Absolute Beginners
by Julien Temple
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: David Bowie, Eddie O'Connell, James Fox, Patsy Kensit, Ray DaviesDirector: Julien Temple
Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 108 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-04-15
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Absolute Beginners
Movie Review: Fabsolutely Abulous
Summary: 4 Stars
Absolute Beginners was released in 1986, but it harkens back to those halcyon days of 1958, when England was shaking off its drab shades of grey, gray, and greyer, and embracing more vibrant colors and the power of youth. The Musical is based on the novel of the same name by Colin MacInnes. Colin is also the name of the photographer/narrator (Eddie O'Connell), who is the protagonist. As the film opens, he explains in voice-over his ambition to capture the ethereal blossoms on film before they wither or are rendered in plastic.
This film was an attempt to capture the ethereal blossoms, too, but too late--it was more of a rendering in plastic. Not that this musical is without charm, it is loaded with it--but it tries to tackle several serious issues but ends up biting off more than it can chew.
In some ways it is like West Side Story, with its theme of racial tension among youth gangs, but the music is a mish mash of various styles, all likeable enough, but failing to coalesce into a single unified vision, as it did with Leonard Bernstein & Stephen Sondheim. This film actually has Gil Evans, whose work with Miles Davis stands out, but here his talents are wasted. I imagine that is his arrangement of Charles Mingus' Boogie Stop Shuffle, and Better Git it in Your Soul, but they don't really add anything to the original. We also have a great dance number with Colin and the sinister Vendice Partners (David Bowie) tap-dancing on a giant type writer, and a charming ditty sung by Arthur, Collin's dad (Ray Davies). Did I mention the dance number where Suzette (Patsy Kensit) takes over the fashion runway, or where she sings in Chez Nobody a la Miss Peggy Lee's Fever, to the accompaniment of finger snaps? There is also a great party sequence featuring Slim Gaillard of Slim & Slam fame (Fast Foot Floogie with the Floy Floy) and another club sequence where Sade sings. In the party sequence Dido Lament, Gossip Columnist (Anita Morris) straps a cocktail shaker onto her high heel, hops on the bar, and mixes a martini with her leg while lounging on her back. I was not only shaken, but also stirred.
After West Side Story, I would compare the musical Absolute Beginners to Clockwork Orange, but that film used its music--Beethoven and other classical numbers--in a much more innovative way that supported the story, the action, and was the one redeeming quality of its teen age thug protagonist, Alexander De Large.
If this movie had been done with Paul Weller of The Jam, I think we would have had a much more interesting film experience. He was inspired by the book, Absolute Beginners, to write a song with that title. Even though he belongs more to the 80's, when the film was made, then the late 50's, the period it tries to capture, his music was retro, nostalgic for the days of The Who, and also the soul and R&B that would support the theme of racial tension.
The director, Julien Temple, also directed The Great Rock & Roll Swindle, along with a lot of videos and music-related projects. There is a song here by Tenpole Tudor, as Ed the Ted, that doesn't really relate to the rest of the story, but like his song in Swindle, is charming nonetheless. Not being up on English teen culture as much as I thought I was, weren't there riots between Teds and Mods, or Mods and Rockers? Ringo Starr was asked if he was a Mod or a Rocker, and he said he was a Mocker. In this film there is a stand off between Mods and Trads. Modern Jazz versus Trad Jazz? Who knew the Brits took that so serious.
To me it was interesting to see James Fox in his role as Henley of Mayfair, Dressmaker to the Queen. I wondered what had happened to him. Fox dropped out of the acting profession for nine years (1970-79) after he filmed Performance (1970) with Mick Jagger. A combination of his father's recent death, the strain of filming and smoking the hallucinogen DMT with Mick Jagger led to a nervous breakdown. Fox subsequently joined a religious organization known as "The Navigators" which is similar to the Gideons and is closely associated with the ministry of Billy Graham. He published a book, "Comeback: An Actor's Direction", in 1983.
[On his 9-year break from acting]: People think Performance (1970) blew my mind... my mind was blown long before that.
Performance (1970) gave me doubts about my way of life. Before that I had been completely involved in the more bawdy side of the film business. But after that everything changed.
To sum it up: This movie is a musical adaptation of the book Absolute Beginners set in 1958. The themes are the emerging youth explosion, the baby boom, and its cultural ramifications. The creativity and energy of youth is co-opted, exploited, and used to sell useless products. The low rent ghetto, haven for artists and other demimondes, is torn down by greedy developers to make way for housing projects, and neo-fascist thugs are used to threaten and harass the inhabitants into moving. These are serious subjects, but then, the fights are all choreographed into dance numbers, making the whole thing seem very silly and trivial. But this is a musical, so what are you going to do? two, three, four, and jazz hands!
Absolute Beginners (Absolute Classics): The book upon which the musical is based.
Compact Snap: The Jam have a cool song based on the book, titled Absolute Beginners. I like to imagine this project done by Paul Weller, along with Gil Evans. Sound Affects. The Jam song in question is here, along with lots of other Jam gems.
A Clockwork Orange: Anthony Burgess was inspired to write the book after hearing about plans to "cure" violent youth with electric shock or other extreme therapy in the wake of the Mod/Ted riots. There is a scene where Collin visits home, only to find his room rented out to an uncouth lodger that is very similar. Other parallels also.
West Side Story: This musical set new standards and revolutionized the entire musical form. A classic masterpiece. Absolute Beginners wishes it was one-tenth of West Side Story.
Mingus Ah Um: There are two great numbers here that are used in the movie. The Mingus versions sound the best, but the movie looks better. Great dance numbers.
The Man Who Fell to Earth: This is the best translation of the "Cracked Actor" into the film medium. Bowie's best film performance.
Performance: This is the film that James Fox was in that, along with other factors, caused him to quit acting for nine years. Here, he plays a gangster on the lam, hiding out with a reclusive rock star (Mick Jagger). Great music by Ry Cooder and The Rolling Stones.
Great Rock N Roll Swindle: Julien Temple directed this recap of The Sex Pistols told from the point of view of manager Malcolm McLarren, taking all credit for the whole punk rock movement.
Comeback: An Actor's Direction: Book by James Fox about his acting hiatus. Probably out of print.
Velvet Goldmine: Just threw in one last random comparison of another rock musical that is vaguely similar. You can have ten, so this is the tenth. Absolute Beginners is much better than at least this one.
Summary of Absolute Beginners
A commercial disaster upon its release in 1986, Absolute Beginners is an uneven but often stunning attempt at revitalizing the movie musical with postmodern sensibilities. Director Julien Temple was making his first foray into dramatic features after an impressive string of music videos and documentaries (including the first of two Temple-directed profiles of the Sex Pistols), and he upped the stakes by harnessing his visual ingenuity to a period piece exploring London's social transformation at the edge of the '60s--a fleeting moment in the pop zeitgeist that may as well have been the Cambrian Age to Temple's MTV-generation audience. This is post-World War II London turning the corner from economic austerity, giddy with jazz and early rock, yet to witness the Beatles and the Stones.Adapted from Colin MacInnes's novel, the story follows Colin (Eddie O'Connell), a young Londoner looking to find his place in the world. A budding romance with the intoxicating Suzette (Patsy Kensit) as well as crises of conscience over social responsibility and financial gain are the plot threads in a story that arguably tackles too many Big Ideas, including adolescent identity, British racism (directed at West Indian immigrants) and class prejudice, and capitalism itself, embodied by David Bowie as unctious, superstar executive Vendice Partners.
In wrestling with such valiant ambitions, Temple and his young cast establish the film's musical soul in a canny synthesis of '80s English pop with postwar bop and the seeds of Mod culture. Onscreen performances by Fine Young Cannibals, Sade, and Kensit, a Bowie production number ("Motivation") that cribs from Busby Berkeley, and a wonderful sequence with the Kinks' Ray Davies as Arthur (a likely nod to his own band's 1969 rock opera) are all well realized. Less obviously, Temple salutes the period's forgotten jazz legacy through a score from the late Gil Evans, and in the jaw-dropping, bravura opening sequence, an extended single-camera journey through Soho set to Charles Mingus's joyous "Boogie Stop Shuffle" that is itself reason enough to see this brave musical. --Sam Sutherland
This "daring terrifically inventive" (Variety) rock musical takes an exhilarating look at London in the late 1950s when young people shattered convention with their newfound power. With appearances by some of music's biggest stars Absolute Beginners "breathes the soul and spirit of adolescence" (Los Angeles Times) into a time when anything and everything happened! Colin is a brazen 19-year-old with his finger on the pulse of Soho's burgeoning scene of artists. But when his beautiful girlfriend Suzette tires of their poor and struggling existence Colin finds himself losing touch with himself and her. And when an older richer man sweeps Suzette away a devastated Colin embarks on a desperate journey to win her back!System Requirements:Running Time: 108 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: MUSICALS/MUSICALS Rating: PG-13 UPC: 027616884565 Manufacturer No: 1004377
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