Quadrophenia

I'm about as old as Sting is now. When I was the age of the kids in this film, in my area of the world, we had two groups of kids, and you were either one or the other, unless you were a total loser, or just didn't care. In the movie, Jimmy and his crew were the mods; we had what were called the "baldies", because of the close-cropped hair. I placed my allegiance with the baldies. We wore what would be called "preppie" attire now: khaki trousers, button-down collar "Gant" shirts with the little loops in the back, high-polished leather oxfords in shell or wingtip styles, v-neck sweaters, and belts with big round buckles. The shoes were important in that the soles were heavy enough to inflict some damage in a fight. The shirts and trousers had to be perfectly pressed, and the shoes spit-shined. Yes, to any self-respecting baldie, appearance was extremely high on the list of importance. It was all about image, you see. Favorite baldie smoke: "boros"; favorite beverage: malt liquor. In place of the rockers, we had the "greasers", for obvious reasons. Very similar to the rockers portrayed in the movie, with their black leather jackets, engineer boots, denims, and early Elvis-type hair. The greasers were more of your lower or lower middle class working kids, while the baldies were generally in a higher economic class. Music-wise, the baldies went for the Beatles, Stones and other British groups; the rockers hung onto Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins. Your typical greaser smoked Camels and drank Grain Belt beer, or booze. Others had mentioned "The Outsiders". If I remember correctly, in that film, the "Soc's" (pronounced "sowshuz) equated with the mods/baldies, but I can't recall what the rockers/greasers were called. Anyone? I guess the point is that all young men go through this stuff, to varying degrees, all over the place. You have that dangerous period where you are not a little kid anymore but not yet a man, the hormones are screaming, you think your parents are the stupidest people on earth, you HAVE to make sure you get your share. You desperately need to prove your manhood, because you're not a man and you're insecure about that whole deal. So you fight, to measure yourself against the next guy. And your buds are much more important to you than your parents. The Vespas in the movie were something we didn't have around here: more car-oriented, though the greasers did have their Harley's. If there was a popular bike, it would have been the Honda 50! Sort of shows you how old and decrepit I am now. I really was blown away when I first saw the film. Seemed real raw and honest, and loved the "Britishness" of the whole thing. But we could all totally relate, because as you see, the English kids were alot like us.

What a wonderful film. If you ever thought you were safe, or that your world was impregnable, then you must see this film. Watch as every important elements of a young man's (Jimmy's) life is stripped away, piece by piece, until he has no anchor, no magnet, and no direction in life. Without his familiar crutches (hooliganism, drugs, girlfriends, Mod clansmen, job, parents, home and 'scooter'), Jimmy is faced with a terrifying realization that he - alone - must completely rebuild and reinvent himself. In a way that is hard to describe in words, director Franc Roddam exposes the raw core of life, unadorned by all the temporal things by which we measure success, worth and happiness. Better still, he forces the viewer to examine the very definition of 'a life'. The movie generates ever increasing momentum, culminating in one of the most intensely disturbing realizations ever captured on film, with the white cliffs of Dover as the foreground, and the The Who's equally monumental and haunting "Love Reign O'er Me" in the background. With the possible exception of Bill Murray's version of "The Razor's Edge", this is about as perfect a chance as we are ever afforded to examine the foundations of our own lives (...what more can you ask of a film?). Though this is not an uncommon cinematic theme, it has never been so brilliantly achieved. An emotional and spiritual tour de force, and simply one of the best films ever made.