Phil’s Condensed Films

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keQBlvMs7VY
Tommy, with special guest reviewer Christian Bale

It’s true that The Who play a good deal of the music in the film (but not all of it), but the performances are WELL inferior to the ones they cut for the album. It’s not even a case of a poor remix…they’re all new performances, and they truly suck in comparison. It’s not a rock opera any more…it’s synthpop.

So yeah, they’re a great band, but the music in that film might leave one thinking otherwise.

Also, Daltrey’s a fine actor (seriously…I don’t know why typing that makes me feel like I’m being sarcastic) but, again, I don’t think this is the film for him. He MIGHT be doing interesting things with the character, but the film is so stylized and choppy and distracting that it gets buried too deep to be appreciated. I honestly feel that Moon (as Uncle Ernie) comes across as a better actor in this film simply because his absurd over-the-top gurning fits the universe better than Daltrey’s subtlety.

Thanks for the critique, though. For obvious reasons I don’t bother to say if there’s something I do like unless I REALLY like it (I’m still, to this day, partial to the Elton John version of Pinball Wizard, and I think that sequence in the film is a hell of a lot of fun).

I’m still experimenting with the format of the “episodes” so the feedback (even–or maybe especially–the negative) is very helpful. I’ve done The Amazing Transparent man, now, which you can find on the youtube page, broken up a little differently, and I think next time I’ll do the more recent (shittier) version of Lolita…I have some (hopefully) good ideas for that one.

You’re an interesting test subject, there, Chris. You must be one of a very small fraction of people who watched the film version of Tommy without having heard the album.

For me–and for others–the film versions will always be judged in comparison to the original cuts, and I don’t think that’s out of line. The problem for me isn’t that they’re different…it’s that they’re also ten thousand times worse.

Take away the ability for me to compare them to anything else and it’s likely I’d be more receptive to them. (Similar to the Dwarf remastered argument, really.)

I LIKE the idea of re-orchestrating the album. Extending some songs, dropping others…that’s all coming from a really good impulse: the impulse to make the film stand apart as its own entity, and not a slave to the original (which would doom it to failure).

And I think the “actors” having so many of the lyrics does hurt the film. peas_and_corn is exactly right in saying that many of them were known as singers primarily, but for every Tina Turner there’s a Jack Nicholson. And for every Elton John there’s an Oliver Reed. By the time Daltrey is healed and actually gets to sing anything, I’ve already suffered through a solid hour of great actors butchering great songs. (Clapton hardly counts at all since he just shows up to mumble his way through a cover song in a way that makes latter-day Dylan sound like fucking Frank Sinatra.)

It’s an interesting discussion, though. I’m thoroughly disappointed by Tommy, but I don’t hate it. It’s a fascinating experiment. But when all is said and done, Quadrophenia is the perfect example of how an album SHOULD be made into a film.