Tommy

Tommy is a 1975 movie based on the rock opera by the British pop band Who and directed by British genius Ken Russell. Shamelessly over-the-top, silly, wild, dynamic, primitive, glitzy and violent, Tommy ain't subtle: it presents pop psychology which's crude as a sledgehammer, symbolism which's heavy-handed like a pinball machine hurled out of a hotel onto Sunset Strip; it's decked out in Pop Art colours and costumes by way of glam rock; it's proudly and bizarrely English and parochial and provincial; it's perverse and kinky; it's shrill and hysterical; and it contains some of the finest music every included in a musical movie. If Richard Wagner was making movies out of his music in the 1970s, this is what it would look like.

Tommy would have to rank in the top three of anyone's Ken Russell films. It's one of those movies where every element comes together beautifully, and where everyone in the production seems to be working at their best. Tommy's not perfect, but you wouldn't want to change anything.

This book features lengthy chapters on every aspect of director Ken Russell. A filmmaker like no other, Russell remains one of cinema's extraordinary talents, a creator of masterpieces such as The Devils, Tommy and The Music Lovers, and a body of work that flies from the pastoral, Romantic lyricism of Delius: Song of Summer and Elgar to the wild extremes of Lisztomania, Altered States and Mahler.

Plus chapters on the Who; appendices on Quadrophenia; filmographies and discographies; and bibliography; quotes by Russell, resources, video and DVD availability, and fans on Tommy.

Fully illustrated, including images of the Who, musicals of Tommy, and inspirations. Bibliography and notes. ISBN 9781861715050. 312 pages. www.crmoon.com JEREMY MARK ROBINSON has written many critical studies, including Hayao Miyazaki, Arthur Rimbaud, Jean-Luc Godard, and The Sacred Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky, plus literary monographs on: J.R.R. Tolkien; Samuel Beckett; Thomas Hardy; André Gide; Robert Graves; and Lawrence Durrell.