Tommy (1975)

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1. 

   mbkeene

   Tommy isn't on any top lists? Not even musicals? It has Elton John in giant Dock Martins for Pete's sake! 13 years 2 months ago
2. 

   sourcreampudding

   Tommy isn't on any top lists? Not even musicals? It has Tina Turner as an Orgone Accumulator for Pete's sake! 6 years 8 months ago
3. 

   Siskoid

   Ken Russell's 1975 adaptation of the rock opera that gave us "Pinball Wizard". I'm not against the occasional head trip, but I'll admit Tommy stretched my patience at times. Not because of the surreal visuals, but because I'm not such a fan of the music. It's rather discordant and it takes too long before there's a proper song. I sometimes thought it would work better as a strictly silent film, because the rich visuals are essentially telling the story without words. By the Tina Turner bit, I was well into it, but Tommy is unrelentingly loud, garish and bizarre. Chaos on screen. A shock to the system. What it's about doesn't come easily either - the plot shifts about too much - but I think it's about the Baby Boom generation who, by the 60s, would stay silent no more and become a demographic force of unimagined influenced. Tommy "becomes aware" (literally), rejects the 50s and effects a cultural revolution as the prototypical Messianic hippie. The failure of his movement comes from Boomers' emerging selfishness at the end, which seems to be prescient, or were The Who already seeing that failure in 1969 when they put out the album? Either way, not a film I'd watch very often, but one I'd care to revisit once in a while because it's rich with subtext and symbolism, not to say coded with it. 8 years 10 months ago

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