Tommy At 35

The movie, that is. The Who’s Tommy (1969) is, of course, the band’s acknowledged masterpiece, even if the story line is slightly incoherent. The inclusion of a couple songs by John Entwhistle doesn’t help, either, but in any case the music is outstanding, and Keith Moon’s drumming exemplary. Filmed in 1974, the Ken Russell-directed film of Tommy was released in March 1975. According to an article in today’s L. A. Times, this evening there is a special 35th anniversary screening of Tommy at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater featuring a new digital cinema presentation of the film with the original “Quintaphonic” soundtrack. According to the Times article, Tommy was the only film ever produced using that particular stereophonic sound system. After a short web search, I found on the forums at quadraphonic.com that “Quintaphonic” was a quadraphonic stereo soundtrack with a third track added for dialogue. For those wishing to hear the soundtrack in its “Quintaphonic” form (minus dialogue), the version of the soundtrack that has Roger Daltry as Tommy on the cover is purportedly a Quadraphonic stereo release although not indicated as such, or at least the Japanese CD released a few years ago on Polydor is Quadraphonic. Perhaps every release of the movie soundtrack is in Quadraphonic, but I am unable to say. I’ve excerpted a few of Pete Townshend’s comments on the film below; the full article is available at the link above. In my view, Ken Russell was the only director capable of making the film, and it certainly ranks among his best films, Women In Love in my estimation being his greatest film, with The Devils close behind.

Was it your decision to bring Tommy to the screen? How did you select Ken Russell?

For years I was against doing Tommy as a film. I felt a film would reduce the impact of the music and make demands of the story to which it could never rise. . . . The first I knew that Ken Russell was on board was meeting him in Wardour Street while recording sound effects for Quadrophenia and his directorial role on Tommy seemed a done deal.

What was your and the rest of the cast's relationship with Russell?

Ken was bombastic, energetic, funny, tireless and inspiring. He had an obsessive eye for detail and planning that I now realize every great film director needs, or in its place the absolute certainty that they can accept what happens when it happens and adapt to it. I never had a bad moment with Ken. . . . 

People, including Murray Lerner who is hosting the Tommy event, said watching the rock opera live was akin to a religious experience. Do you feel the film captured that feeling?
The original Tommy album was intended by me — from a composer’s standpoint — to provide the Who with a powerful live piece that would extend what I had done for the band with “A Quick One While He’s Away” — my first mini-opera. My interest in the Indian master Avatar Meher Baba and a fair bit of reading by Sufi authors and mystics at the time of the writing inspired me to try to create a musical piece that provided a spiritual travelogue through the so-called “planes” of consciousness. My deaf-dumb-and-blind hero was a cipher for those of us who are unaware of our spiritual life, either by choice or ignorance. . . .

Would you discuss the casting of the film, which includes such Russell veterans as Oliver Reed but such Hollywood types as Ann-Margret and Jack Nicholson?

There is where I hang my head in shame. I initially disagreed with all three of these choices. My arguments were with both Ken and Robert Stigwood. Robert was the most persuasive, explaining the Hollywood star system to me in words of one syllable: “We have to have them.” . . . Roger worked really hard. I was deeply impressed by his professionalism as an actor. He seemed to be a natural. It was through performing in the role of Tommy with the Who that Roger discovered his ability to be a true frontman in a rock band. He almost invented the pseudo-messianic role taken up later by Jim Morrison and Robert Plant.

The Dream and the Nightmare

In theory, rock ‘n’ roll is an egalitarian artform, having derived from an ideology of amateurism (as opposed to professionalism). Because of this ideological underpinning, it has consistently struggled with the problem of how to redress the gap separating the fan from the star. In its positive form, the problem of the gap is overcome by a version of the Horatio Alger myth, in which a working-class stiff is kissed by Lady Luck, and the dream comes true: he becomes, as John Lennon memorably sang, a “Working Class Hero.” Think, for instance, of Tommy DeCarlo, once a credit manager at a Home Depot store in North Carolina, now the lead singer for Boston.

The recent, much publicized events surrounding Rihanna and Chris Brown represents the dark parody of the Alger myth: the star-struck, working-class stiff on whom fortune has smiled, but because of some failure of character, some moral weakness, he throws it all away (Bad Company’s “Shooting Star”). Tommy DeCarlo is the emblem of the (generative) dream, Chris Brown the emblem of the (destructive) nightmare. One can understand these two stories as the myth of “the rising star” and the myth of “the falling star.”

Historically, “the star” became distinct from what was known at the time as “the picture personality” around 1914. There were (at least) two consequences of this transformation: 1) the cinema became disassociated from the theater, from the theatrical mode of representation (hence rock stars are more like movie stars than stage actors, and are more likely to become movie stars than stage actors); and, 2) the studio relinquished control over the “picture personality’s” public image. The emergent discourse on the private life of the picture personality created what is known as “the star,” the star by definition having a private life that is open to the press and to fan magazines; fan magazines, the subject of which is the life of stars, are premised on open access to the private life. In other words, the life of the star forms a narrative that is separable from the roles that he or she plays and have made him or her a star in the first place. One’s private life comprises a narrative that is utterly distinct from the narrative forming one’s professional life, although as is clear from Chris Brown’s recent case, when problems presumably concealed in the private life emerge, there are real and drastic consequences on the professional life. Why? Because the generative or positive version of the myth must be preserved at all costs. Because it is inviolate, those who have transgressed against the benign myth must be made examples.