American utopia broadway runtime movie#

Just as Stop Making Sense was the definitive document of Talking Heads and their body of work by that point, the American Utopia tour is the definitive document of David Byrne's body of work by this point. The show also includes everything in-between, like songs from his collaborations with Fatboy Slim, St. But the set list also includes A LOT of re-orchestrated Talking Heads songs, ranging from the essential classics that you would expect to hear, like Burning Down the House, Once in a Lifetime, and This Must be the Place, to less single-y fan-favorites that you might not, like Slippery People, Blind, and Born Under Punches. Nearly every song from the album is of course on the set list, including fantastic singles like Every Day is a Miracle and Everybody's Coming to My House which find Byrne still in top songwriting form after 40 years. The show is absolutely breathtaking - I was fortunate enough to see it in Detroit - and it was completely deserved when NME dubbed it 'the best live show of all time.' It did so unbelievably well that he continued it around the world for over a year, before doing a four-month Broadway residency, which was supposed to come back for an encore this September before COVID changed those plans.ĭuring the planning for his elaborate vision, the American Utopia tour became so much more than just a tour supporting an album: it is a sprawling summary of Byrne's entire body of work. Working with choreographer Annie-B Parson, he created a show in which an 11-piece band is totally wireless and handheld, dancing through elaborate choreography while playing their instruments, on a bare stage sculpted by movement and light. For the American Utopia tour, Byrne wanted to create a truly one-of-a-kind concert experience, the likes of which no one in the audience would have ever seen before. American Utopia began as his critically-acclaimed 2018 studio album, which in turn lead to a tour which will surely go down in musical history. The film of American Utopia is the culmination of a pretty amazing career resurgence for David Byrne while the singer/songwriter has pretty consistently been a well-respected musical force with a passionate following over the years, the journey that lead to this film has unquestionably been his biggest pop-cultural impact since his Talking Heads days. As for what we can expect from the film itself? Here's what we know so far. At the very least, viewers everywhere will be able to enjoy the concert film's HBO debut on the same day, which presumably will include HBO Max as well. How much plans might change between now and September may be largely up to the virus, but considering that the festival is in Canada where the pandemic is under better control, the odds of the in-person premiere happening seem at least fairly good (though of course Americans presumably will not be able to attend, as the border will likely still be closed). It is unclear if American Utopia is currently planned to screen digitally, but its in-person screening is meant to be the main opening-night event for the festival.

The 45th TIFF will naturally be quite different from previous years of the festival, due to COVID: much of its programming will shift to digital, although the current plan is that the festival will still include a smaller in-person-event portion as well.

The Toronto International Film Festival announced today that Lee and Byrne's American Utopia will open the festival on September 10th, and will also debut on HBO simultaneously. Now, the two artists have collaborated for the first time, and the resulting film - a Spike Lee-directed concert film of David Byrne's American Utopia tour/Broadway-residency - has a release date and a runtime.

American utopia broadway runtime movie#

Byrne's music has touched nearly every genre, beginning with his groundbreaking and unclassifiable Talking Heads, and along the way he also made the uniquely bizarre movie musical True Stories, and collaborated with Jonathan Demme on what is generally agreed to be the best concert film ever made (or at least one of the top two or three), Stop Making Sense. Lee's eclectic film career has crossed between narrative films, documentaries, music videos, and filmed Broadway plays.

Spike Lee and David Byrne have both made careers out of bold, medium-bending artistic experimentation.