4. Quadrophenia

             

Quadrophenia:

Quadrophenia is a rock opera album written by ‘The Who’. It’s about a working-class mod called jimmy and his social, musical and psychological happenings. The album was made into a film titled ‘Quadrophenia’ in 1979 and is set in 1965 London. Just like the album it tells the story of Jimmy and his gang of mods, who travel to Brighton for a weekend of dancing and fighting there gang rivals the rockers. I think it’s quite a good representation of teenagers at the time and I like it because it gives me an insight into the life of people at the time.

During the film I can spot things in Jimmy’s friends that I see in mine and can relate to. For example they go to a party and the song changes to one they all know (The who - My Generation), they all sing together, the light goes off and bottles get thrown in the air. I’ve watched it with friends and every time the scene is comes up I stair at them to wait for there reaction to it. Apart from that my favorite scene is closer to the end and jimmy has pretty much lost his mind; he’s on a train with the blues (pills) that he brought with his last wages, wearing a maroon suit (which is my favorite in the film) and black eyeliner. He throws his parka out of the train window and sits in a carriage with two upper-class men. It’s a really short scene but I like it because it’s almost the end of his journey in the whole film.

A lot of the mods have original Vespas and Lambrettas; I think I’m quite fond of the whole style. The men wear some brilliant ‘peacock’ (patterns and statement pieces) items of clothing during the film; Ace who is played by ‘Sting’ (The Police) has a silver Vespa and wears a silver suit. He’s quite different from the other mods and you can tell that he has more money than the majority of them from the quality of the clothes that he wears.

The sound track includes a lot of Motown and classic 60’s tunes in additional to songs by The Who like ‘Be My Baby’ by 'The Ronetts’ and ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’ by ‘ The Crystals’. Which makes it seem even more as if you’re in the 60’s yourself. Quadrophenia is one of my favorite films becase it’s very authentic and of its time.