Quadrophenia
As fall and winter approach, there’ll be less biking news, so to keep up this blogging thing, I’ll start with OT entries.
A surprisingly good teen angst movie I’d never seen. The music, while important, was not the main star of the movie like it was in Tommy. A working class kid (Phil Daniels as Jimmy Cooper) from London in the early/mid 60s is a “mod” but, after a time, eventually sours on the whole experience after being cheated, losing “his” girl, being kicked out of his house, demolishing his scooter, and finding his hero (Sting as Ace Face) is a lowlife bellboy in real life. (But that’s not to say he becomes a rocker.)
The commentary track is a definite listen as it puts the piece in historical context. It didn’t occur to me, but as 1964 was only 20 years after WWII, scooters provided the working class with a mobility they’d never had before. That, combined with chronic unemployment and youthful disaffection, sets the stage for the movie. It’s also easy to see how the mods eventually became punk rockers of the 1970s.
The ending is appealingly left open. Does he commit suicide or not? It’s not exactly clear. After the movie was over, I pulled out the album and was impressed at how so many scenes in the movie exactly matched the “libretto” insert in the album, especially Jimmy on the train back to Brighton stoned out of his gourd sitting between the two bowler hatted businessmen.
(Aside: this is one of the huge deficiencies of CDs v. LPs. You just can’t get those sorts of huge inserts and clever packaging you got with things like Quadrophenia, Thick as a Brick, Passion Play, Sticky Fingers, &c, &c, &c.)
Video clips from Rhino: [RA] [QT]
Rating: B; would watch again
November 16th, 2005 at 3:31 pm
I really like The Who, but man, I just can’t stand the rock band music movies from around that time period. (And I don’t just mean The Wall.)
Case in point, Rude Boy. It’s got The Clash in it, it couldn’t possibly suck, right? Wrong. Drove me nuts, so I eventually just fast-forwarded through to the live music parts.
Oh well, glad you like Quadra… Quadropeneene… the movie.
P.S. Yes! A Movies section!
November 16th, 2005 at 4:04 pm
I sort of like Wikipedia’s description:
Heh.
I liked that the movie had to do with the story than the band. It would have been a good story even without the music.
Also, +1 for full frontal male nudity.
And, I’ll be watching movies as I ride the trainer this winter, so it’s still cycling related. Sort of.
November 16th, 2005 at 4:29 pm
I thought all rock was supposed to be overblown and pretentious.
P.S. Your footer div seems askew.
November 16th, 2005 at 6:20 pm
I think it’s supposed to be centered on the page, not the column. I’ll see what I can do.
November 21st, 2005 at 1:38 pm
Netflix queue-erized. I haven’t watched Quadrophenia since a brief stint as a wannabe youth Mod. Which reminds me, I need to dig up my military parka and put it back in service, now that I have like a billion patches to put on it.