J Paul Johnson
American Utopia is, simply, one of the best performance films—and one of the best performances—you’re ever likely to see. I loved the David Byrne songs when they were first released back in 2018 and was delighted to see Spike Lee’s film of Byrne’s Broadway production in 2020. The production, elegantly and idiosyncratically mounted, is itself an astounding work of art; Lee’s film captures its intricacies with a variety of camera perspectives and movements and brings to Byrne’s music the director’s own unique “Lee-isms,” especially with some direct-to-camera address towards its conclusion. The film has long been available in 4K on the Max streaming service; this week it joins The Criterion Collection on a 4K UHD/Blu-ray double-disc special edition, celebrating the joyous union of two of America’s greatest artists, working together for the first time.
For Talking Heads founder and frontman David Byrne, American Utopia began first as a series of written reflections evolving into a nonprofit communal-solutions journalism/multimedia project, Reasons to Be Cheerful; than then informed the musical compositions of the 2018 album and subsequent concert tour, supplemented by some of his solo-catalogue and Talking Heads chestnuts and a cover of Janelle Monáe’s “Hell You Talmbout.”
To take that tour to Broadway demanded one set of adaptations well charted in the Criterion special edition’s supplements. Byrne performs alongside eleven other musicians and dancers, all of them using wireless microphones and instruments, highlighted in different scenarios and combinations by the film’s complex lighting design and choreography by Byrne’s longtime collaborator Annie-B Parson served as choreographer. The production design—capturing twelve similarly barefooted, besuited performers representing a diversity of ages, ethnicities, nationalities, and genders performing in exuberant unison—makes the most of the stage’s simple square proscenium set with a permeable mesh curtain and evocative lighting. While there’s literally nothing but gray on the stage, American Utopia is a multi-colored celebration of multiculturalism.
It’s a look that matches Byrne’s message in songs like “Everybody’s Coming to My House,” which invites everyone in, regardless of race, creed, or color. American Utopia foregrounds the troupe’s own multiculturalism, overtly demonstrating and arguing for a country based on immigration’s promise. As Byrne directly tells the audience, “we are all immigrants here.” It’s difficult to watch American Utopia in 2025 without a sense of rue for a day that seems suddenly gone in an America where masked, armed police forces are conducting deportation raids targeting immigrant populations. But Byrne’s and his troupe’s energetic performance still rallies the spirits: even their performances of decades-old Talking Heads hits “Once in a Lifetime” and “Burning Down the House” bristle with a newfound energy of resistance and rebellion.
Spike Lee might not seem like the likeliest of collaborators to bring Byrne’s vision to film. Yet it’s worth remembering that some of Lee’s very first work behind the camera was shooting Morehouse College’s talent-show productions. And while he will certainly and rightly be remembered for his great fiction films (25th Hour, BlacKKKlansman, Bamboozled, and especially Do the Right Thing, one of the best films of the 20th century) and biopics (the insanely ambitious and stunning Malcolm X), across his career Lee has also been one of cinema’s great documentarians, especially with the sobering 4 Little Girls and his yeoman Hurricane Katrina films When the Levee Broke, If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise, and Katrina: Come Hell and High Water. He’s also directed several impressive performance films, like Pass Over and Passing Strange. Above all, though, his cinematic eye and irreverent outspokenness, combined with his experience as a documentarian, make him a perfect match for Byrne’s vision.
Lee and director of photography Ellen Kuras here find all kinds of interesting camera positions from which to chart American Utopia‘s stunning performance, taking viewers to places a Broadway patron could never see. Up close in Byrne’s face, from the back foot of the stage, to high overhead, even behind the mesh curtain, the camera swoops, soars, and cuts to the beat, making his American Utopia a truly cinematic, not merely theatrical, performance. For a director who has on occasion let his penchant for technical experimentation get in the way of his storytelling (e.g. Crooklyn), that’s not the case anywhere here: Lee’s take on Byrne’s vision captures the troupe’s energy and the production’s choreography but in a way no concertgoer or Broadway audience member—nor even, for that matter, even Byrne himself—could ever see. Monae’s “Hell You Talmbout” gets the one Lee signature move: family members of killed Black men, women, and children, from Emmett Till to George Floyd and dozens in between, photographed outside the production, but on its stage with large photograph placards held by the deceased’s surviving family members in an extended and highly effective sequence.
The result: the film’s 21 songs, new and old, introduced and performed by the affably wonky, optimistic, charismatic Byrne and as translated by Lee to cinema makes for a lovely, stunning spectacle of a show, one that reflects soberly on the state of the union and still manages to express some hope for the future. It’s amazing to look at, and the music, making sense of much of Byrne’s entire oeuvre, simply rocks with exuberance.
Criterion’s 4K digital master of American Utopia, spine #1294, is supervised and approved by Kuras, with a 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, subtitles for the Deaf and hard of hearing, and a descriptive audio track. There are no notes provided on the details of the film’s mastering; I assume this is the same version I watched on what was then HBO Max in 2020 and is still available on the streaming service now called Max. It’s gorgeous, with deep blues and blacks and incredible sharpness. (If for some reason you’re not willing to purchase the Criterion special edition, it’s worth signing up for a month of Max just to see this title alone!) As per usual, the double-disc package includes one 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray disc that includes the film and special features.
Special Features
Making American Utopia. This new 55-minute documentary dives deep into the technical and aesthetic details of the Broadway production and its filming both. Produced by The Criterion Collection exclusively for this special edition, it’s a delight. Interviewees include the genial and gracious Byrne, guiding viewers through the show’s inception and production; director of photography Kuras, choreographer and musical stager Annie-B Parson, lighting designer Rob Sinclair, dancer-vocalist Tendayi Kuumba, bassist Bobby Wooten III, and of course the ebullient Lee. It’s a treat, with all of the participants recognizing both the production’s immense challenges and tangible pleasures. Their comments are intercut with footage from rehearsals, the film itself, and various technical documents. It’s great to see Criterion producing such excellent and detailed content.
A Conversation with Spike Lee and David Byrne. The two fellow New Yorkers, collaborators, and now rfiends, so different in their art and affect, join for a 13-minute conversation filmed in 2020. There’s little here that isn’t covered in the above making-of documentary, but the dialogue is nonetheless lively and affable, insightfully juxtaposing Lee’s outsize gregariousness with Byrne’s gentle affability.
Disappointingly, yet in accordance with Criterion’s long-held and long-outdated physical media policy, no English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing or English descriptive audio are provided for these two featurettes. This accommodation is reserved, nonsensically, only for the feature film itself, even though any viewer needing or preferring them for the feature would surely wish the same for the supplements.
Also included on the Blu-ray disc is a trailer for the theatrical release of the film. The double-disc jewel box in packaged with a 16-page full-color booklet featuring cover art adapted from the Annie-B Parson collage that served as the Broadway production’s curtain and accompanied by two excellent essays: “Here,” by K. Austin Collins, focusing on American Utopia’s cultural contexts, and “A Way We Could Work This,” by Jia Tolentino, focusing on the production and the film itself.
What else could one wish for? Not much, certainly—maybe a CD of the soundtrack? The video featurettes should certainly offer SDH—that would be, one thinks, aligned with the production’s message of celebrating inclusivity—together, these supplements make an excellent case for American Utopia as a great performance film of a great performance and a fascinating meeting of two great American artists in Spike Lee and David Byrne, working together for the first time late in their careers to create something uniquely American, uplifting, and mesmerizing.
