''Ride, Rise, Roar'' is a documentary film chronicling the Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno Tour conducted by

David Byrne David Byrne (; born May 14, 1952) is an American musician, writer, visual artist, and filmmaker. He was a founding member, principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of the American New wave music, new wave band Talking Heads. Byrne has ...

in 2008–2009. The film includes concert footage, footage of the planning and rehearsals for the tour, and exclusive interviews with Byrne, Eno, and the supporting musicians and dancers.

Production

Curtis initially proposed documenting the tour with no clear objective for the film and decided to focus on the collaboration between Byrne and his tour mates as well as the unique challenge of combining

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

with

modern dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert dance, concert or theatrical dance which includes dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th ...

. Byrne wanted the film to display what it takes to put on a concert.

Release

The film was released to the 2010

film festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theater, cinemas or screening venues, usually annually and in a single city or region. Some film festivals show films outdoors or online. Films may be of recent ...

circuit, with the debut at

South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

on March 15, 2010, where it was screened in all three media categories—film, interactive, and music. Following this, it was displayed by the

Seattle International Film Festival The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) is a film festival held annually in Seattle, Washington, United States, since 1976. It usually takes place in late May and/or early June. It is one of the largest festivals in the world, and feature ...

and

Silverdocs The AFI Docs (formerly Silverdocs) documentary film festival was an American international film festival. Created by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel, it was held annually in Silver Spring, Maryland and Washington, D.C., fro ...

. The film is the feature-length directorial debut by Hillman Curtis—who also worked on the short film that accompanies the deluxe edition of the Byrne– Eno album ''

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today ''Everything That Happens Will Happen Today'' is the second collaborative studio album by David Byrne and Brian Eno, released on August 18, 2008, by Todo Mundo. Marking Byrne's eighth studio effort overall and Byrne and ...

''. Byrne attended some British screenings for question and answer sessions.

Reception

On review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

the film has an approval rating of 78% based on reviews from 9 critics. Most positive reviews were restrained: for instance,

The Quietus ''The Quietus'' is a British online music and pop culture magazine founded by John Doran and Luke Turner. The site is an editorially independent publication led by Doran with a group of freelance journalists and critics. Content ''The Quietu ...

called the film "handsome albeit conventional"; writing for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', Andrew Pulver noted that it was a "pretty straightforward concert movie" and gave the film three out of five stars, but criticized Curtis' direction for using bland shots. A negative review from '' The Stranger''s Christopher Frizzelle advised potential viewers to "run in the other direction" due to the poor choreography and dull interviews. ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

''s Anthony Quinn found the choreography unacceptable as well as Byrne's

arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestr ...

and song selection. Other reviews—such as ''

Empire An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...

''s Phil de Semlyen—preferred the emphasis on dance and found the choreography enjoyable. A complaint of several reviewers was the lack of uninterrupted musical performances, with interview clips cutting short the live footage. Comparisons with the 1984

Talking Heads Talking Heads were an American Rock music, rock band formed in New York City in 1975.Talking Heads

documentary '' Stop Making Sense'' were inevitable—''

The Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is an American daily newspaper based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1891, ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region. The Seattle Time ...

'' even dubbed this a "sequel"—and reviews universally found the former film to be stronger. For instance, View London considers ''Ride, Rise, Roar'' entertaining, but "not on the level of classica rockumentaries", whereas ''Stop Making Sense'' is "generally reckoned to be one of the best concert movies ever made." '' Time Out Chicago''s assessment of Hillman Curtis acknowledges the "challenging position" that he was in by being compared to

Jonathan Demme Robert Jonathan Demme ( ; February 22, 1944 – April 26, 2017) was an American filmmaker, whose career directing, producing, and screenwriting spanned more than 30 years and 70 feature films, documentaries, and television productions. He was an ...

's direction, but sums up the review by calling the film "a very satisfying experience."

Songs

The movie includes performances of the following songs: * " Once in a Lifetime" (

Brian Eno Brian Peter George Jean-Baptiste de la Salle Eno (, born 15 May 1948), also mononymously known as Eno, is an English musician, songwriter, record producer, visual artist, and activist. He is best known for his pioneering contributions to ambien ...

Chris Frantz Charton Christopher Frantz (born May 8, 1951) is an American musician and record producer. He is the drummer for both Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, both of which he co-founded with wife and Talking Heads bassist, Tina Weymouth. In 2002, Frant ...

, Jerry Harrison, and

Tina Weymouth Martina Michèle Weymouth ( ; born November 22, 1950) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and a founding member and bassist of the new wave group Talking Heads and its side project Tom Tom Club, which she co-founded with her husband, ...

) * "Life Is Long" (Byrne and Eno) * " I Zimbra" (Byrne, Eno, and Hugo Ball) * " Road to Nowhere" (Byrne) * "One Fine Day" (Byrne and Eno) * "The Great Curve" (Byrne, Eno, Frantz, Harrison, and Weymouth) * "My Big Nurse" (Byrne and Eno) * " Burning Down the House" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison, and Weymouth) * "Houses in Motion" (Byrne, Eno, Frantz, Harrison, and Weymouth) * "Air" (Byrne) * " Life During Wartime" (Byrne, Frantz, Harrison, and Weymouth) * "

Heaven Heaven, or the Heavens, is a common Religious cosmology, religious cosmological or supernatural place where beings such as deity, deities, angels, souls, saints, or Veneration of the dead, venerated ancestors are said to originate, be throne, ...

" (Byrne and Harrison) * "I Feel My Stuff" (Byrne and Eno) * "Everything That Happens" (Byrne and Eno)

Personnel

–

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound produ ...

and

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

Mark De Gli Antoni Mark degli Antoni (sometimes credited as Mark De Gli Antoni) is an American composer, known for his work as co-founder and keyboard sampler for the band Soul Coughing from 1992 to 2000.Huey, Steve.Soul Coughing - Biography, AllMusic.com. He studie ...

– keyboards * Paul Frazier –

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

* Graham Hawthorne –

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

* Mauro Refosco –

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

* Redray Frazier –

background vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are u ...

, acoustic guitar * Kaïssa – background vocals * Jenni Muldaur – background vocals * Lily Baldwin – dancing * Natalie Kuhn – dancing * Steven Reker – dancing ; Additional appearances as interviewees (not on stage) * David Whitehead – David Byrne's manager * Annie-B. Parson – choreography ("I Zimbra") * Sonya Robbins and Layla Childs a.k.a. Robbinschilds Dance – choreography ("The Great Curve") * Noémie Lafrance –

choreography Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies (or their depictions) in which Motion (physics), motion or Visual appearance, form or both are specified. ''Choreography'' may also refer to the design itself. A chor ...

("I Feel My Stuff") *

– co-composer

References

External links

*
Film trailer

* * {{Authority control 2010 films 2010 documentary films American documentary films American rock music films Black-and-white documentary films Brian Eno David Byrne Documentary films about dance Documentary films about rock music and musicians Films set in Santa Barbara, California Films set in Edinburgh Films set in London Films set in New York (state) Films set in New York City Films set in 2009 Films set in 2010 Films set in Virginia Films shot in California Films shot in London Films shot in New York (state) Films shot in New York City Films shot in Scotland Films shot in Virginia Films directed by Hillman Curtis American black-and-white films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films English-language documentary films