DAVID BYRNE'S AMERICAN UTOPIA - London Film Festival 2020

Performed at Broadway's Hudson Theatre and based on his most recent studio album (with the inclusion of many of his classic hits), David Byrne's American Utopia sees him team up with director Spike Lee to capture the performance art aspect of the live show on film.

It's impossible to begin any discussion of concert films without including 1984's Jonathan Demme directed Stop Making Sense, the film that caught Talking Heads, arguably in their prime, and introduced the world to David Byrne's infamous large suit. That film opened on David Byrne alone on stage, gradually bringing out the rest of his bandmates to create an orchestra of sound and vision, and he repeats the trick here to great effect. Seated, barefoot, wearing an grey suit so unremarkable it must be remarked upon, and holding a prop brain, he delivers an elegy that will run throughout the show, before he's joined onstage by back-up vocalists Chris Giarmo and Tendayi Kuumba. They dance, sing and emote their way through the rest of the show, as do the other vocalists and musicians, all carrying their instruments to allow free movement on the stage. Actually, unlike the freewheeling performance of Stop Making Sense, the term "free movement" is a misnomer here, as there isn't a single moment in American Utopia that doesn't seem like a perfectly choreographed piece of visual artistry, blend together dance and music. There's not a single (bare) footstep out of place.

This is a show that requires its musicians to play an active part in the visual tapestry of the performances, moving them around the limited space the square stage affords them, with the modern lighting techniques bouncing bright white lights off their grey suits to illuminate them or change the shape of the performance area as it wishes. The choreography looks like it would challenge the most seasoned of dancers, but the band look like their having a great time throughout, with Byrne eager to show the respect he has for them in a roll call that gives each a moment to show their musical skills. Cliched, perhaps, but there's a party atmosphere that regularly has the audience up and dancing.

The widest appeal of this will of course be to existing David Byrne and Talking Heads fans, although it's a show that will surely win over many more to the fold. Byrne punctuates the musical performances with a regular address to the audience, and it's here where the show takes on a most surprising tilt, as Byrne gets political to talk to his assembled fans (and clearly, us) about the importance of voter registration and turn-out, using the in-theatre lighting to illustrate his points. The live show originally ran up until February 2020, and was set to return before Covid-19 shut down Broadway, but it's remarkably topical in a way Byrne and director could not have foreseen, with one of the highlights of the show arriving in the band's performance of Janelle Monae's protest song, Hell You Talmbout. Here, for the first time, the linear reality of the show is broken to include photos of the men and women named in the song who have died because of police brutality, with newly added tributes to George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor giving the song's performance a unique timeliness, and the perfect meeting of David Byrne and Spike Lee's principles. There's not much opportunity for Lee to add his directorial flair, with him and his cinematographer and regular collaborator Ellen Kuras confined by the physical boundaries that come with the recording a concert - but here it's unmistakably the work of Spike Lee.

American Utopia is a wonder to watch, cinematic by virtue of being utterly impossible to take your eyes off, and featuring plenty of David Byrne's past hits that will have you as engrossed as the live audience clearly were. Byrne's vocals and wealth of visual creativity show he's still a force to be reckoned with, and with the added relevance to the times we're living in, this beautiful, vibrant companion to Stop Making Sense is unexpectedly vital viewing.

Verdict

5/5

ONE MAN AND HIS SHOES - London Film Festival 2020

Directed by Yemi Bamiro, One Man and His Shoes charts the rise of the Nike Air Jordan brand and the impact it has had on culture, leading to a demand that is so high, some people are willing to kill to get their hands on a pair.

Starting all the way back in the mid 1980s, when Michael Jordan was a fresh faced 6'6 college basketball player, Bamiro's documentary goes over some ground already covered in the Jordan sanctioned Netflix documentary series, The Last Dance, but after throwing its net wide to discuss the plight of a black community ravaged by crack cocaine and mandatory minimum sentences, One Man and His Shoes zeroes in on Jordan as an up-and-coming player chosen as the face of a new kind of sports shoe. Rather than being a standard sneaker that might be worn by other basketball stars (as was the case with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson), this would be a shoe bearing the name Jordan, designed for him and the legions of basketball fans who wanted to emulate his sporting prowess and own this coolest of status symbols.

In the first half of the film there's a great deal of effort put into explaining the perfect storm that lead to Jordan being picked as the player to wear the controversial first run of Air Jordans (they were banned by the NBA, not because they gave MJ an edge but because they weren't the regulation white colour, but that didn't stop fans from believing the former), and a ton of talking heads from sports writers, sneaker writers and marketing lecturers offer their take on why it was such a runaway success story, with sales expectations of $3 million after 3 years soon eclipsed when they made $126 million in their first year.

Much like the rise of Michael Jordan himself, it's a wild story that is easy to get swept up in, although the filmmakers know that a desire to dig into the varying designs and appeal of each model of Air Jordans is limited, but not completely absent, paying a visit to one collector who has 1175 pairs of shoes and other Jordan memorabilia worth over a million dollars in his house. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't share too much about where he lives. Instead this film shifts focus onto the darker side of the fervent fandom that goes with the launch of a new design, as huge queues wrap around department stores and purchase limits are put in place that mean not everyone who wants to buy a pair of new Jordans (and who can afford the hefty price tag) gets them, and so a resale market has emerged that sees the shoes go for thousands of dollars online, and worse, people assaulted and killed for their shoes.

It's of no surprise given the dark turn this film takes that there's no involvement from Michael Jordan, Nike, or key figures like Spike Lee - who hot off breaking out with his debut She's Gotta Have It, directed and co-starred in a series of commercials with Jordan that helped shape the brand's public image - instead putting grieving families as the focus of the final section of the film as shocking stories and footage of beatings and murders takes the place of on-court triumphs and the history of basketball endorsement deals. It's a bold swing that might shock audiences looking for a light-hearted documentary about sports shoes, but this film is more concerned with looking at the lasting effect this cultural behemoth has had on society, asking big questions about how much a billion dollar brand like Air Jordan and Nike should be held accountable for the criminal actions of consumers.

Like any great sports movie, One Man and His Shoes is not about sports, but it's unexpected how little it is about shoes too. Audiences expecting something light on its toes may be taken aback by the heavy pivot it takes, but it's a better film for facing up to the dark side of fandom.

Verdict

4/5

One Man and His Shoes is available now on the BFI Player