TOMMY (Mar 1975) aka: THE WHO'S TOMMY.
aka:
TOMMY: THE MOVIE.
Director: Ken Russell.
Writers: Pete Townshend, Ken
Russell. Starring:
Oliver Reed, Ann-Margret, Roger Daltrey, Elton John, Eric Clapton, John Entwistle,
Keith Moon, Paul Nicholas, Jack Nicholson, Robert Powell, Pete Townshend, Tina
Turner, Arthur Brown.
Pete
Townshend once said, "What's good about great pop and rock is: it's sublime
and ridiculous at once." He should know. He wrote Tommy.
TOMMY The Movie, inspired by The Who's 1969 concept album - about a traumatized
deaf, dumb and blind boy who becomes a pinball-playing savior - is simultaneously
an electrifying musical monolith and a descent into drug-induced kookiness.
Someone
had to be high to let Oliver Reed sing.
Blame
eccentric satyr director, Ken Russell, whose hallucinogenic vision puts the "higher"
in Messiah, jamming the movie with images of sensual nightmare: showgirls in gasmasks,
bombers-as-crucifixes, a skeleton with a snake-as-penis, giant pinballs littering
the landscape, and Ann-Margret lolling in chocolatey, syrupy goodness.
Oliver Reed is the "nightmare" part. Playing Tommy's stepfather, he
excels at his forte (acting) but his painfully off-key ululations, combined with
Ann-Margret's melodramatic cheese-vibrato (as Tommy's mum) make the film's early
segments nigh unbearable. The creation of Viagra can be traced directly to the
scene of Reed getting ready to bed down with Ann-Margret. Responsible for more
erectile dysfunction than prostate problems or testicular cancer combined, that
scene still sends a shudder of horror through my supple thighs.
When
the real rock musicians enter the fray, the film suddenly finds its feet. During
Sonny Boy Williamson's Eyesight to the Blind - the first actual "rock"
track - Eric Clapton is The Hawker Priest, The Who his acolytes, with Crazy Arthur
Brown giving communion, under the graven image of Marilyn Munroe. Oh, sweet Blasphemy,
how I love you so!
An
indefinable verve is captured onscreen when real musicians mime their own instruments
and vocals, which actors-playing-musicians could never hope to achieve: Entwistle's
fingers clearly ravage the bass fretboard, as Townshend smacks down his Les Paul
and Clapton bleeds the blues.
Tina
Turner burns it down with her crazy-eyed killer Acid Queen and Elton John (in
arguably the best re-arranged song for the movie) plies his big-booted pinball
wizardry. Jack Nicholson is the suave doctor with eyes a-sparkle for Tommy's mother (and who the hell let him sing as well?!). And Keith Moon eats riotous scenery as a leering lecher and the Holiday
Camp hawker. But it is when Roger Daltrey opens his mouth as the adult Tommy that
the film finds its wings as a bird of prey.
In
his first onscreen role, The Who's lead singer, Daltrey - whose vocal timbre and
awe-inspiring, full-bodied delivery simply bespeaks rock superstardom - single-handedly
elevates the film from an average musical to a legendary rock opera. With his
deaf-dumb-blind portrayal as convincing as any seasoned actor's, as soon as that
shirt comes off, he is the personification of Rock God. Thirty years after the
film's release, his tousle-haired, bare-chested, tight-panted visage is still simultaneously
an icon of rock rebelliousness and as physically close to a Jesus figure as any
simulacrum of Christ.
The
stirring final track (See Me, Feel Me/Listening To You) sees him bare-footed and bare-chested,
climbing a mountain, in full-throated passionate song, more than ever resembling that which
the rock opera itself tries to deconstruct - a savior. (The fact that Daltrey himself climbed the mountain, no stuntmen to speak of, tells of the times
- these were young and crazy rock and rollers who never considered they might
have decades ahead to become living legends. As Entwistle once said, "When we started, you had to release a single every three months to stay in the public eye. Whichever came first, your marriage or your twenty-first birthday, was the end of it all.")
The
messages may be in the music, but even writer-composer Townshend would not be
able to reconcile the paradoxes inherent in those messages.
Throughout
this magnum opus, though Townshend exhorts not to place faith in media-engined,
merchandised entities, his own rockstar livelihood relies on the music-buying
public doing just that. Even as his messages denounce those who would blindly
worship icons, in creating this scintillating monument to rock, he himself becomes
an icon to be worshipped. Just visit my The Who shrine if you don't believe me.
Maybe
when the album and band were in their infancy and walking an unknown path between
ephemerality and longevity, Tommy needed to make sense. With Townshend's
concepts morphing constantly during the writing, recording and eventual filming
of TOMMY, he would never adequately explain it, but nowadays he does not
need to. TOMMY has achieved transcendence, as much a part of human culture
as death and spam.
There
are allusions to Oedipus (sexual tension between lubricious Mrs. Walker and her
son, Tommy - Ann-Margret and Daltrey - is palpable as eel pie: she bathing in
baked beans while watching him on tv; her intimate caresses as she questions,
"Tommy, can you hear me?"; he divesting her of jewelry and frolicking
scantily-clad in the surf with her); allusions to The New Testament (Tommy with
loincloth, crown of thorns and stigmata; recurring "cross" imagery,
and scenes like Tommy running past fishermen, singing, "I'm free, and I'm
waiting for you to follow me"); and even nods to BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (Holy Bombs as graven images).
With
its 1969 release, the Tommy album sold steadily for two years, due to The
Who's steel-wheeling locomotive performances, all tasseled jackets, volume and
bellbottoms, demolition guitars, dynamited drums and Roger Daltrey's glistening
pecs. TOMMY the movie propelled Tommy the album back to No.2 on
the Billboard charts, six years after its initial release. Townshend once said
about performing Tommy The Rock Opera live, "All I remember from that
tour was Roger's chest."
Townshend
dedicated the Tommy album to his Indian spiritual mentor, Meher Baba. Thankfully
keeping the lyrics free of mystical raving, profundities can be found passim:
"You've been told many times before / Messiahs pointed to the door / But
no one had the guts to leave the temple" (I'm Free). "Each one
of you has freedom / In your heart, without my grace" (Sally Simpson).
But
oft-times the hokeyness bleeds through: in We're Not Gonna Take It (long
before Twisted Sister bombasted a song of the same name) Tommy instructs his legions
to simulate his Unaware state by plugging their ears, mouth and eyes, to attain
enlightenment by effectively "freeing" their senses from the distractions
of the world, then singing that "Pinball completes the scene" - What
the-? Of course! The eternal correlation between pinball and nirvana…
The
traumatic deadening of Tommy's senses can also be applied to any society where
the few overlord the many, i.e. ours. How often we close our eyes and minds to
the truth, because those in charge tell us with no uncertainty: "You didn't
hear it, you didn't see it / You won't say nothin' to no one / Never tell a soul
what you know is the truth!" (You Didn't Hear It.)
Only
the epic finale touches upon any kind of inexplicable epiphany and, as a song
unto itself, is more than enough immortality for Townshend never to have to compose
another tune: "Listening to you, I get the music / Gazing at you, I get the
heat / Following you, I climb the mountain / I get excitement at your feet./ Right
behind you, I see the millions / On you, I see the glory / From you I get opinions
/ From you I get the story."
Literally
shouting it from a mountaintop, Tommy the son ends a story where his father began
it years ago, and director Ken Russell ensures that the Messiah metaphors, the
chintzy and great rock music, the stunning imagery, the insightful themes will
all take a backseat to this last scene's smoldering idolatry.
All
you will remember is Roger's chest.
END
DVD SPECIAL FEAUTRES:
Interactive Menus - Quintaphonic Mix - Talent files - Audio: Restoration Essay - Widescreen.
TOMMY (Mar 1975)
Director: Ken Russell.
Writers: Pete Townshend, Ken
Russell. Starring:
Oliver Reed, Ann-Margret, Roger Daltrey, Elton John, Eric Clapton, John Entwistle,
Keith Moon, Paul Nicholas, Jack Nicholson, Robert Powell, Pete Townshend, Tina
Turner, Arthur Brown.
