Runnin' Down a Dream (Peter Bogdanovich, 2007)

[Zumpano]

From Rolling Stone.Com Tom Petty Story:

Also, filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show, Mask) has begun shooting a documentary about the Heartbreakers' history. "We've given him access that we've never given anybody," says Petty. Bogdanovich will interview Petty at length and hopes to talk with Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks and members of Petty's family.

"We're trying to give a sense of what happened to this group of kids that came from Gainesville, Florida -- how they made the big time," says Bogdanovich. "How did that change them, and how did they change the world?

"I'm not an expert on Tom Petty, I'm just a fan," adds Bogdanovich. "But what appeals to me is that he's a real American artist -- an impressionist -- very much of the American grain."

[jesus the mexican boi]

Plus, it'll be real cool when the Heartbreakers are on tour and they all have matching plaid suitcases that get mixed up with a federal agent's, a rock musicologist's, a rich old lady's and a perky gal's.

[hearthesilence]

Damn. I thought this was Johnny Thunders' band. L.A.M.F., baby!

[Faux Hulot]

hearthesilence, there's always this

[Polybius]

This is an especially odd pairing. Petty's one of the most straightfoward, no bullshit guys in Rock. Having Captain Ascot follow him around seems like a match made in Hell.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Captain Ascot =D>

[flyonthewall2983]

This is an especially odd pairing. Petty's one of the most straightfoward, no bullshit guys in Rock. Having Captain Ascot follow him around seems like a match made in Hell.

Plus, it seems that Peter is the type that's too old to rock. Then again, maybe he can do a better job of directing Tom than Kevin Costner did in The Postman.

[flyonthewall2983]

I'm currently watching it right now on the West Coast feed of The Sundance Channel.

Oh yeah...and it's four fucking hours.

[Polybius]

I watched a substantial chunk of it and it was really quite good. I was also a bit surprised at the length, and I can see how it would be tedious for people who weren't fans (just imagining a four hour documentary about, say, The Steve Miller Band is enough to give me hives), but it worked for me, casual Petty fan though I am.

When you think about it, any film that strives to tell a complete story, or something akin to it, about a group of people who perform pretty much any common endeavor over a span of 20+ years is going to log in at about that length.

[flyonthewall2983]

I watched a substantial chunk of it and it was really quite good. I was also a bit surprised at the length, and I can see how it would be tedious for people who weren't fans

I feel the exact same way. I think I've come away from this a bigger fan of his work. BUT...I'm a little pissed they didn't cover the soundtrack they did for She's The One, which has some of their best songs, IMO.

BTW...dig the icon

[Polybius]

I'll always be embarrassingly devoted to Julianne 8-)

[flyonthewall2983]

The section about Howie Epstein's demise was quite tragic, although I knew it was coming. It's quite sad when veteran rockers die as such. In the post-Behind the Music era, it's almost this great assumption that all the bands from the 60's and 70's still going today are all clean (or at the most, have their vices down to a healthier minimum) and happy to be alive. But of course, this isn't true. Another good example of this is John Entwistle, whose death came literally out of the blue to everyone.

[flyonthewall2983]

When you think about it, any film that strives to tell a complete story, or something akin to it, about a group of people who perform pretty much any common endeavor over a span of 20+ years is going to log in at about that length.

I've been watching this again, and this kind of sticks out to me as something I agree on, not just with this kind of documentary but documentaries period. It was foremost in my mind when I saw the recent doc on Robert Altman, which although is very good, only clocks in at under 2 hours. It managed to capture more the personal essence than maybe his professional one (the two are quite entwined anyway), but I could have watched it if it were twice as long and maybe more.

Fortunately Amazon has the 4-disc DVD in stock (it's on Blu-ray too, but doesn't feature the soundtrack CD or accompanying concert film). It's also on Qello, which I can't recommend highly enough for music freaks much like myself.

[flyonthewall2983]

Just read the recent Warren Zanes biography of Petty. The original cut of the film was 8 hours, and featured interviews with some other Mudcrutch members that didn't make the final cut. Petty also talked about his heroin addiction in the late 90's but asked Bogdanovich to cut it out.

[flyonthewall2983]

The Greatest Hits 1993 compilation is in Dolby Atmos on Apple Music. Just going through the first 7-8 tracks and realizing how they went from strength to strength into the 90’s and this point where he was in the middle of his most influential period as the one true guy his age able to resonate with such a young audience. My best friend told me about riding his bike 3 miles to get Wildflowers on tape. Another told me about how she had to sit in a car alone when she heard the news of his grave condition in that really awful period between it and the Las Vegas shooting.

It’s so funny the last time I lived in this house the other room was being rented out by this person who I won’t bother giving much room to this story, but played the Greatest Hits cd over and over again. The strange thing is that during this period is also the time this movie came out and I loved it. Got a little exhausted on it doing the Netflix and chill with it and the Eagles doc more then movies I maybe could have been watching instead but I have no regrets.

Back to the upstairs repetition it maybe constitutes the strangest pull between recognizing the genius but exhausted on the over-exposure of the dozen or so songs that are probably playing on any classic rock station in America. But I am here to say, after much time passed and seeing such useless people elevated to the heights of fame nobody really deserves, these 18 songs are indestructible. One of the few times a compact look at a man’s life and work can also be an artistic statement in and of itself.

Hearing these songs in such clarity as these words may offer, least of which why I keep updating this thread because the documentary is maybe one of the greatest pieces of this kind that don’t tell the story warts and all but come away with a better view as to what really fueled them, or in the matter of excluding Tom’s heroin addiction on the late 90’s by his own insistence after watching the first cut of the film which ran over 8 hours.

Really looking forward to next months release of the shows recorded during their 1997 run at the Fillmore West which I’ve heard the original radio broadcasts in subsequent years and a few interesting bootlegs. They were inspired performances that Tom more or less said marked the height of his career from a personal perspective. The crowd cheered references to Florida pals Lynyrd Skynyrd when covering J.J. Cale’s “Call Me The Breeze” and paying tribute to Jerry Garcia by doing the acoustic evergreen “Friend of the Devil”. Side by side with certified radio bangers like “Refugee” and indeed the song this movie borrows the title of.

[thirtyframesasecond]

The Anthology compilation (2000) takes a handful of tracks from the debut to Into the Great Wide Open, and a few additional tracks. Although they only recorded a couple of great albums, Petty and the Heartbreakers have LOADS of great tracks - The Waiting being my personal favourite.

[hearthesilence]

The Anthology compilation (2000) takes a handful of tracks from the debut to Into the Great Wide Open, and a few additional tracks. Although they only recorded a couple of great albums, Petty and the Heartbreakers have LOADS of great tracks - The Waiting being my personal favourite.

I think some have argued that Greatest Hits is actually THE Tom Petty masterpiece, maybe his only great album and exhibit A for why "Greatest Hits" albums should exist. I think it's a pretty sound argument - as much as I like Petty, Damn the Torpedoes is the only one that feels like a start-to-finish great album. Full Moon Fever is close, but fumbles it a bit on the flipside. Greatest Hits leaves out a lot of good stuff though - Anthology comes close to grabbing every great Petty track out there except for the ones on Wildflowers. There are a handful I would've added and maybe a few I would've taken off it, but it's still a great listen.

[flyonthewall2983]

The Live Anthology is an incredible document of how superior the Heartbreakers were as a live act. Overall it’s their best album for me because of how seamlessly it encompasses their repertoires over the years and works on it’s own the same way Greatest Hits does as far as encapsulating the legacy.

That all said I do like Wallflowers a ton, as well as the recent box set of that period of Tom’s career and life. Learning what I could from it in the Zanes book flipped my perspective as this documentary had instantly increased my respect for him as an artist and I could appreciate also some of the personal things which brought him to that place. It’s an incredible book.