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True Stories (1986)

Posted By: Someonelse
True Stories (1986)

True Stories (1986)
A Film by David Byrne
DVD5 | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 4:3 | 01:29:54 | 3,75 Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subtitles: None
Genre: Musical, Comedy | USA

Director David Byrne (of Talking Heads) takes an outside-looking-in glance at Texas and Texans in True Stories. Casting himself as the protagonist/narrator, Byrne adopts what he thinks is "standard" western garb and drives his red convertible into the small town of Virgil. Here he observes the town's preparations for celebrating Texas' sesquicentennial, taking time out to introduce us to several of the local oddballs. Swoosie Kurtz plays Miss Rollings, the Laziest Woman in the World; Alix Elias is The Cute Woman, who decorates her home in the most hideously "sweet" manner imaginable; John Goodman is talent-contest entrant Louis Fyne, who harbors dreams of being a C&W star; Spalding Gray is Earl Culver, a vegetable-obsessed civic leader; Jo Harvey Allen is The Lying Woman; and so it goes. The script by Southerners Byrne, Beth Henley and Steven Tobolowksy strives to avoid subtlety.

IMDB

The small American town of Virgil, in the state of Texas, is celebrating its 150th anniversary with a parade and a concert. Here we dip into the lives of some of the townsfolk as they prepare for the event.

This sunny, odd musical was co-written by director David Byrne with Stephen Toblowsky and Beth Henley, and based on stories they found in supermarket tabloids. Byrne's band Talking Heads provided the songs, which are mostly sung by the cast. The whole thing is an offbeat mix of "funny old world" slices of life and pop videos.

True Stories (1986)

There is no real main character, but the narrator, Byrne, introduces the town and its people with bland yet quirky observations. Louis (John Goodman) turns up most often, a worker at the electronics plant that provides most of Virgil's population with its livelihood. Louis is looking for love, a wife to "share his life" and even resorts to advertising on local TV to achieve this.

True Stories (1986)

The other characters range from a woman who seems to have lived a life straight out of The National Enquirer, complete with references to space aliens and Elvis Presley, to another woman who is so rich that she spends her whole life in bed watching TV. Then there's the preacher who turns his sermon into a lecture on conspiracy theories, with gospel singers backing him up.

True Stories (1986)

There are a string of sequences that start out with ingenuous scenes and turn quaintly eccentric, like the fashion show where the hostess starts to sing as the costumes become more and more outlandish, or the parade itself which features the traditional cheerleaders and majorettes, but also lawnmowers, babies in pushchairs, accordion players and men in tiny cars. True Stories may also hold the record for the most establishing shots in one film.

True Stories (1986)

All this is so slight that you get the impression it may have been better off as a Talking Heads concept album rather than a quirky pseudo-documentary. Why not film real examples of American eccentricity and set that to music instead? Despite a variety of styles, the songs are not really as memorable as the band's best work, with only the singles "Wild Wild Life" and "Radio Head" standing out. Still, it's a good natured film that quietly celebrates this way of life rather than patronising it. Also with: Victor Kiam on TV.
True Stories (1986)

Byrne gleaned the inhabitants for his hypothetical small town (Virgil, Texas) from mad American tabloids like the Weekly World News, which trades in stories about Mexicans who can read your nose, illegal immigrants from outer space, and suchlike. As the film's on-screen narrator, he wanders through the streets, homes and shopping malls of Virgil during its sesquicentennial 'celebration of specialness' with an air of quizzical, bemused wonder, and meets as rich and strange a bunch of characters as we've seen since Altman's Nashville. Like Altman's film, True Stories has a handful of brilliant musical set pieces, each in a different musical idiom, from gospel to C & W. It's also heir to Nashville in its multiple, interweaving plots and its plethora of vivid performances, notably from Jo Harvey Allen as the Lying Woman, and (best of all) John Goodman as Louis Fyne, the lonely bachelor with a consistent panda bear shape. And that's not the half of it. True Stories is an unprecedented crossbreed: a rock film with a brain, an 'art' movie with belly laughs, a state of the nation address without boredom.
True Stories (1986)

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