True Head Stories

Seeing as today is our 3-year wedding anniversary, we have decided to take the day off and leave you in the very capable hands of Ms. Rachel Dunnahoe. Everyone be on your best behavior and play nice!

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You can probably learn a lot about me just by watching two of my favorite movies of all time: Head (1968) and True Stories (1986). Despite being made decades apart, they have a lot in common. Both are (very) loose narrative films, both are made by and feature popular bands (The Monkees and Talking Heads, respectively), and both rely on quirky characters, bizarre devices, and offbeat humor that is intertwined with an amazing soundtrack.

So let’s showcase a little bit of that, shall we?

The nearest I can figure, the plot of Head is that The Monkees are tired of being manufactured but they just can’t escape the demands of Hollywood. So they jump off a bridge in an effort to commit suicide. Lighthearted, good clean fun, right? Being a movie that was written by all four totally high Monkees (and a totally high, then-unknown Jack Nicholson), there’s simply no way for that plot to just be served up plain and simple. As the Monkees sing in the movie, “We hope you like our story, although there isn’t one. That is to say, there’s many. That way there is more fun.” Plus the story is told in circles, “so when you see the end in sight the beginning may arrive.” Deep, man.

As for True Stories, there’s a less metaphoric plot, but it’s still not the main driving force of the film. As far as I know, no one was high when writing this movie, although according to David Byrne interviewing himself, it is “based on true stories from tabloid newspapers. It’s like 60 Minutes on acid.” It takes place during Texas’ Sesquicentennial, and focuses on the Celebration of Special-Ness in the fictional town of Virgil. David Byrne is the narrator, and he goes around introducing us to several townsfolk as they prepare for the big celebration. It’s really Byrne’s delivery that makes these scenes so wonderful. Well, that and the great casting of the Virgil-ites (I miss Spadling Gray terribly every time I watch this movie). Throughout the film, John Goodman’s character is just a nice, lonely guy trying to find a soul mate. Here he is on a date, in what is probably one of my favorite scenes in film history: 

Head has some great casting as well. There are several cameos of well-known people from the period, such as boxer Sonny Liston and Mouseketeer Annette Funicello (deliciously poking fun at her pristine Disney image), and there are a few surprise cameos of people soon to be well known. There’s the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it walk-on of Jack Nicholson as he talks to the real life producer, Bob Rafelson. Then there’s the dance Davy Jones has with choreographer Toni Basil (I always wondered if it was Micky Dolenz she was singing about in “Hey Mickey”…). But my favorite cameos are from Mike Nesmith’s friend and fellow musician Frank Zappa, and the ever-charming Teri Garr. Here’s Ms. Garr acting alongside Micky and Mike:

I wanted to put the “flipping channels” clips from both movies so you can see them side-by-side, but YouTube is limited in its content (oh, if only I knew how to make clips myself) so you’ll have to make due with the closest I could find.

Head actually has several scenes throughout the film of someone flipping channels (one of my favorites has multiple commercials claiming theirs is “the world’s largest Ford dealership” and another has man-on-the-street interviews with gems like, “Are you telling me that you don’t see the connection between government and laughing at people?”). The last five minutes of the film has some good channel surfing, too. And the best part of loose narrative means no spoilers! So go ahead and watch it, although you should keep in mind that the movie starts out with the same sequence. Full circle, remember?

True Stories only has one “flipping channels” scene, as far as I can remember, and it serves as a music video for Talking Heads, as well. Unfortunately I can’t find the actual clip from the movie, which has Swoosie Kurtz making hilarious comments as she’s watching all of this on her TV. But it’s a rockin’ song, and you can get the idea if you imagine a high-pitched Southern voice saying things like, “Ooh, it’s a kissin’ cookie!” at the appropriate moments.

This is all just barely scratching the surface on why I love these two films so much, but since it’s past my bedtime and I’m trying to keep the word count down, I’ll just have to trust that I’ve piqued your interest enough and you’ll seek these treasures on your own.

-Rachel