Cat Smith
I don’t go out to the movies very often. The older I get, the less patience I have with the average movie audience. They talk, they sing along (if applicable), it’s just not worth it. Some things are worth the risk, though. Tonight I went to a 50th anniversary showing of The Who’s Tommy in IMAX. I figured, if people sang along, I would get over it. I needn’t have worried. From the second the first chord sounded, you could feel the whole theater barely breathing.
This movie gets a lot of hate (I’ve written about it extensively if you want the extended version of my ranting), and I’ve never understood why, unless it’s just fans of the album being purists. Which I respect. But come ON, this is how you need to tell the story. Ken Russell is not fucking around. This film is relentless. Right from the start, it goes HARD. Every choice it makes, it makes the strong one (Oliver Reed killing your dad and then glowering in your face that you didn’t see or hear it, THAT is the kind of trauma that will rob you of your senses). And in IMAX? The “Amazing Journey” sequence is a religious experience. I wept.
I’d seen Tommy on a big screen before, years ago, though never this big. It’s always great seeing something big that you’d only ever seen small a zillion times—you notice little background things you’ve never seen before. In IMAX, all of a sudden, in the Faith Healer sequence, Eric Clapton was completely upstaged by one of the service dogs. I’m sorry, Mr. Clapton, but there is a golden Labrador on the screen, and the entire scene is now about this dog. ADHDog…the struggle is real.
When the last “listening to you” was heard and the sun rose because Tommy made it rise and Ken Russell told it to, everyone applauded. Aside from the appropriate giggles over Jack Nicholson’s studly mugging, this was the first sound the audience had made the entire time. We spent the whole film in stunned, worshipful silence, getting excitement at its feet.
