One of my best theatre experiences recently was going to see the fortieth anniversary remaster by A24 of Stop Making Sense, Jonathan Demme’s much acclaimed concert film for Talking Heads. A high recommendation if you haven’t seen it: eclectic and energized and so so cinematic -with even the shadow of a story weaved through the way front-man David Byrne’s incredible stage persona develops over the course of the show. It was the first concert film I’d seen in a while and was a demonstration that here is a genre more versatile and entertaining than it may be given credit for.
Proximity kept Stop Making Sense on my mind as I considered and ultimately followed through with seeing a much-anticipated new concert film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. It engendered curiosity from its announcement just two months ago, especially in the context of its release strategy -whereby Swift bypassed the major studios entirely to partner directly with theatre chains at a time when well-earned animosity towards studios has never been stronger. But also the tour itself had so much buzz and hype around it that it might make the case for being one of the definitive music events of this generation -Taylor Swift is after all one of the last music mega-stars and this is a concert of immense logistical scale covering the gamut of her seventeen year career. Tours have sold out within minutes, this movie before opening already broke records for a concert film, a local news site ran a whole story about one lady in my town who managed to get tickets for one of the Toronto shows. At a point, curiosity wins the day -and with the movie version a readily available option, you just have to see it for yourself.
And that’s exactly what I did; somewhat self-consciously entering a theatre with a few dozen teenage girls so much more thrilled than I was. But ultimately they captured appropriately the tone of the movie, if a little reserved given a certain amount of Canadian cultural etiquette not to scream or run wild in a crowded cinema. That joy was the main thing though -the energy of thousands of raucous fans fuelling Swift’s performance at the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles that she seemed in turn to be giving back to her audiences in theatres. My exposure to Swift in a theatrical context has exclusively been in her rare movie efforts, and in that capacity she has a not entirely unearned reputation as a bad actress. But in her natural habitat her charisma is striking, and through nearly three hours it carries the weight of the film.
The experience of seeing The Eras Tour this way clearly has its disadvantages to seeing it live. But one of the benefits of the movie is its closeness to its star, the camera being for much of the film up on stage with her, allowing the subtleties of her performances, expression, and choreography -not to mention of course those of her back-up dancers, backing vocalists, and band members, all of whom are exceptional- to stand out. The production values are sky-high either way though, as the uniquely designed T-stage accommodates a variety of sets, backdrops, platforms, and visual aids; becoming a stratified series of office cubicles for “The Man”, an array of glass boxes containing dancers in her old outfits for “Look What You Made Me Do”, a moss-covered cottage with accompanying greens-infused piano for the bulk of her Folklore Era songs, and a recreation of the field of pink clouds from her recent “Lavender Haze” music video. Additionally, there are a lot of elaborate visual and lighting effects, most strikingly the stage’s image of a coiled snake preceding her Reputation Era.
Each of the nine ‘Eras’ (named for her albums and their varying musical/aesthetic/personal styles) are segmented through the show as acts with their own individual visual motifs and costumes for Swift -some deliberate references, others more abstract. The point here in both the concert and the movie is to showcase Swift’s artistic versatility and stylistic evolution over the course of her career, and to celebrate it in its entirety. Obviously, some Eras get greater priority and flashiness than others -but Swift still plays something like “You Belong with Me” (written when she was about seventeen) with as much conviction as “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”. Not all of it is in chronological order, though the show does end on Midnights, her latest release, but it all generally flows well with some highly creative transitions and a few awkward, not-so creative ones.
Through all of it, Swift’s persona, highly calibrated though it often is, dominates. She plays the crowd very well (granted, she doesn’t have to try very hard), and while she is cheeky through several parts of the show, at select moments she’ll introduce a song with more grounded, personal context. Aided significantly by the movie’s sense of closeness, she threads the needle exactingly between being larger-than-life and down-to-earth, an enviable position for any pop star and one that the concert succeeds in finding a resonating elegance in. Sure, you know it’s manufactured when, during the performance of “22” she finds a little girl at the front of the audience, hugs her, and gives her the black hat she’d been wearing. But the energy she radiates and the bombastic vibes of the show itself permits you to take it in earnestly.
It translates to many of the singular performances, big elaborate numbers and small intimate ones alike. Some of my favourite bits were of this latter variety, yes, even her full ten-minute “All Too Well”. Of course, production values and jubilant vibes aside, it is on the matter of the individual songs where personal preference does inform enjoyment; and apart from the most dedicated Swifties, nobody is a fan of Swift’s entire oeuvre. I find her more aggressive songs cynically written and a little obnoxious; so for most of the Reputation segment and a handful of separate songs (“You Need to Calm Down”, “Bad Blood”), the experience for me was a lot of strong visuals and aesthetics set to mediocre music. But even on a less taste-based level, there are pieces of the show that don’t work. Some of her use of video projection falls flat. For “Blank Space”, Swift and her back-up performers smash the image of a car animated onto a platform with glowing golf clubs, which comes across as rather tame next to the other production values. Some songs aren’t adapted well –she doesn’t know what to do stylistically with “Love Story” or “Wildest Dream”. Elsewhere, her performance of “Anti-Hero” (which I think is far and away her best song) is actually a real disappointment -adapting the sarcasm of the song, but without the equally important melancholy that makes its themes translate so well.
The film is directed by Sam Wrench, who does an excellent job both conveying scale and keeping the action grounded to Swift and her stage. Occasionally he cuts to enraptured fans in the audience, but just as visual punctuation -Swift is the star attraction and he keeps that in focus. How the movie captures the performances themselves varies –there is some versatility to the camerawork, such as where it occasionally circles Swift on stage. Though other choices are very rudimentary for a concert film. Still others pretty poor. I don’t understand why the intro to “Tolerate It” begins by following one of the backing dancers onto the stage where he appears as Swift’s partner in a Citizen Kane homage –I was convinced he was some music star I didn’t recognize, the camera was so attached to him. Sometimes a beat that would play better up close is consigned to a long-shot instead, and vice versa –a few of these turn up during the stripped-down songs where intimacy is especially necessitated. And while the movie is slick and grandiose, it doesn’t have the craft of something like Stop Making Sense, with its very deliberate shot choices and distinct structural vision. Don’t be looking for Wrench’s Silence of the Lambs within the next ten years.
During “Shake It Off”, a couple girls in my screening made the courageous choice to go down to the front of the theatre and start dancing. Gradually, over the course of this song and “Bad Blood” which followed it, more and more in the audience joined them until there were roughly two dozen teenagers having the time of their lives as they danced to the music and sang along. These kids, avid Taylor Swift fans (several wearing emblazoned t-shirts) likely hadn’t a chance in hell of seeing The Eras Tour live; but this movie gave them the chance to vicariously experience it. The movie IS an experience itself though, and it’s good to have movies like this when concerts and other such events are so expensive and unattainable to general audiences. I appreciate Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour for this, I even largely liked it on its own terms as well. It’s big, it’s fun and buoyant; it effectively relates a level of cultural import and contextualizes the vastness of Swift’s career up to this point –considerable, regardless of how you feel about her music and celebrity. A genuine spectacle.
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