NEW YORK – In a film festival season that’s been turned largely virtual, Spike Lee’s “American Utopia,” a documentary of David Byrne’s concert musical and the opening-night film of the Toronto International Film Festival, has nevertheless supplied the giddy rush of live performance in a packed house.
The film was shot during the late 2019-early 2020 run of Byrne's acclaimed Broadway show at the Hudson Theatre. In it, Byrne deconstructs the traditional rock concert, sketching a narrative through his songbook from familiar Talking Heads classics up to his 2018 solo album of the same name.
With 11 other musicians, all of them barefoot and dressed in silvery gray suits, Byrne gathers together a jubilant march on a road to nowhere.