The concert movie Urgh! A Music War (1982), which Chicago Film Society will screen on Monday at Music Box, is an invaluable document of late punk, post-punk, and new wave music, with live performances by XTC, Devo, Gang of Four, Oingo Boingo, Magazine, Gary Numan, Klaus Nomi, the Cramps, the Fleshtones, the Go-Go’s, the Dead Kennedys, the Police, and more. Here are five additional films that showcase the 80s’ gritty, original, sometimes experimental, and always vibrant new sounds.
Stop Making Sense Jonathan Demme’s 1984 film of Talking Heads in concert is devoid of the usual rockumentary bull—no “candid” backstage interviews with stammering musicians, no cutaways to blissed-out fans bouncing in the aisles. Instead, it’s 88 minutes of solid, inventive music, filmed in a straightforward manner that neither deifies the performers nor encourages an illusory intimacy, but presents the musicians simply as people doing their job and enjoying it. The enlightened humanism of the director of Melvin and Howard is evident in every frame. 88 min. —Dave Kehr
