Quadrophenia



The Who’s classic rock opera Quadrophenia was the basis for this invigorating coming-of-age movie and depiction of the defiant, drug-fueled London of the early 1960s. Our antihero, Jimmy (Phil Daniels), is a teenager dissatisfied with family, work, and love, who identifies with the fashionable, pill-popping, scooter-driving mods, a group whose opposition to the motorcycle-riding rockers leads to a climactic riot in Brighton. Director Franc Roddam’s rough-edged film is a quintessential chronicle of youthful rebellion and turmoil, with Pete Townshend’s brilliant songs (including “I’ve Had Enough,” “5:15,” and “Love, Reign O’er Me”) providing emotional support, and featuring Sting and Ray Winstone in early roles.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:

- New high-definition digital restoration of the uncut version, with the original 2.0 stereo soundtrack as well as an all-new 5.1 surround mix, supervised by the Who and presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition
- New audio commentary featuring director Franc Roddam and director of photography Brian Tufano
- New interview with Bill Curbishley, the film’s coproducer and the Who’s comanager
- New interview with the Who’s sound engineer, Bob Pridden, discussing the new mix, featuring a restoration demonstration
- On-set and archival footage
- Behind-the-scenes photographs
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Nick James, a reprinted personal history by original mod Irish Jack, and Pete Townshend’s liner notes from the album

Total blind buy for me. I haven't seen the movie, but love the album (A very close 2nd to Who's Next as their best), love The Who, and am curious to see the performances, specifically Sting and a young Ray Winstone. Sad but not surprised Pete and Roger didn't participate on the extras, but Pridden has worked with the band from the 60's to now so his comments on the new mix will be interesting. And Curbishley is an interesting character, having had a criminal past before becoming managers to not just The Who, but at various times Lynyrd Skynyrd and Led Zeppelin.

Here's the trailer, which doesn't look to be included on the disc. Don't forget that the film also features Toyah Willcox (two years after Jubilee) and Michael Elphick (five years before his starring role in The Element of Crime)!

I think that the film is even better than the album (which is great). There's something about seeing and hearing it that really brings the material to life in new ways.

Winstone is fantastic, and you're in for an absolute treat if you're a fan. Shame he isn't in the film more, but he really makes the most of his role (great presence, very affecting).

Anyone else who hasn't seen this should absolutely follow your lead.


I had no idea! Do you know who he plays in this?

Universal did a big box-set re-issue of the album, featuring a demo version including some songs that didn't make the final cut, a 5.1 mix of selected tracks, and a long essay by Pete, written while he was doing work on his memoirs. This is the first of a four-part interview on the genesis of the idea of both making a follow-up concept to Tommy and lyrically indulging in the mod culture that the band started in. He talks about the movie a little, noting that there was a mod revival amidst the Punk movement once the movie had come out.

Looks like nothing from the UK/Foreign Blu-ray / 2-disc DVD made it to the Criterion disc.

Sting's Vespa in this film is great.

This movie is fantastic and those who love coming of age tales will not be disappointed. While I'm a huge fan of The Who's early stuff, I am not a big fan of Quadrophenia at all.
But with that said, the film stands excellently on its own, and in case it needs to be said: the film is in absolutely no way whatsoever similar to Tommy the movie.

I was a big fan of this when it was brand new -- but returning to it after 3 decades, I found it rather disappointing -- I no longer felt any connection to its focal characters -- and I felt that it engaged in lots of not very thoughtful, cheap-shot criticism of authority figures.

Sucks to grow old...

A minor quibble, but the one disappointment for me, only having seen some still shots and a few brief clips, is that it was shot in color and didn't try to match up to the really beautiful yet gritty B&W photography that was part of the album sleeve.

I didn't find the movie to be all that closely related to the album, certainly not an adaptation of it like Ken Russell's Tommy. It's not unconnected- it's certainly about a sort of similar kid in the same general context as the figure in the album- but it's very much more an 'inspired by' sort of thing.

I was a bit nonplussed by the movie the last time I saw it, not sure if I'll pick it up again. The closest thing that comes to mind is John Schlesinger's Billy Liar, if that's a helpful comparison.

I'd bracket it more with the film Scum and the TV programmes Made In Britain, Annika and Going Out. It's a period piece, but captures the teenage frustration and anger of the time it was made in.

Yes, I don't think it has much in common with Billy Liar beyond the general theme of youthful dissatisfaction with the world - Billy Liar is much more overtly comedic, and indeed more fantastical. In fact, quite a few other early 1960s British New Wave titles have more in common with Quadrophenia than that does. And, as RossyG points out, a lot of Alan Clarke's work from the late 1970s and 1980s.

But I'd agree with matrixschmatrix's point that it's nothing like Tommy, Pink Floyd The Wall or other overt attempts at visualising a rock album - tracks from The Who's Quadrophenia are featured extensively, but purely in a conventional film-soundtrack sense: there's no attempt to foreground them, and no-one sings on camera (aside from that impromptu performance of My Generation in the party scene, with Jimmy the Mod and his friends helping Roger Daltrey out when he sings "Why don't you just f-f-f-f-f-...").

Oh, and Michael Elphick plays Phil Daniels' father - a small but important role.

I guess the commonality was that they had a similar feeling of hopelessness, of being a young person with no real prospects for anyone or anything- but of course, that's a pretty general theme of the British New Wave.

Coincidentally, I've actually been on a Who kick for the past three days, and I was listening to the box set via Spotify. I love the Who, but I've always respected Quadrophenia more than I've liked it. Some great songs: "5.15," "The Real Me," "I'm the One," etc. but it's never come together for me. I almost want to say the ideas/ambitions of the project ultimately weigh everything down... By the same token, I'm definitely going to check this out because I can see the story working better as a movie, certainly better than Tommy, which seemed too pretentious on the original album and a little too ridiculous for my tastes on screen.

I love the Who, but I've always had mixed feelings about their concepts - until the 1995 reissue, The Who Sell Out felt half-formed, much of Tommy is great but other tracks feel too burdened to me by the narrative, and I always felt my favorite Who's Next was a complete success because it was freed from the constraints of Lifehouse.

I'm a big Who fan, but I agree with you about their concept albums / 'operas'. Both Sell Out and Tommy start out with a dense interconnectedness (all those inspired jingles, the segues and linking tracks of Sides One and Two of Tommy) but run out of steam, resolving into a more conventional sequence of discrete tracks. Some great discrete tracks, for sure, but that shift gives the albums an inherent unevenness.

And, as noted, Who's Next is much better off as a killer single album (and some killer singles and outtakes) with no coherent throughline than as a multi-disc, multi-platform opera / film / event with no coherent throughline.

That said, Quadrophenia is the work that succeeds best as a 'rock opera' - it's got a consistency of tone, a storyline of an appropriate scale, a coherent set of leitmotifs (the four themes, plus the ghostly nods back to early Who tracks - 'Zoot Suit', 'I'm the Face', 'The Kids Are Alright'). The problem I've always had with the album is that the songwriting isn't as dynamic and varied as on the previous albums (the lack of any contribution from Entwistle hurts in this regard) and that's it's always suffered from a murky mix. That mix issue has been alleviated with later revisits, but I still think that in most cases the best sounding versions of these tracks were the ones remixed by Entwistle for the movie soundtrack. He emphasises the bass, as you'd expect, but that's seldom a bad thing. It'll be interesting to see whether Townshend undoes his good work with this edition, or builds upon it.

Hey, I managed to get back on topic!

It also works because it's filled with more actual songs that if taken out of context of performing Quadrophenia as a whole, can still work. "The Real Me", "5:15" and "Love, Reign O'er Me" proved to be pretty steady concert staples once they moved away from the disastrous first attempt at touring it. Same goes for Pete doing "I'm One" and "Drowned" as acoustic pieces during solo shows. Tommy had some great songs, but it also had a lot of filler that you can't quite take out of it's context.

That was the shame about the Lifehouse project being started and never finished over the years, is that more than just this very heady and pretentious concept, had some of Pete's best songs at the heart of it. If you look at the intended tracklist, it almost reads off like a greatest hits package.

Have you heard the Lifehouse Chronicles box? It makes the best possible case for how everything would have hung together (and it is a blindingly great set of songs), but I still can't quite imagine it ever coming together coherently as an album.

Of course, what we really need is the equivalent release of Who recordings.

I have. Pete was (and maybe still is) an awesome one-man band. He's been incredibly charitable to his audience releasing the demos like he has, not just on that set but also on his Scoop compilations and the recent Quadrophenia box set. I heard a bit of the radio play that's included, and think it would make a wonderful film someday. The story went that he had a deal with Universal to make a film version before it was scrapped in '71. And another attempt was aborted a decade later once the director discovered Pete had an affair with his wife. One can hope the third time is the charm lol.

Mark Kermode is hosting a concert Monday on BBC radio, featuring music from movies centered around London. He talks about it here, and most notably mentions that scheduled to perform are Pete Townshend and Jeff Beck, doing a Quadrophenia medley.

It also looks as if Criterion have added trailers for the film onto the disc now.

Much new material added:

Yay, Criterion are back with the French TV documentaries!

By the way, on Friday 29th June BBC4 are doing a Who-themed evening of programmes including showing Quadrophenia and a concert. However the main attraction is an hour and ten minute documentary called "Quadrophenia: Can You See The Real Me?" interviewing Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey which is, according to the Radio Times listing, an "exploration of the tensions during the making of the 1973 album which visits their former haunts in south London. It even tracks down two well-turned-out ladies who, 40 years ago, were teens with attitude in the LP's monochrome photobook".

A pity that this arrives too late to be licensed out, as it would seem to cover the most glaring ommissions in the extra features of the disc, but I suppose it will be put up on YouTube soon after its broadcast.

EDIT: It is apparently getting a select cinema US release on 24th July.

I would suspect that the documentary will get it's own release on DVD/Blu, with it's own special features. And it is getting a one-night release in the U.S., here is the list of theaters that will be showing it.



Here it is, a composite of audience video and the radio broadcast.

Perhaps the extras should include an episode of TV's Masterchef, the creation of which Roddam is probably best known for these days.