Tommy (1975)
Film::'Tommy,' The Who's Rock Saga
によって VINCENT CANBY
Published: March 20, 1975
Ken Russell makes 映画 the way another man might デザイン a ride through a funhouse. He deals in headlong but harmless plunges from giddy heights, abrupt changes of pace, joke turns, anachronistic visual effects, ghouls that pop out of the dark, all accompanied によって sound of a force to loosen one's most firmly rooted back teeth.
The method is spectacular but it has seemed wickedly foolish in 映画 like "The 音楽 Lovers" (about Tchaikovsky), "The Savage Messiah" (about Gaudier-Brzeska) and "The Devils" (an adaptation of Huxley's "The Devils of Loudun"). Now at long last the man and his method have found a nearly perfect match in subject matter, "Tommy," The Who's rock opera written によって guitarist-composer Pete Townshend.
"Tommy" can take being fiddled with, and Mr. Russell's "Tommy" virtually explodes with excitement on the screen. A lot of it is not quite the profound social commentary it pretends to be, but that's beside the point of the fun. "Tommy," which opened yesterday at the Ziegfeld Theater, is mad, funny, irreverent, passionately overproduced, very very loud and full of the kind of magnificent physical energy that usually wrecks a movie によって calling attention to performance.
"Tommy" is a solemn tale that must not be taken too seriously. It's an elaborate put-on about the terrible victimization of a small boy who is traumatized deaf, dumb and blind when he sees his stepfather murder his real father. Young Tommy then goes on to become the pinball champ of the world and, eventually, after he miraculously regains his senses, the new messiah who preaches salvation through pinball playing.
Mr. Russell's style, which had the effect of literalizing the artistic impulse in "The 音楽 Lovers" and "The Savage Messiah," seems to liberate Mr. Townshend's rock score and lyrics, which are sometimes in embarrassingly dead earnest.
"Tommy" is composed of excesses. Bad jokes または heavy-handed satire are redeemed によって everyone—director, production designer, orchestrators, actors—going too far, which is, after all, what the original "Tommy" is all about: a world inhabited によって people too jaded to react to anything but overdoses.
The performers are extravagantly fine, particularly Ann-Margret who, as Tommy's mother, ages 20 years in the course of the film (largely through the increased application of blue eye shadow) and sings and dances as if the fate of Western civilization depended upon it. She is tough, vulgar, witty and game. The Who's lead singer, Roger Daltrey, plays the grown-up Tommy with a drive that matches Ann-Margret's while successfully simulating 表示する biz innocence. Oliver Reed is, correctly, almost a cartoon as the opportunistic stepdad. He also sings quite nicely.
The movie, which has the structure of a vaudeville show, is laced together with specialty bits, some of which are simply jokes (Jack Nicholson playing a vacuous Harley 通り, ストリート medical specialist) and some of which are production numbers as riveting as rock can be at its best. These include a sequence in which Tina Turner shows up as The Acid クイーン who attempts to cure the catatonic Tommy, and others with Elton John, as the Pinball Wizard defeated によって Tommy, and Eric Clapton, as the Preacher who presides over a Lourdes-like shrine devoted to the healing powers of St. Marilyn (Monroe).
As I said, it's all fairly excessive and far from subtle, but in this case good taste would have been wildly inappropriate and a fearful drag.
Film::'Tommy,' The Who's Rock Saga
によって VINCENT CANBY
Published: March 20, 1975
Ken Russell makes 映画 the way another man might デザイン a ride through a funhouse. He deals in headlong but harmless plunges from giddy heights, abrupt changes of pace, joke turns, anachronistic visual effects, ghouls that pop out of the dark, all accompanied によって sound of a force to loosen one's most firmly rooted back teeth.
The method is spectacular but it has seemed wickedly foolish in 映画 like "The 音楽 Lovers" (about Tchaikovsky), "The Savage Messiah" (about Gaudier-Brzeska) and "The Devils" (an adaptation of Huxley's "The Devils of Loudun"). Now at long last the man and his method have found a nearly perfect match in subject matter, "Tommy," The Who's rock opera written によって guitarist-composer Pete Townshend.
"Tommy" can take being fiddled with, and Mr. Russell's "Tommy" virtually explodes with excitement on the screen. A lot of it is not quite the profound social commentary it pretends to be, but that's beside the point of the fun. "Tommy," which opened yesterday at the Ziegfeld Theater, is mad, funny, irreverent, passionately overproduced, very very loud and full of the kind of magnificent physical energy that usually wrecks a movie によって calling attention to performance.
"Tommy" is a solemn tale that must not be taken too seriously. It's an elaborate put-on about the terrible victimization of a small boy who is traumatized deaf, dumb and blind when he sees his stepfather murder his real father. Young Tommy then goes on to become the pinball champ of the world and, eventually, after he miraculously regains his senses, the new messiah who preaches salvation through pinball playing.
Mr. Russell's style, which had the effect of literalizing the artistic impulse in "The 音楽 Lovers" and "The Savage Messiah," seems to liberate Mr. Townshend's rock score and lyrics, which are sometimes in embarrassingly dead earnest.
"Tommy" is composed of excesses. Bad jokes または heavy-handed satire are redeemed によって everyone—director, production designer, orchestrators, actors—going too far, which is, after all, what the original "Tommy" is all about: a world inhabited によって people too jaded to react to anything but overdoses.
The performers are extravagantly fine, particularly Ann-Margret who, as Tommy's mother, ages 20 years in the course of the film (largely through the increased application of blue eye shadow) and sings and dances as if the fate of Western civilization depended upon it. She is tough, vulgar, witty and game. The Who's lead singer, Roger Daltrey, plays the grown-up Tommy with a drive that matches Ann-Margret's while successfully simulating 表示する biz innocence. Oliver Reed is, correctly, almost a cartoon as the opportunistic stepdad. He also sings quite nicely.
The movie, which has the structure of a vaudeville show, is laced together with specialty bits, some of which are simply jokes (Jack Nicholson playing a vacuous Harley 通り, ストリート medical specialist) and some of which are production numbers as riveting as rock can be at its best. These include a sequence in which Tina Turner shows up as The Acid クイーン who attempts to cure the catatonic Tommy, and others with Elton John, as the Pinball Wizard defeated によって Tommy, and Eric Clapton, as the Preacher who presides over a Lourdes-like shrine devoted to the healing powers of St. Marilyn (Monroe).
As I said, it's all fairly excessive and far from subtle, but in this case good taste would have been wildly inappropriate and a fearful drag.
Tommy (1975)
Film::'Tommy,' The Who's Rock Saga
によって VINCENT CANBY
Published: March 20, 1975
Ken Russell makes 映画 the way another man might デザイン a ride through a funhouse. He deals in headlong but harmless plunges from giddy heights, abrupt changes of pace, joke turns, anachronistic visual effects, ghouls that pop out of the dark, all accompanied によって sound of a force to loosen one's most firmly rooted back teeth.
The method is spectacular but it has seemed wickedly foolish in 映画 like "The 音楽 Lovers" (about Tchaikovsky), "The Savage Messiah" (about Gaudier-Brzeska) and "The Devils" (an adaptation of Huxley's "The Devils of Loudun"). Now at long last the man and his method have found a nearly perfect match in subject matter, "Tommy," The Who's rock opera written によって guitarist-composer Pete Townshend.
"Tommy" can take being fiddled with, and Mr. Russell's "Tommy" virtually explodes with excitement on the screen. A lot of it is not quite the profound social commentary it pretends to be, but that's beside the point of the fun. "Tommy," which opened yesterday at the Ziegfeld Theater, is mad, funny, irreverent, passionately overproduced, very very loud and full of the kind of magnificent physical energy that usually wrecks a movie によって calling attention to performance.
"Tommy" is a solemn tale that must not be taken too seriously. It's an elaborate put-on about the terrible victimization of a small boy who is traumatized deaf, dumb and blind when he sees his stepfather murder his real father. Young Tommy then goes on to become the pinball champ of the world and, eventually, after he miraculously regains his senses, the new messiah who preaches salvation through pinball playing.
Mr. Russell's style, which had the effect of literalizing the artistic impulse in "The 音楽 Lovers" and "The Savage Messiah," seems to liberate Mr. Townshend's rock score and lyrics, which are sometimes in embarrassingly dead earnest.
"Tommy" is composed of excesses. Bad jokes または heavy-handed satire are redeemed によって everyone—director, production designer, orchestrators, actors—going too far, which is, after all, what the original "Tommy" is all about: a world inhabited によって people too jaded to react to anything but overdoses.
The performers are extravagantly fine, particularly Ann-Margret who, as Tommy's mother, ages 20 years in the course of the film (largely through the increased application of blue eye shadow) and sings and dances as if the fate of Western civilization depended upon it. She is tough, vulgar, witty and game. The Who's lead singer, Roger Daltrey, plays the grown-up Tommy with a drive that matches Ann-Margret's while successfully simulating 表示する biz innocence. Oliver Reed is, correctly, almost a cartoon as the opportunistic stepdad. He also sings quite nicely.
The movie, which has the structure of a vaudeville show, is laced together with specialty bits, some of which are simply jokes (Jack Nicholson playing a vacuous Harley 通り, ストリート medical specialist) and some of which are production numbers as riveting as rock can be at its best. These include a sequence in which Tina Turner shows up as The Acid クイーン who attempts to cure the catatonic Tommy, and others with Elton John, as the Pinball Wizard defeated によって Tommy, and Eric Clapton, as the Preacher who presides over a Lourdes-like shrine devoted to the healing powers of St. Marilyn (Monroe).
As I said, it's all fairly excessive and far from subtle, but in this case good taste would have been wildly inappropriate and a fearful drag.
Film::'Tommy,' The Who's Rock Saga
によって VINCENT CANBY
Published: March 20, 1975
Ken Russell makes 映画 the way another man might デザイン a ride through a funhouse. He deals in headlong but harmless plunges from giddy heights, abrupt changes of pace, joke turns, anachronistic visual effects, ghouls that pop out of the dark, all accompanied によって sound of a force to loosen one's most firmly rooted back teeth.
The method is spectacular but it has seemed wickedly foolish in 映画 like "The 音楽 Lovers" (about Tchaikovsky), "The Savage Messiah" (about Gaudier-Brzeska) and "The Devils" (an adaptation of Huxley's "The Devils of Loudun"). Now at long last the man and his method have found a nearly perfect match in subject matter, "Tommy," The Who's rock opera written によって guitarist-composer Pete Townshend.
"Tommy" can take being fiddled with, and Mr. Russell's "Tommy" virtually explodes with excitement on the screen. A lot of it is not quite the profound social commentary it pretends to be, but that's beside the point of the fun. "Tommy," which opened yesterday at the Ziegfeld Theater, is mad, funny, irreverent, passionately overproduced, very very loud and full of the kind of magnificent physical energy that usually wrecks a movie によって calling attention to performance.
"Tommy" is a solemn tale that must not be taken too seriously. It's an elaborate put-on about the terrible victimization of a small boy who is traumatized deaf, dumb and blind when he sees his stepfather murder his real father. Young Tommy then goes on to become the pinball champ of the world and, eventually, after he miraculously regains his senses, the new messiah who preaches salvation through pinball playing.
Mr. Russell's style, which had the effect of literalizing the artistic impulse in "The 音楽 Lovers" and "The Savage Messiah," seems to liberate Mr. Townshend's rock score and lyrics, which are sometimes in embarrassingly dead earnest.
"Tommy" is composed of excesses. Bad jokes または heavy-handed satire are redeemed によって everyone—director, production designer, orchestrators, actors—going too far, which is, after all, what the original "Tommy" is all about: a world inhabited によって people too jaded to react to anything but overdoses.
The performers are extravagantly fine, particularly Ann-Margret who, as Tommy's mother, ages 20 years in the course of the film (largely through the increased application of blue eye shadow) and sings and dances as if the fate of Western civilization depended upon it. She is tough, vulgar, witty and game. The Who's lead singer, Roger Daltrey, plays the grown-up Tommy with a drive that matches Ann-Margret's while successfully simulating 表示する biz innocence. Oliver Reed is, correctly, almost a cartoon as the opportunistic stepdad. He also sings quite nicely.
The movie, which has the structure of a vaudeville show, is laced together with specialty bits, some of which are simply jokes (Jack Nicholson playing a vacuous Harley 通り, ストリート medical specialist) and some of which are production numbers as riveting as rock can be at its best. These include a sequence in which Tina Turner shows up as The Acid クイーン who attempts to cure the catatonic Tommy, and others with Elton John, as the Pinball Wizard defeated によって Tommy, and Eric Clapton, as the Preacher who presides over a Lourdes-like shrine devoted to the healing powers of St. Marilyn (Monroe).
As I said, it's all fairly excessive and far from subtle, but in this case good taste would have been wildly inappropriate and a fearful drag.