Main Cast: David Byrne, John Goodman, Swoosie Kurtz, Spalding Gray, Alix Elias
Release Year: 1986
Country: US
Run Time: 89 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
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. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
The opening sequence of True Stories concerns a history of a fictional town in a humorous mix of footage detailing the humble beginnings of the Indians' wide open prairie land up until the building of major expressways. Whether or not to like this kind of comedy depends on one's tolerance for the deadpan humor of David Byrne and the music of his band the Talking Heads. Supposedly composed of actual stories from supermarket tabloids, these character snippets create an exaggerated exposé of American life. Nothing is really true about the town of Virgil, TX; it seems more like a creation of what a big city college rock musician thinks of average American quirks. Luckily, that big city college rock musician is David Byrne, who narrates the film from a properly outsider perspective wearing cartoonish Western garb and addressing the audience directly from his cherry red convertible. John Goodman also looks right into the camera, and he does amazingly well with the amount of screen time his stereotyped character is given. Fans of the Talking Heads will most likely enjoy the moments of spontaneous music videos -- especially their hit "Wild Wild Life" -- as well as the other musical interludes of fake elevator music and odd sounds from collaborator Meredith Monk. Those that can appreciate Byrne's creative costuming and musings on things like the role of architecture in commercial culture will probably like True Stories, many others may find its heavy-handed artistic agenda to be stifling. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
Annie McEnroe - Kay Culver; Roebuck "Pops" Staples - Mr. Tucker; Umberto Larriva - Ramon; John Ingle - Preacher; Jo Harvey Allen - The Lying Woman; Matthew Posey - Computer Guy; Amy Buffington - Linda Culver; Capucine de Wulf - The Little Girl on the Road; Chris Douridas - Ventriloquist; Richard Downlearn - Larry Culver; L.T. Felty - Duck Hunter; Ed Geldart - Grandfather in Mall; Scott Valentine - Member of Air Band; Tina Weymouth - Lip-Syncher; Chris Frantz; Jerry Harrison - Lip-Syncher; Rex Taylor Smith - Member of Air Band; Andrew Barach - Laughing Headline Reader #1; Christopher Johnson - Mr. Tucker's Son; Liz Moore - Teenage Girl in Field; Frank Smith - Man in Church
Credit
Dee McCandless - Choreography, Gene Menger - Choreography, Meredith Monk - Choreography, Karen Murphy - Co-producer, Adelle Lutz - Costume Designer, Elizabeth McBride - Costume Designer, David Byrne - Director, Caroline Biggerstaff - Editor, Edward R. Pressman - Executive Producer, David Byrne - Composer (Music Score), The Talking Heads - Composer (Music Score), Terry Allen - Songwriter, Jeffrey Barnes - Songwriter, David Byrne - Songwriter, Carl Finch - Songwriter, Steven Jordan - Songwriter, Meredith Monk - Songwriter, Zuzuca - Songwriter, Barbara Ling - Production Designer, Edward Lachman - Cinematographer, Gary Kurfirst - Producer, Susan Beeson - Set Designer, David Byrne - Screenwriter, Beth Henley - Screenwriter, Stephen Tobolowsky - Screenwriter, Beth Henley - Play Author, John Johns - Video Playback
The majority of the film's music is supplied by Talking Heads. The soundtrack yielded one of the group's last hit singles, "Wild Wild Life". An early working title for the project (endorsed by bassist Tina Weymouth) was Wild Infancy.[1]
The film features Byrne as an unnamed, cowboy-hat-wearing stranger who visits the fictional Texas town of Virgil, where he observes the citizens as they prepare for the Celebration of Special-ness, sponsored by the Varicorp Corporation. Byrne breaks the fourth wall many times in the movie while he is narrating in his car.
Among the unique individuals the stranger meets is Louis Fyne, played by John Goodman (in one of his first major film roles) - a Country-Western-singing clean room technician at a local computer manufacturing plant who is unlucky in love. He also encounters: town leader Earl Culver (played by performance artist Spalding Gray), who never speaks directly to his wife; Miss Rollings (Swoosie Kurtz), who never leaves her bed; Mr. Tucker (Pops Staples of The Staple Singers), a voodoo practitioner whom Louis hires to help him find love; a conspiracy theorist preacher (John Ingle) whose shtick owes a great deal to the Church of the SubGenius (in real life, Byrne is a SubGenius himself); Ramon (played by musician Tito Larriva), who claims telepathic powers; and a character billed only as "The Lying Woman" (Jo Harvey Allen), who recounts fantastic episodes from her history to anyone present. Renowned Latin music legend Esteban "Steve" Jordan and his conjunto perform the song, Radio Head in the film as well.
Reception
The movie was not a commercial success at the time of its release, and it received a mixed reaction from critics (though some, such as Roger Ebert, delivered glowing reviews[2]). The film has achieved its greatest success in home video release, as a cult classic among fans of Byrne's work.
Music
True Stories features a number of songs written by Byrne and performed by various members of the cast, as well as by Byrne's band, Talking Heads (the members of which make cameo appearances).
Talking Heads released a popular album titled True Stories in which the band performs most of the songs from the film, including songs that were performed by the actors in the movie itself. As such, the album is not generally considered a true soundtrack album. Later, Byrne released an album containing instrumental music from the soundtrack titled Sounds from True Stories, though it was never released on CD. While several of the cast performances were released as bonus tracks on 12-inch single releases, no full album of cast performances has yet been released.[citation needed] As such, few of the original versions of songs from the film have found release. The Pops Staples version of "Papa Legba" and Tito Larriva's version of "Radio Head" appear as extra tracks on the 2006 Rhino reissue of True Stories; and the John Goodman's version of "People Like Us" was released on the 2006 Rhino release of a Talking Heads Bonus Rarities and Outtakes album, but the rest of the songs whose versions differ between the movie and album (John Ingle's "Puzzling Evidence," Annie McEnroe's "Dream Operator," and St. Thomas Aquinas School Choir's "Hey Now") are absent.
The music video version of "Wild Wild Life" that debuted on MTV is simply a scene taken from the film, in which many of the film's characters (including John Goodman) lip-synch to the music in a night club; the video version is more risque and features more pop music references/parodies than seen in the film; the Prince and Billy Idol parodies remain in the film version. Similarly, the video for "Love for Sale" is the same as that seen in the film (in which Kurtz's character is shown watching it on TV), except the video version has additional footage of Talking Heads, more references to recognizable TV commercials of the day, and no intercuts to any of the film characters.
Coincidentally, the final hit of Pops Staples' group, The Staple Singers, was a cover of Talking Heads' "Slippery People," which was released two years prior to this film.
