It's this sense of absurdity that prompted Ken Russell to bring Tommy's story to the screen, based on "The Who"'s best-selling rock show, into an all-time haunting film that takes the 70's. The image effects of madness and vainness are vividly displayed. In terms of sound control, it is compared to the classical "Le St. Tchaikovsky" and the "Boyfriend" from the Broadway opera, which has been improved to a new level. (Russell also made biographies of Mahler and Liszt.)
It is this sense of absurdity that forms the irreplaceable grotesque style of the whole film. Ken Russell takes care of Tommy's encounter with a sharp eye. : The experience of breaking through the mother's love affair has become a permanent imprint. The vulgar stepfather, Uncle Frank, epitomizes the disturbance and stupidity of the outside world. The wild treatment of the gypsy witch is tantamount to blood-drenched electric shock torture, but all the pain of dark morale After a crazy game of pinball, Tommy broke through the giant mirror and fell into the blue wave, and the world suddenly brightened. What is rationality? What is science? In the face of fate, everything bows its head.
What Ken Russell sneered at was the ignorance and helplessness of modern people, and the blind worship of entertainment characters by fans (this kind of spiritual idol has existed like a cult, and gradually replaced politics and religion, and brought anti-social media The onslaught of the new consumer culture). In Monroe's hall, the colossus was high-arched and smoked, and the girls in Monroe masks and the singers in robes baptized the faithful with guitars and toes on the statues, and Tommy, who would later become the new idol and savior The same (Tommy baptized his mother as soon as he regained his sight). And Tommy did not intend to smash the Monroe statue when he worshiped it, which represents the anarchy that has always existed in his subconscious and constantly criticized the cultural totem. However, after he became a new idol, he also got the same fate as the Monroe statue. After he brought an epidemic-like frenzy to the world, the believers found that what they got was not salvation, but cheap money made by Tommy's family. Gimmick - a pair of sunglasses, earmuffs and a mouthpiece with special equipment (supposedly can be trained to be deaf, blind, and mute, and become like Tommy). This turning point highlights the director's sarcasm on the capitalist society and commercial behavior. The masses who dare not be deceived finally destroy their idols angrily, just as Ken Russell wipes out the whole film's nightmare with a rising sun.
"Superstar Tommy" is not a classic movie, but it is an unconventional new musical, so the audience pays attention not to the content of the story but to the form of expression. Of course, if you don't like rock music, Clockwork Orange, Rocky Horror Show, Phantom Paradise, you obviously won't like this movie. Ken Russell's film talent is always ahead of our imagination. It is too conservative to describe the bizarreness of this film with smooth and unrestrained comments. Experimental techniques ranging from animation, electronic photography to superimposition and midway exposure are poured out, interweaving the screen into a dazzling and magical sea of stars, and life and human nature are refracted through fun mirrors, making people hilarious, confusing and even frightening.
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