Never heard of Ken Russell? Not a lot of people have. Altered States is probably his most mainstream movie, and if you've ever seen it you know it's not all that mainstream. It's also not a kids' movie, and neither is anything else this director ever made. Nevertheless, he happened to direct my favorite movie of all time. One that has been my favorite since...well, since I was too young to remember. What movie is that? Why, Tommy, of course.
My Mother's Legacy
My mother was born in the mid fifties, so she was just the right age for Beatlemania when it took the world by storm back in 1964. But while her love of the Beatles did stand the test of time and persists to this day, they only held first place in her heart for a short time. A couple of years later Roger Daltrey's sexy voice knocked John, Paul, George, and Ringo from that pedestal in much the same way that Roger Daltrey's talents at pinball knocked Elton John from his oversized shoes in Tommy.
You should know that I believe every situation in life can be summed up by referencing a scene from Tommy.
So my mom is a lifelong fan of The Who. Which means their music provided the soundtrack of my formative years. One of my earliest memories is of me sitting on my bed looking at my bedroom window. It's nighttime, so I can see nothing outside. Only my reflection in the window pane. I'm about four years old and I know, because I can see it in the reflection, that my hair is in pig tails. To my left is a little plastic record player, the kind all kids had back in the early eighties. And what's playing on the record player? Tommy. The album, obviously, not the movie.
It was the first album I ever owned, and I played it all the time. I don't remember when I saw the movie for the first time, but I do know I was young. So young I didn't even know what it was about. I just knew I recognized the songs from my favorite album.
A Typical Eighties Childhood
Binge watching wasn't a thing in the eighties, but those of us who were kids back then sure didn't know that. We didn't have access to box sets of our favorite TV shows, so we binge watched movies instead. A typical summer afternoon involved spending a few hours in the pool, followed by laying our towels out on the floor so we could watch our favorite movie for the fourth or fifth time that week. Movies which our parents had recorded off of HBO, or possibly one of the other channels. If it was another channel, that was a pain because it meant we had to fast forward through the commercials.
Favorites among me and my friends included The NeverEnding Story and Poltergeist. There was also a Cyndi Lauper concert we used to watch over and over again. In the late eighties we all fell in love with Dirty Dancing. But when my friends had all gone home and I was by myself, I watched Tommy.
Honestly, I've seen the darn movie so many times I think I have every frame memorized.
Some Questions Answered...Well, Partially
A while back I wrote a post entitled What's Up With the Crazy Emotions I Feel Watching Early Supernatural Episodes? In it I described this feeling of nostalgia that I get when I watch the first two seasons of that show. I offered some theories as to what I was feeling, and I think I may have been right about some of it, but still felt like I hadn't uncovered all the answers yet.
The biggest example of the problem was the penultimate episode of season two. First of all, the weather must have been pretty crappy all through the filming of that episode, because it's raining in almost every scene. But there's one scene in particular where Dean and Bobby are standing on the side of the road with a map laid out on the hood of the car. They look to be pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and it's raining. Not enough that you can see it on camera, but there's a large puddle on the opposite side of the road, and you can see the raindrops landing in it.
I wanted to get a picture of the scene to show you, but couldn't find one.
Anyway, the first time I watched that scene I found it so beautiful I thought I might cry. But I also felt as though I had stood right in the spot where Dean and Bobby were standing. Which was impossible. So why did I feel that way?
Rewatching Tommy last week, after not having watched it in probably five or six years, may have provided part of the answer. You see, I watched that movie so many times as a child I almost feel like I've been to the locations depicted there. That's what happens when you combine a beloved movie with the amazing powers of a child's imagination. Though I've lived in the US all my life, and the two trips I've made across the Atlantic took me to Germany, not England, some small part of my soul grew up in the environs of Portsmouth (where the movie was filmed). Not the real Portsmouth, of course. The Portsmouth I saw when I watched Tommy (and if you've seen any Ken Russell movies, you know they rarely have anything to do with reality). But my point is, I saw that movie so many times, at such a young age, that I almost feel I've actually been to the places shown.
And there are a few scenes...
First there's the scene where Tommy wanders off and ends up in a junk yard (again, I tried to get a picture, but couldn't find one). Well, this is not related to that beautiful scene from Supernatural, but there is a connection. Because what does Bobby do for a living? He runs a junk yard.
Then there's the ending sequence from Tommy's Holiday Camp. This is the best picture of it I could find:
Then there's this scene which we see during the song Sensation:
What do all of these have in common? They are all filmed in rural locations where the ground is wet from recent rains. Just like my favorite scenes from my favorite two seasons of Supernatural.
Think I'm trying too hard to make connections which aren't really there? I wouldn't blame you for thinking that, but I know what I felt when I rewatched Tommy the other day, and I really think I'm on to something here.
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