Show Rock Docs celebrate Tom Petty The Who Robert Lloyd Los Angeles Times Two new rock n V roll documentaries come cone cometo coneto to television this week weck Monday Sun Sundance dance Channel screens Peter Bogdanovich's hour four-hour jog through the year 30 career of Tom Torn Petty and the Heartbreakers Down a Dream Four hour documentary on Tom Petty will tell you right away where you stand on this thing And Saturday will air without commercial interruption Amazing Journey a new movie about The Who Vho that u. u like the Petty film attempts to squeeze the bands band's whole career and much of its dirty laundry into a single suitcase Each film has been authorized by its subjects indeed they are the agents of their creati creation n. n All the survivors are heard from and the relevant casualties as s well Each film will show you things you haven't seen before home movies unpublished pictures footage lost in someone's garage for 40 years And each coincidentally features Pearl Jams Jam's Eddie Vedder in the role of fan analyst-fan Dream adds Dave Grohl and Stevie Nicks Journey has Noel Gallagher and the Edge among many others Its It's almost pointless to judge these films as cinema they are designed essentially as gift boxes Neither has the focused power of say Shel ter Pop Notwithstanding these small-screen small broadcasts and a few scattered big- big screen showings their true medium is the DVD they arc are meant to live on your shelf to be taken down and sampled and even obsessed over clip by clip They are exactly the sum of their parts Although Down a Dream is billed as a Peter Bogdanovich film theres there's nothing to identify it stylistically as such apart from the John Ford clip that John Ford fan Bogdanovich works in to illustrate Pettys Petty's youthful love of cowboy movies But he does a good job at cutting scattered interviews into a seamless narrative and though its it's Pettys Petty's pointed humor that sets the tone its it's nice to hear the rest of the band speak for a change As in Amazing Journey J the most compelling part of the story is the beginning when it all comes together Amazing Journey takes 40 minutes just to getto get getto getto to My Generation One reason that Dream runs so long is that its it's generous with music whether in concert clips TV shots or videos most songs are allowed to torun torun run mn long with few or no interrupting voice From a fan standpoint this is unquestionably the right decision and the songs tell the story as certainly as does what lies in a phrase I heard somewhere once behind the music The theme that emerges s here if you want one is sticking to your guns morally and musically to borrow another Petty title it might as easily have been called I Wont Won't Back Down Its It's all about staying pure even when youre you're a little messed up By contrast Amazing Journey which runs something like half the thc length of the Petty film scants the music it comes only in flashes Yet it stills feels musical visually directors Co-directors Paul Crowder and ana Murray Lemer concentrate on the talk Pete Townshend who in the past has strained to distance himself from rock n V roll rolland rolland rolland and almost compulsively belittled Roger has relaxed some He is like a man who has quit struggling against his marriage and has decided that this is his life and all told a good one Indeed Amazing Journey makes a case for the they then-they- were two were Who Vho as a band that deserves your continuing interest something of a feat given that you have just seen them at the height of their powers For a band whose watchwords were aggression and chaos their story in the lie end is surprisingly sweet and moving |