No songwriter
has ever captured the combustible mix of teenage fury and frailty as well as
The Who’s Pete Townshend. The band’s
violent interplay and interpersonal relations transferred through to their
music which vibrated with energy. Tough guy singer Roger Daltrey brought
Townshend’s lyrics to life but the characters residing within them were as
wounded and confused as they were defiant and angry. For every, “Hope I die
before I get old,” there’s a, “No one knows what it’s like, to be hated, to be
fated to telling only lies.” The 1973 concept album Quadrophenia was the full
flowering of this impulse, chronicling the ups, uppers and downs of a young
mod. It is arguably the band’s finest work and in 1979 was turned into a
feature film, which is currently available for streaming on HBO Max, Tubi, The
Criterion Channel, and more.
Quadrophenia
the film follows its source material closely, perhaps too closely. The year is
1964 or ‘65 and main character Jimmy Cooper is a young mod from working class
London. He works as a gopher at an ad agency and spends his meager salary on
custom-made suits, amphetamines and customizing his Lambretta scooter. Jimmy is
played by British actor Phil Daniels, who positively inhabits the role,
appropriately ebullient or taciturn as his moods ebb and explode. As per the
album title, Jimmy is schizophrenic, “a bloody split personality,” in the words
of his father. Really, he seems more bipolar than schizophrenic but
Bipolarphenia doesn’t have the same ring, does it?
Like legions
of teenagers and young adults before him, Jimmy strives to fit in but ends up
on the outside. In being a mod he thinks he’s being “a somebody” but only feels
joy when he’s following the crowd, whether it’s riding with the pack or
rumbling with rival “rockers,” leather-clad ’50s fetishists who ride actual
motorcycles. Ironically, Jimmy’s childhood friend Kevin, played by a young Ray
Winstone, is both a rocker and his own man, unconcerned with the street
politics that should divide them. When Kevin gets jumped by mods, Jimmy runs
off, unwilling to stick his neck out for a friend. As throughout the film, he
ends the night despondent and alone.
Jimmy lusts
after Steph, played by Leslie Ash, but is too shy to dance with her. They later
journey with a phalanx of mods on scooters to the English seaside resort of
Brighton. There, they encounter top mod “Ace Face,” played by a
pre-douchenozzle Sting, and battle gangs of rockers and the police. Jimmy and
Steph escape the melee and have awkward sex in an alleyway. Afterwards, Jimmy
is arrested and shares a paddy wagon with Ace, who offers him a cigarette. He
thinks he’s top of the world but his high won’t last.
Back in
London, Jimmy loses his home, his job, his girl and his standing in the gang in
short order. “It seems like everything’s going backwards,” he says to Steph,
who’s already moved on to one of his friends. “You sure it’s not you that’s
going backwards?,” she responds. He speeds off and is almost run over by a mail
truck. “You killed me scooter!,” he cries. With nowhere to go, he dons his best
mod finery and returns to Brighton, the only place where anything ever made
sense. Of course, he’s as alone as he ever was. After seeing his hero Ace
working as a lowly bellboy, he has an existential crisis, steals Ace’s scooter
and drives it off the White Cliffs of Dover. We know from the opening scene, he
jumps off at the last moment.
Quadrophenia
is essential viewing for any fan of The Who or anyone interested in the mod
subculture. Counting myself a fairly big Who fan, I’ve seen it multiple times
but have never considered whether or not it was a good film. In truth, it would
have benefited from not following the original plotline so faithfully and
trying to shoehorn in as many Who references as it could. While the first half
of the film is a compelling coming of age tale, it unravels in the end,
devolving into little more than a music video, letting the album’s songs
replace scripted dialogue to explain what’s happening. Though Quadrophenia is
among my favorite albums, and the film is beautifully shot and worth watching,
I still can’t help pondering how much better it could have been.
Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician.
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