True Stories (film)
Encyclopedia
True Stories is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 film that spans the genres of musical
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

, art
Art film
An art film is the result of filmmaking which is typically a serious, independent film aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience...

, and comedy
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

, directed by and starring David Byrne
David Byrne (musician)
David Byrne is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography,...

 of the band Talking Heads
Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American New Wave and avant-garde band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison...

. It co-stars John Goodman
John Goodman
John Stephen Goodman is an American film, television, and stage actor. He is best known for his role as Dan Conner on the television series Roseanne for which he won a Best Actor Golden Globe Award in 1993, and for appearances in the films of the Coen brothers, with prominent roles in Raising...

, Swoosie Kurtz
Swoosie Kurtz
Swoosie Kurtz is an American actress. She began her career in theater during the 1970s and shortly thereafter began a career in television, garnering ten nominations and winning one Emmy Award. Her most famous television project was her role on the 1990s NBC drama Sisters...

, and Spalding Gray
Spalding Gray
Spalding Rockwell Gray was an American actor, playwright, screenwriter, performance artist and monologuist...

. Byrne has described the film as, "A project with songs based on true stories from tabloid newspapers. It's like 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....

on acid
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...

."

True Stories was released by Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 in the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 in 1986, with limited release elsewhere the following year. Byrne was given much creative control over the motion picture's direction, largely due to the mainstream success of Talking Heads' 1984 concert film, Stop Making Sense
Stop Making Sense
Stop Making Sense is a concert movie featuring Talking Heads live on stage. Directed by Jonathan Demme, 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. The movie is notable for...

.

The majority of the film's music is supplied by Talking Heads. A soundtrack album, titled Sounds From True Stories
Sounds from True Stories
Sounds from True Stories, subtitled Music for Activities Freaks is the soundtrack to David Byrne's 1986 film True Stories. It was released only on cassette and LP....

, featured songs by Byrne, Talking Heads, and Terry Allen & The Panhandle Mystery Band, among others. Around the same time, Talking Heads released an album, titled True Stories, which included the band's versions of songs featured in the film.

Plot summary

The film features Byrne as an unnamed, cowboy-hat-wearing stranger who visits the fictional Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 town of Virgil, where he observes the citizens as they prepare for the Celebration of Special-ness to mark the Sesquicentennial (i.e. 150th) anniversary of the founding of the town and the statehood of Texas. The event is being sponsored by the Varicorp Corporation, a local computer manufacturing plant. Byrne's narration breaks the fourth wall
Fourth wall
The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...

 many times in the movie, especially while he is driving around town in his Plymouth Reliant
Plymouth Reliant
The Plymouth Reliant was one of the first two so-called "K-cars" manufactured by the Chrysler Corporation, introduced for the 1981 model year. The Reliant replaced the Plymouth Volaré/Road Runner, which was the short-lived successor automobile to the highly regarded Plymouth Valiant...

.

Among the unique individuals the stranger meets is
  • Louis Fyne, (John Goodman
    John Goodman
    John Stephen Goodman is an American film, television, and stage actor. He is best known for his role as Dan Conner on the television series Roseanne for which he won a Best Actor Golden Globe Award in 1993, and for appearances in the films of the Coen brothers, with prominent roles in Raising...

    , in one of his first major film roles), a Country-Western
    Country music
    Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

    -singing clean room technician at Varicorp who is unlucky in love
  • Civic leader Earl Culver (Spalding Gray
    Spalding Gray
    Spalding Rockwell Gray was an American actor, playwright, screenwriter, performance artist and monologuist...

    ), who never speaks directly to his wife, Kay (Annie McEnroe)
  • Miss Rollings (Swoosie Kurtz
    Swoosie Kurtz
    Swoosie Kurtz is an American actress. She began her career in theater during the 1970s and shortly thereafter began a career in television, garnering ten nominations and winning one Emmy Award. Her most famous television project was her role on the 1990s NBC drama Sisters...

    ), who never leaves her bed
  • Mr. Tucker (Pops Staples
    Pops Staples
    Roebuck "Pops" Staples was a Mississippi-born Gospel and R&B musician.A "pivotal figure in gospel in the 1960s and 70s," he was an accomplished songwriter, guitarist and singer...

     of The Staple Singers
    The Staple Singers
    The Staple Singers were an American gospel, soul, and R&B singing group. Roebuck "Pops" Staples , the patriarch of the family, formed the group with his children Cleotha , Pervis , Yvonne , and Mavis...

    ), a voodoo practitioner whom Louis hires to help him find love
  • A conspiracy theorist preacher (John Ingle
    John Ingle
    John Ingle is an American actor known for his role as scheming patriarch Edward Quartermaine on the ABC daytime drama, General Hospital.-Career:...

    ) whose shtick owes a great deal to the Church of the SubGenius
    Church of the SubGenius
    The Church of the SubGenius is a "parody religion" organization that satirizes religion, conspiracy theories, unidentified flying objects, and popular culture. Originally based in Dallas, Texas, the Church of the SubGenius gained prominence in the 1980s and 1990s and maintains an active presence on...

     (in real life, Byrne is a SubGenius himself);
  • Ramon (musician Tito Larriva
    Tito Larriva
    -Early life:Larriva was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska, and El Paso, Texas. As a child he played the violin in the school orchestra and sang in the church and school choirs where he met his wife Janet Carroll. In 1972 Larriva snuck into Yale University for a full...

    ), who claims telepathic powers
  • "The Lying Woman" (Jo Harvey Allen
    Jo Harvey Allen
    Jo Harvey Allen is an American writer, actress, and artist, born in 1942 and raised in Lubbock, Texas.-Education:In 1961, she married renowned artist and singer Terry Allen and moved to Los Angeles, California where she walked away from a BFA degree from Woodbury College of Design over a disputed...

    ), who recounts fantastic episodes from her life to anyone listening.


Renowned Latin music legend Esteban "Steve" Jordan
Esteban Jordan
Esteban "Steve" Jordan was a jazz, rock, blues, conjunto and Tejano musician from the United States. He was also known as "El Parche", "The Jimi Hendrix of the accordion", and "the accordion wizard"...

 and his conjunto
Conjunto
Conjunto literally translates as "group," and is regionally accepted in Texas as defining a genre of music that was born out of south Texas at the end of the 19th Century, after German settlers introduced the button accordion. The bajo sexto has come to accompany the button accordion and is...

 perform the song "Radio Head" in the film as well.

Production

An early working title for the project (endorsed by bassist Tina Weymouth
Tina Weymouth
Martina Michèle "Tina" Weymouth is an American musician, best known as a founding member and bassist of the New Wave group Talking Heads and its side project Tom Tom Club .-Profile:Weymouth is of French heritage on her mother's side. Weymouth was a cheerleader in high school...

) was Wild Infancy.

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
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

, delivered glowing reviews). The film has achieved its greatest success in home video
Home video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...

 release, as a cult classic
Cult Classic
Cult Classic is a Blue Öyster Cult studio recording released in 1994, containing remakes of many of the band's previous hits.-Track listing:# " The Reaper" - 5:05# "E.T.I...

 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
Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American New Wave and avant-garde band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison...

 (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, a fact Byrne points out in his liner notes on the release. Later, Byrne released an album containing primarily instrumental music from the soundtrack titled Sounds from True Stories
Sounds from True Stories
Sounds from True Stories, subtitled Music for Activities Freaks is the soundtrack to David Byrne's 1986 film True Stories. It was released only on cassette and LP....

, though it was never released on CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

.

While several of the cast performances were released as bonus tracks on 12-inch single
12-inch single
The 12-inch single is a type of gramophone record that has wider groove spacing compared to other types of records. This allows for louder levels to be cut on the disc by the cutting engineer, which in turn gives a wider dynamic range, and thus better sound quality...

 releases, no full album of cast performances has yet been released. 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
Tito Larriva
-Early life:Larriva was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska, and El Paso, Texas. As a child he played the violin in the school orchestra and sang in the church and school choirs where he met his wife Janet Carroll. In 1972 Larriva snuck into Yale University for a full...

's version of "Radio Head" appear as extra tracks on the 2006 Rhino reissue of True Stories; and John Goodman's version of "People Like Us" was initially released as the B-side to the single for "Wild Wild Life
Wild Wild Life
"Wild Wild Life" is a song by the American new wave band Talking Heads. Released in 1986, it was the lead single from their album True Stories....

" and later was released on the 2006 Bonus Rarities and Outtakes
Bonus Rarities and Outtakes
Bonus Rarities and Outtakes is a 2006 compilation album by Talking Heads. It was released for download on the iTunes Store on February 8, 2006...

collection, 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" (Iko Iko
Iko Iko
"Iko Iko" is a much-covered New Orleans song that tells of a parade collision between two "tribes" of Mardi Gras Indians. The song, under the original title "Jock-A-Mo", was written in 1953 by James "Sugar Boy" Crawford in New Orleans. The story tells of a "spy boy" or "spy dog" "Iko Iko" is a...

)) are absent. "Cocktail Desperado", recorded by Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band and featured in the film, is included on the Sounds from True Stories LP.

The music video version of "Wild Wild Life" that debuted on MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

 is largely 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
Billy Idol
William Michael Albert Broad , better known by his stage name Billy Idol, is an English rock musician. A member of the Bromley Contingent of Sex Pistols fans, Idol first achieved fame in the punk rock era as a member of the band Generation X...

 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
The Staple Singers
The Staple Singers were an American gospel, soul, and R&B singing group. Roebuck "Pops" Staples , the patriarch of the family, formed the group with his children Cleotha , Pervis , Yvonne , and Mavis...

, was a cover of Talking Heads' "Slippery People," which was released two years prior to this film.
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