A monthly cultural studies session hosted by cultural researcher and author Viriya Sawangchot. This month will be on 'Stop Making Sense' a live concert film of Talking Heads directed by the late Jonathan Demme.

Screening starts at 8pm and will be followed by a casual discussion.

// Free Entry//


STOP MAKING SENSE
A 1984 concert film which won the National Society of Film Critics Award in for best documentary 1984 featuring a live performance by Talking Heads, the New York-based new wave group. Directed by Jonathan Demme (1994-2017) who was a Talking Head fan from the very beginning.

The film paired Demme — years before he won Best Director for Silence of the Lambs — with the band Talking Heads were becoming musical icons. It was shot over the course of three nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theater in December 1983, as the group was touring to promote their new album Speaking in Tongues. Demme has stated that one night of shooting was dedicated almost entirely to wide shots from a distance, to minimize the intrusion of cameras on stage. The irony is the alchemy of Stop Making Sense was so perfect that even Demme couldn’t replicate it. He went on to make music docs for musicians like Neil Young and The Pretenders (not to mention Oscar-nominated films like Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia), but they all felt a bit like he was trying to recapture the magic made with the Talking Heads.


VIRIYA SAWANGCHOT
A cultural researcher based in Bangkok, Thailand. He was an API senior fellow (2013-2014), Asian Public Intellectual program, Nippon Foundation, and has previously taught in Cultural Studies program, Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia, Mahidol University, Thailand.

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