do you feel like a turquoise polo shirt is more flattering to any man than a very tight-fitting purple tank top with a sort of paunch spilling out over it and all of that?

1:38:24make the pro-France argument? I mean, I think the pro-France argument is not that it's a better performance because I don't love the performance, but I think the pro-France... Van Morrison? Van Morrison, check it out, y 'all. I mean, listen, is it bizarre? Yes. And so that's where I think you could make the argument because the film is, as I said before, it is sort of this experimental art band, right? Doing this experimental art performance. I mean, we didn't really talk about the sort of strange, it's in Making Flippy Floppy, I think, the strange projections on the back where you have things that say like pancakes, onions.

1:39:12It's weird. And so I think that Chris Francis' performance within the context of the film makes sense. As Stephen said, isn't like super off-putting because you're in the mode at that point in the set list of like, all right, I'm just going to go with whatever's happening. I've surrendered at this point to whatever's going on on this stage. I have no control over my ability to leave the television screen or the movie theater. I have to watch this. So is it really, really strange? And in some ways, maybe not technically good. Yes.

1:39:52But is it also like a compelling piece of this larger hole? Yeah, I don't think you could. I don't think you could pull this number out. I think you need it in there to get the full effect. James Brown, James Brown, y 'all. He still is the godfather of soul, y 'all, so check it out. Okay. Yeah, in one of those retrospective interviews that I think was shot in 2023 for the re-release, Tina Weymouth says that Demi or somebody told her, oh, we're not going to use the Tom Tom Club number. And she was like, that's fine. I don't think you should. And then said she was surprised that it turned up in the movie.

1:40:31She also said that Pauline Kael singled it out as not belonging, but then said she came around. So I guess, I don't know, maybe Kael reviewed the film on more than one occasion. I have not been able to find more than one Kael piece, but I am citing Tina Weymouth here circa 2023. Is that a common complaint about that making sense? Like, do people not like genius of love? I think a lot of people would see that as a number that they're going to get up and get water, get a snack. Well, and I mean, it is a costume change for Byrne, right? I mean, it does have a practical spot in the show. I guess I've never felt that way watching the movie.

1:41:05I guess I understand why people feel that way, but it's such a tight film. I don't feel like there's any, I don't even feel like that is a down part for me. But a genius of love defender over here, I guess. I mean, as you guys were talking, I was also just thinking about how if you're looking at the contemporary influence of Stop Making Sense, there's so many ways in which Stop Making Sense has been parodied, has been referenced, has been reimagined in the public consciousness, right? You have a Documentary Now episode that's basically sort of doing sections of Stop Making Sense. You have the big suit, as we've already referenced, which becomes this sort of iconic visual referent that shows up in various places.

1:41:48Even people who don't know anything about the talking heads or David Byrne. I had a colleague at my old job, the last school I was at, who literally had no public consciousness of this. And I was talking about the talking heads at some point, and she said, I don't think I know who the talking heads are. And I was like, yeah, but it's like, do you know the big suit? And she was like, oh, the big suit? Like, she knew that aspect of it. I think that the bleed of Stop Making Sense into contemporary culture, I would argue, is greater in certain ways than The Last Waltz. Even the re-release in theaters that I think was really well received in a lot of theaters just, and wasn't that a couple years ago, 2023?

1:42:31It was 2023, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, if we're talking about influences and how this film has continued to grow and to be seen in the public consciousness, I'm going to argue that Stop Making Sense has so many more pieces of it that people know culturally, even if they are not aware of the film. And I would disagree with that. Oh, okay. Well, and I said this before, I think that Stop Making Sense, I guess I'm thinking in terms of music culture, really rises and falls depending on where Talking Heads' stock is at, at a current moment in time. And there are times when Talking Heads, like any legacy band, comes into fashion and when they go out of fashion.

1:43:14And when that re-release happened a few years ago, there was a covers album put out of Talking Heads' songs, so they had a little blip again. But, you know, I don't. know if Talking Heads necessarily are like a big influence on bands that I am hearing now. I would say Last Waltz has a baseline of influence where, like I was saying at the beginning, you know, every year there are Last Waltz tribute concerts that happen throughout the country, like at every local music scene, I would say, every town I've ever lived in, there was always at least one Last Waltz tribute where local bands would get together and they would do a big concert and it was a big deal.

1:43:53And then I would just say, in terms of certainly certain music genres, The Last Waltz is the fashion plate for how people present themselves. I would say even now. Any kind of rootsy kind of music, they are dressing like this and they're trying to replicate whatever's going on in this film. So I just feel like there's sort of an element of The Last Waltz that never goes away in music culture, whereas Talking Heads might be a little up and down. depending on when people decide to revisit those records. That's very compelling. Well, I'm going to give Elizabeth three points there. Continue to vamp while the scoring committee tallies the final vote here.

1:44:34This has been a really fun conversation. I just want to say, Stephen, I so appreciate your knowledge of music history, which is something I really don't have. And so that's, I mean, not that I don't have any knowledge, but I'm certainly not anywhere near as knowledgeable as you in those ways. So it's been fun to hear those different threads. Well, and it was great talking with you and hearing you talk about the filmmaking and it's not making sense and sort of the visual set. Because I tend to come at these, I think, more as a music person. So to hear it coming from the cinematic side, I think, is really interesting.

1:45:08And I just love talking about these films. I mean, I really do love both of these movies. I've seen them both many, many times. And you really can't go wrong with either one. And something what Elizabeth said earlier, I think is totally true. They're trying to do two different things. So you can compare them because they're both concert films, but they're very different and they're good for what they are. Yeah. I mean, like that's it. Let's tell you the score here. I know. Well, I do have a final score. And, you know, as tempted as I am to penalize you both for your comity and kindness to one another, I won't with respect and gratitude to both advocates for the substance and passion of their scholarship.

1:45:50On the basis of the evidence presented here today, the court does find in favor of Elizabeth by one point, 25 to 24. So it's a real shame. What a shock. I'll take it. What a shock that Stop Making Sense 1. It is a better movie. It is a bummer that, you know. You could not have predicted that at the beginning of this episode. The Last Waltz will cease to exist. So I'm glad I invested in that Criterion hard copy on 4K, you guys. You know, listen to Christopher Nolan, listen to Martin Scorsese, listen to everybody, get your physical media. You can wait for the Criterion flash sale and save a few bucks on The Last Waltz, which I recommend doing because the Stop Making Sense 4K is kind of expensive.

1:46:33I mean, well worth it, but it is like above your standard MSRP for a 4K disc, at least going by the A24 edition that I have. Well, listeners, now it is your turn. You go to MovieDeathMatch.com and vote for which of these two music masterpieces you believe to be the more masterful piece. Whether you've been persuaded by one of our expert combatants today or whether you have a clear favorite from which you will not be moved, as Stephen has accused me of having. Vote now at moviedeathmatch.com. Elizabeth, Stephen, thank you both for being here. I am truly saddened and must mourn the erasure of The Last Waltz.

1:47:11It is a beloved and influential, monumental rock classic, honorably slain in single combat. Well, you set up this very fair kangaroo court to make that happen. You went through this charade trial to get the result you wanted. So it's good. you know, you can justify your elimination of the film. It gives other marsupials a bad name or a good name or something. Yes. Yes. I'm joking. I'm joking. You know, I'm just playing. I'm having fun here. So, Elizabeth, we are going to link in the show notes to your wonderful Bright Wall Darkroom essay about Stop Making Sense and its existential mien. Is there anything else you'd like to plug?

1:47:54Where can where can listeners find your work? What else is happening in Bright Wall Darkroom? I mean, yeah, Bright Wall Dark Room is where you're going to find the majority of my film writing. You can find me on the Bright Wall Dark Room podcast, which we release monthly. And then I also did recently write an essay on John Carpenter and Schrodinger's Cat and Assault on Precinct 13 that I think is a pretty fun ride. So yeah, hop on over there. There's also so many great essays on that site by so many wonderful writers. So if you love film and you haven't heard of Bright Wall Darkroom, I would highly recommend you check our site out.

1:48:30I second that endorsement. Thank you, Elizabeth. Stephen, this episode comes out, I think it's Labor Day, September. Unevil Speakers, you have a monthly feature, Catalog Club, tucking into some portion of a long live band's catalog. Can you tell us who's coming up for Catalog Club in September? In September, it is a band from the 80s that broke up in the 80s. So not you two. With a very singular front person who is not at all controversial. A band called The Smiths. Oh. I'll be talking about in Catalog Club this month. So, last to parse with The Smiths. Yeah. Looking forward to digging into that.

1:49:10There's a Morrissey, Johnny Marr acrimony, right? I'm not... A little bit. I'm not making that up. You could say that. Just a touch. Okay. Yeah. Good. A little bit. And then my book comes out right when this episode drops, I think. September 8th. Is This It? The Neverending Rise and Fall of the Strokes and Rock and Roll? Is that the full and correct title? That's it. That's it. Steven, if we were shooting this interview at Shangri-La and Malibu and Rick Danko was, you know, shooting pool in the background and there was a totally fine Canadian maple leaf flag on one wall and a dicier Confederate flag on another wall somewhere, I would ask you to sign at least one of the several books of yours that I have.

1:49:50When the YouTube book comes out, will you please sign a copy for me? Yes. Despite your well-founded objections to the entire premise here. Well, not to the premise. Not to the premise. You know, but anyway, yes. Thank you so much for having me. It was a delight. I'm a longtime reader. listeners you can always email us at deathmatch at filmspotting.com tell us how we can improve our highly flawed scoring system suggest a death match you'd like to see once again deathmatch at filmspotting.com is that address join us for our next movie deathmatch when in advance of all hallows eve and in light of jane shanbrunn's new film teenage sex and death at camp miasma we will pit two teenage sex and death classics against one another it is john carpenter's halloween from The Last Waltz year of 1978 versus Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street from the Stop Making Sense year of 1984.

1:50:47We did not do that by design, but Brian Eno says honor your accidents, so we will. That is on the next movie Deathmatch. Once again, thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you. This was so much fun. Thanks. And I'm definitely going to be listening to that episode because I love a good slasher.

1:51:37We'll see you next time. ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting work mode. Available on Plus and Pro Plans. This episode is supported by FX's The Drop, a snowfall saga. Wanda and Leon are back, but this time they're chasing a different kind of legacy. As West Coast rap begins to take over 90s Los Angeles, Wanda is betting on a new generation of artists. But in a city where every opportunity comes with a price, they'll have to decide what They're willing to risk to leave their mark. FX is the drop. Premieres September 8th on FX and Hulu. T-Mobile is reinventing business internet with Super Broadband.

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