The Pete Townshend documentary Pete Townshend: Behind Blue Eyes is on the festival circuit after its world premiere at Telluride. Directed by Frank Marshall and Nigel Sinclair, the film plays the Hamptons International Film Festival on Oct. 3 and 4 and the Mill Valley Film Festival on Oct. 4, Deadline reports.
Where to see the Pete Townshend documentary
The Mill Valley listing shows the 103-minute film at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 4, in two Sequoia theaters. One showing includes a live introduction and a post-film conversation, but it is currently on standby. Marshall, Sinclair and producer Cassidy Hartmann are listed as expected guests.
For tickets to the Pete Townshend documentary at Mill Valley, call the box office at 415-818-8757. The Hamptons festival runs Oct. 2-12.
According to Mill Valley’s synopsis, the Pete Townshend documentary mixes concert footage and music videos with new interviews of Townshend and Daltrey, who look back on the band’s history and the tensions inside it. Distribution plans are still pending, so festival screenings are the way to see the Pete Townshend documentary for now.
The quiet writer behind The Who
The film argues that Townshend, who wrote The Who’s songs, gets less credit than frontman Roger Daltrey. “A lot of people, when we say, ‘Oh, Pete wrote all the songs,’ they go, ‘What?'” Marshall said. “Pete’s also very quiet. He’s not the front man.”
Much of the story follows Lifehouse, the ambitious rock opera Townshend began after Tommy. It never came together, but songs written for it, including “Behind Blue Eyes,” “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” became Who classics. The filmmakers also unearthed decades-old archive footage of the band that had been stored away since the 1980s.
From art school to smashed guitars
Townshend studied at Ealing Art College, where teacher Roy Ascott’s ideas on technology and consciousness left a mark. Classroom exercises in “auto-destruction” had students wreck pianos and other instruments. The film ties that lesson to his habit of ending shows by smashing his guitar.
Sinclair told Deadline the first smash was an accident at a club on Goldhawk Road, where Townshend’s guitar punched through the ceiling and broke. He threw it down in frustration. Drummer Keith Moon, Sinclair said, followed by smashing his drum kit.
Rock and music stories keep reaching the screen. See our coverage of the Billy Idol documentary and Selma Blair’s Hineni documentary.
Buzz at Telluride and what comes next
The Pete Townshend documentary became a hot ticket at Telluride, according to Deadline. Sinclair said director Danny Boyle, who had his own film at the festival, told him he had to see it.
Hartmann, who was born after The Who’s peak, said she hopes the story of a creative person trying to make something in the world will connect with a younger audience, not just longtime fans.
Marshall also pointed to “I Can’t Explain” as an early example of Townshend turning what young people felt into a song, often without realizing it. Archival producers Kate Griffiths and Catalina Curbishley helped find the rare footage.
A songwriter split in two
Townshend was born in West London in May 1945. His father played saxophone and his mother sang. After their rocky marriage, he was sent to live with his grandmother, whom he later called “clinically insane.”
Hartmann says that experience shaped the central idea of the Pete Townshend documentary: Townshend as a “divided person,” part introverted writer and part stage performer. She said the filmmakers were drawn to the tension between those two sides and his effort to reconcile them. The upheaval of his childhood also fed Tommy, according to the film.
Townshend’s band has made headlines off stage, too. Read how he addressed The Who’s split with Zak Starkey.
