Tom­my (1975)

It’s been said that every musi­cian tries to be cin­e­mat­ic, while film­mak­ers are praised for musi­cal­i­ty. Per­haps no film express­es that more clear­ly than Tom­my, Ken Russell’s 1975 adap­ta­tion of The Who’s rock opera. The sto­ry, which is lit­tle more than a frame­work for music and images, starts at Tommy’s trau­ma of wit­ness­ing his par­ents com­mit a ter­ri­ble crime sends poor Tom­my deaf, dumb and blind, as the song goes. As an adult, played by front­man Roger Dal­trey, his height­ened sense of touch leads him to dis­cov­er pin­ball, becom­ing a media phe­nom­e­non and even­tu­al­ly, a kind of cult leader.

Released a full six years after the album, Tom­my set the rock opera tem­plate, inspir­ing every­one from Andrew Lloyd Web­ber to Green Day. But the overblown, arguably pre­ten­tious music is real­ly noth­ing with­out Russell’s gen­uine­ly avant-garde sto­ry­telling; his expres­sive approach to actors and keen­ly iron­ic sense of humour. He winks at the music, but takes the mes­sian­ic prophe­cy of the sto­ry incred­i­bly seri­ous­ly. Rus­sell switch­es between the­atri­cal­ly com­posed shots to doc­u­men­tary, Haskell Wexler-like news­reel footage, which pulls us in and out of emo­tion­al engage­ment with the scene.

From track to track, Tom­my leaps around in form, the images fol­low­ing suit. The pro­logue, detail­ing Ann-Margaret’s doomed romance with Tommy’s RAF father, com­press­es A Mat­ter of Life and Death into a mat­ter of min­utes. Then it’s straight to the big Beano ener­gy of sum­mer camp, with Oliv­er Reed host­ing a love­ly legs con­test and push­ing kids in the pool. But Rus­sell always pro­vides a dark­er under­bel­ly to his pic­to­r­i­al scenes. A piano play­ing punk real­ly does want to drown Tom­my when mum and dad are away (hi, Ray & Liz).

The most jar­ring moment occurs when Tom­my is molest­ed dur­ing the ​‘Fid­dling About’ num­ber. The punch­line to the scene? His pedophile uncle, played by Kei­th Moon in fin­ger­less gloves, sit­ting in bed read­ing a copy of the Gay Times. It’s alien­at­ing to say the least, par­tic­u­lar­ly if the japes and jokes of the film thus far have dragged you along. Eric Clap­ton, too, whose soul-man preach­er turn has dat­ed equal­ly bad­ly, makes you won­der how cul­tur­al tastes have changed over the last 40 years. These details make Tom­my an essen­tial time cap­sule of Britain in the ​’70s; a nation as moral­ly para­noid and pan­icked then as it is now.

Still, there are plen­ty of intense­ly plea­sur­able sequences in the film. Tina Turner’s lips gyrat­ing uncon­trol­lably as she lures Tom­my towards his first sex­u­al encounter; he enters an iron maid­en of hero­in nee­dles which spins like a pin­ball top, the cam­era zoom­ing in and out of Tuner’s face as she dances around. Even more sur­re­al is the scene where a rock­er, about to shoot a hip­py in the face is inter­rupt­ed by Tom­my hang-glid­ing in out of nowhere.

In a film over­stuffed with cameos (we haven’t even men­tioned Jack Nicholson’s eye­brow-rais­ing appear­ance) which assaults the view­er with sticky images, Ann-Mar­garet deliv­ers an icon­ic per­for­mance, ground­ing pro­ceed­ings with sheer expres­sive emo­tion. In one scene, she laments Tommy’s absence by Go-Go danc­ing while cham­pagne, then baked beans, then choco­late, burst out of the tele­vi­sion, which she prompt­ly writhes in. Noth­ing in the his­to­ry of cin­e­ma should have worked less than this. And yet…

The rock opera con­tin­ues to flour­ish today through the ​‘visu­al album’. ​‘Lemon­ade’, ​‘Run­away’ and ​‘Dirty Com­put­er’ are all Tom­my descen­dants which assert the dom­i­nance of music and the pop­star as qua­si-reli­gious sym­bol. But as the mono­cul­ture dis­solves, these films no longer receive wide the­atri­cal releas­es. As bloat­ed and incon­sis­tent as Tom­my is, it rep­re­sents a mode of pop cul­tur­al con­sump­tion that is as bygone as pin­ball and sea­side amuse­ments. It’s a glo­ri­ous mon­u­ment to a time past.