Concert Films (Stop Making Sense and American Utopia)

To kick off season 13 of the podcast, Neil and Dario get into the wonder of Talking Heads' and Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense (1984) and concert films in general. They touch on the performativity of music documentaries and what makes Sense such a seminal work. They also talk about its spiritual successor, David Byrne and Spike Lee's American Utopia from 2020. Elsewhere there is a chat about Richard Fleischer's lean and nasty Mob pulp movie The Don Is Dead (1973), recently released by Masters of Cinema, our first ever release partnership with MUBI for Dea Kulumbegasvhvili's Beginning (2020) and the pair are joined by a fabulous mystery guest to talk about live performance, Brexit, the pandemic and 1988's My Neighbor Totoro.  Please excuse the odd electroglitch on our Mystery Guest's recording. Show Notes Pauline Kael on Stop Making Sense Neil on Stop Making Sense for the Quietus Devika Girish on Beginning You can also subscribe to The Cinematologists on: Apple Podcasts Spotify  Google Podcasts Podchaser  We produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only $2.50. We also really appreciate any reviews you might write about the show (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show. Music Credits ‘Theme from The Cinematologists’ Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.