“The Last Thing You Want to DO IS PIN DOWN OR REDUCE WHAT THE SONG IS ABOUT.”
Photo: Warner Music
Talking Heads Never Got Around to Shooting a Music Video for “Psycho Killer.” They had other priorities to worry about at the time, like Burning down the Competition at CBGB. Exactly 50 Years AFTER LIVE LIVE AT THE NEW YORK VENUE, THOUGH, THEY FACED UP TO THE FACTS AND GAVE The People Some Visuals. The Resulting Video, Directed by Mike Mills – of Cinema, Not Rem – Follows A Young Woman Played by Saoirsse Ronan who’s SEEMINGLY ON THE BRINK OF LOING IT AS SEVES PASS IN HER LIFE. Tina Weymouth’s Bass Line Sets The Skene: She’s Brushing Her Teeth, Lying in Bed, and Going About A Normal Day at the Office. Or is she? Each Daily Loop Becomes More and More Manic for Her Character, to the point where you begin if it will crescendo and mirror the title in a very literal sense. For Mills, what happy is the scarier option.
“The Last Thing You Want to DO is Pin Down or Reduce What the Song is About. The song is so much more than being psychotic or killing,” Mills explains. “Father first, i was totally daunted. I was Like, How the fuck do you make a video for ‘Psycho killer’ for my art heroes? IT’S IMPOSSIBLE. I can’t think of that idea, it’s too. THEN WALING DOWN MY HALLWAY, The idea came to me in a flash. Saairse isn’t at all a psycho killer or anything. It is the Environment and that Life and False Normality. ”
Mills, A Lifelong Talking Heads Fan Whose Film 20th Century Women Featured a subplot about the band, pitched his idea to the four members over a zoom tribunal. He stressed that the Music Video Wauld by No Means Be A Direct Illustration of the Song, but Rather a Spinoff or Interpretation. “There’s something Violent about the false normality of the People Around HER,” Mills Sayys, reference to the Colleagues, Boyfriend, and therapist that material. “There’s a something Violent in the banality of it all. Its psychic violence, but it is still hostile to me. David Byrne, Jerry Harrison, Chris Frantz, and Weymouth chose his vision over Several Other Competing Directors who wand the Job. (No, he won’t name who he beat.) Fuck, what if i do’t get this? I love this band so much. I say. I should will this, but i is could so easily not get it”He adds. “They really like it was to be reduced to meaning of the song. That’s essential to the way they work.”
Mills knew that it needed a “virtuosic actor” to the Handle the demands of his script, which Involved 13 DIFFERENT DAILY LOOPS WITH UNIQUE EMOTIONAL PROMPTS FOR ONE. “I wanted to be very heightened and intense,” he notes. “I think there were 300 shots in the whole video. There were few people i thought of who could.” Coincidentally, Mills and Ronan Had Established a Friendly Rapport we were and cameloping “Psycho killer,“ The timing of which Encoured Him to see a talking heads fan. “I said, ‘hey, do you know this band?’ It turns out she got Maried to ‘this must be the place,’ Gray up listening to say, and had HERNE CONNECTION, ”he Says. “She wrote back right away, ‘hell yes, what are you talking about?! fa fa fa fa Irony that Mills AcknowLedges. “I didn’t choose it Because it was a sanatorium,” he Says. “It ‘just where i is could the cheaply.”
AFTER SENDING THE FINISHED VIDEO TO THE BAND MEMBERS, Mills and Ronan Nervously Monitored Their inboxes to Await Feedback. Mills Soon Got His Answer Through Byrne’s Response, Which Arrived With A “Brilliant” Subject Line. (And the man Knows a Brilliant “Psycho Killer” be he sees it.) “I didn’t open the email for five hours Because of was like, That’s Enough. That’s a Beautiful Gift. I’ll just keep at that, who knows what’s inside”Mills Jokes. “My Response Was, Okay, great, i do’t have to do Therapy for at least a year.”
