Ken Russell's film adaptation of the Who's rock opera appeared recently in the Light House for one night only, perhaps as a tribute to the recently deceased Tina Turner. It feels like the kind of film everyone in the world has seen before, but if I managed to reach my advanced years without previously seeing it then maybe this is also true of other people. The plot is fairly nonsensical: childhood trauma gives the eponymous Tommy hysterical deafness and dumbness, but then it turns out that he is very good at pinball and he somehow becomes a messianic figure for the young people (and seems to appear in an advertisement for jeans). The music is great though, the Who's power pop sounds leaving me wondering why there isn't more of their tunes in my life. It is also very impressive visually, with the various striking images and surreal presentation generating a desire for the IFI to present a season of Ken Russell works (hopefully also featuring Your Honour, I Object, the BBC Arena documentary about his legal difficulties with Bob Guccione of Penthouse, one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen on television).
It is actually amazing to think that there was a time when this kind of surreal nonsense could find its way into the cinema. But there were other aspects of the film that marked it out as a film of the past. In particular, having Tommy's kiddie fiddler Uncle Ernie being played for laughs by Keith Moon fell heavily into "you wouldn't be able to do that now" territory.
After seeing the film I listened intensively to Who's Next, the only one of the band's albums I have. It's great, obviously, but I was struck in particular by the drumming. It is strange how Moon was such a complete fuck up of a human being and yet capable of such incredible playing. To some extent you could say the same about Pete Townshend, someone with pretensions towards being a serious artistic figure who at the same time engaged in the puerile trashing of hotel rooms (without getting into his various later "research interests"). In general though I am really struck by what a tight band the four of them were, to the extent that I am now contemplating buying Live at Leeds (on vinyl, so that I don't get all the extra crap).
I also found myself thinking of the film of The Wall. I have never seen that, but I am familiar with the record and remember watching the televised concert Roger Waters did in the Berlin to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall (he is very literal). I'm going to be hardline here: the music of The Wall is mostly terrible, with all the good stuff on the first side of the first vinyl disc. But as with Tommy, I could imagine the film working as spectacle even while Waters' endless moaning about the travails of the rock star life might result in me shouting "well jack it in and get a proper fucking job then".
images:
Wrangler mania (Guardian: "Tommy review – Ken Russell's mad rock opera is a fascinating time capsule")
Uncle Ernie (Movie Villains Wiki)
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