As part of its excellent ongoing Milestones of the Last Quarter Century series, the Belcourt on Monday will run three screenings of what is, in my estimation, the greatest concert documentary in cinematic history. With his 1984 Talking Heads doc Stop Making Sense, director Jonathan Demme kicked off a generationally outstanding decade-long run of films that also included Something Wild, The Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia, among others. Writing about the film in 2014, the Scene’s late, great editor-in-chief Jim Ridley noted, “In some ways it’s the perfect expression of Demme’s career-long fascination with the building of communities and with performing troupes as families (and vice versa). The director’s love of people and performers radiates from the film, and he caught the band at its joyous peak.” Indeed, the film’s roughly 90 minutes amount to a serious feat of showmanship, musicality and production. As frontman David Byrne — clad in that iconic oversized suit — builds his ensemble member by member across the set list’s first six songs, Stop Making Sense plays out with the narrative tension of a feature film. Following Jim’s death in 2016, the Belcourt showed a slate of the beloved local critic and journalist’s favorite movies, and this one rounded out the series. It screens now once again in honor of Jim — a onetime fixture at the Belcourt and the namesake of the theater’s lobby.
2:30, 8 & 10:05 p.m. at the Belcourt
2102 Belcourt Ave.
