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In 1986, True Stories was my grandmother's favorite movie. My grandmother was a lot hipper than most. In fact, she was a lot hipper than me. In 1986, we watched True Stories quite a bit, and while I appreciated the music and the clever visual effects, I admit, I completely missed the point. I looked at the movie as a glorified music video, a promotional piece for the music. I believe that part of what made my grandmother laugh so hard back in 1986, was how clueless I was, and the certain knowledge that in a few more years I would come to appreciate this movie in a big way. In 1986, Shopping was a feeling. Uh Oh. It still is. David Byrne, leader of the the Talking Heads, wrote, directed, and joyfully participates on screen in True Stories. While many of us were born in a house with the television on, David Byrne was busy taking notes rather than simply becoming a couch potato. Deeply observant, innocent and devlish, Mr. Rogers with a sly streak, David Byrne takes us to a "Celebration of Specialness" in Virgil Texas. Along the way we get to meet Lewis Fyne, played by John Goodman, who is unsuccessfully looking for a woman to marry. His quest to become a Magnet for Love, leads him to start an advertising campaign that not only includes infomercials and faith healers, but also a performance of his own country music song at the town's talent show. The show is of course, sponsored by the town's major employer, an engine of creativity, chugging with reel to reel tape drives, spewing out computer components to fuel the future, which looks strangely like the present. True Stories has a lot to say about creativity, talent, advertising, economics, and the things we take for granted. The movie is often described as having an offbeat cast of characters...but that may be Hollywood missing the point. The characters in True Stories don't seem that far out to me anymore. Tito Larriva as Ramon, works in the factory by day and plays music by night in the clubs. So what that he thinks he can read your "tones" by holding your nose. I've seen stranger people in the grocery store! And so have you! Maybe you have a Wild Wild Life. Maybe you don't. If truth be told, and we are certain that these are indeed True Stories, most of our lives are wilder than we give ourselves credit for. To us it isn't special at all, just the normal ebb and flow of trips to work in our cool multipurpose shaped offices, the occasional night on the town-o, and there is always plenty of parking at the mall for our privately owned cars. But it isn't just for the tender hearted sentiment of marketing for matrimony, the surreal fashion show, or the increasingly relevent montages (created by (M&C New York, Marcie Crimmins, Pierce Rafferty and David Byrne) that endear this movie to our hearts. No, Life Balance fans, there is Puzzling Evidence that David Byrne hit the nail smack on its talking head back in 1986. During dinner with the Culvers, Earl (Spalding Gray) explains it all over a simple meal of lobster, aspargus, and pigs in blankets. He says of Virgil's scientists and engineers who have fled from corporations to start their own businesses, "They don't work for money anymore, but to earn a place in heaven...They are working and inventing because they like it! Economics has become a spiritual thing...They don't seem to see the difference between working and not working. It has all become a part of one's life...There's no concept of weekends anymore!" At the very end of the credits, if you are looking carefully, you'll see a line that reads, "If you can think of it, it exists somewhere." Maybe in Virgil, Texas... maybe only in the City of Dreams. Maybe only in the future we're inventing every day. In 1986, the internet was not fully revved up into a frenzy of sexy underwear and stock quotes. Steve Jobs didn't run Apple. The millennium had not peacefully slid beyond the worry of Y2K. AOL had not bought Time, or is it vice versa? If by forgetting can we see a place again as it really is, then we have David Byrne to thank for allowing us to see 1986 for what it really was. We also have him to thank for giving us the tools to inspect 2001. Hey Now Now! Who can say it isn't beautiful? |
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