Amoeba Music

Music icon David Byrne was inspired by tabloid headlines to make this sole foray into feature film directing, an ode to the extraordinariness of ordinary American life and a distillation of what was in his own idiosyncratic mind. Byrne plays a visitor to Virgil, Texas, who introduces us to the citizens of the town during preparations for its Celebration of Specialness. As shot by cinematographer Ed Lachman, Texas becomes a hyperrealistic late-capitalist landscape of endless vistas, shopping malls, and prefab metal buildings. In True Stories, Byrne uses his songs to stitch together pop iconography, voodoo rituals, and a singular variety show—all in the service of uncovering the rich mysteries that lurk under the surface of everyday experience.

Special Features:

• Restored 4K transfer, supervised by director David Byrne and cinematographer Ed Lachman, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, supervised by Byrne
• New documentary about the film's production, featuring Byrne, Lachman, writer Stephen Tobolowsky, executive producer Ed Pressman, coproducer Karen Murphy, fashion-show costume designer Adelle Lutz, consultant Christina Patoski, actor Jo Harvey Allen, and musician Terry Allen
• CD with 23 songs, containing the film's complete soundtrack, compiled here for the first time
• Real Life (1986), a short documentary by Pamela Yates and Newton Thomas Sigel made on the set of the film
• No Time to Look Back, a new homage to Virgil, Texas, the fictional town where True Stories is set
• New program about designer Tibor Kalman and his influence on Byrne and role in the film, featuring Byrne and Kalman's wife, artist Maira Kalman
• Deleted scenes
• Trailer
• PLUS: An essay by critic Rebecca Bengal, along with, for the Blu-ray edition, new pieces by journalist and author Joe Nick Patoski and Byrne, a 1986 piece by actor Spalding Gray on the film's production, some of the tabloid stories that inspired the film, and a selection of Byrne's preproduction photography and writing about the film's visual motifs