An interesting thing has been happening in the last few years regarding the way people think about movie theaters. Since the idea of “roadshowing” films (showing a film in a city for several nights before moving on to the next town) died out in the ‘60s, movies have mostly followed a release pattern that ensured, for the bigger movies at least, you could catch whatever you wanted in at least one mulitplex in town, for a few weeks guaranteed.
Lately though, several companies have started to use theater space for special, one-night only events—live concerts, car races, screenings of beloved films, or concert documentaries about bands with major fan bases. Peter Bogdanovich’s film Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin’ Down a Dream falls into that last category, a four-hour documentary that brings together decades of concert footage, interviews with the band and the story of their long career. The film is more than just a Behind the Music on the big screen, though; Bogdanovich brought enough of his decades of film experience to the film to make it qualify as a selection in the New York Film Festival.
The film will debut as a one-night only event tomorrow, October 15, in theaters across the country; you can find the full list here. The next day the full documentary becomes available at Best Buy on DVD, including a 2-hour DVD of an entire concert in Gainesville, Florida in 2006. The film wraps up the New York Film Festival today, screening with an intermission. Peter Bogdanovich joined the press for a conference after the screening of his film; he had high praise for Petty, ending the conference on the note “Everything seems to be OK when you’re with Tom. “ Here’s hoping audiences say the same about his film.
Talk about how this project came to you. Were you a long-time Tom Petty fan?
No, I didn’t know much about him. I’d heard some of his songs, but I didn’t know much about him. I had met a record producer named George Drakoulias, who did some of Tom’s records. I met him through Wes Anderson. George called me in November of ’05 and [asked] would I be interested in doing a documentary on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers? I said sort of tentatively well, yeah, why? He said, well, Tom likes your stuff and wanted to know if you’d be available. I met [Tom] in November of 05, and we sat and talked for about four hours in a restaurant in Malibu. I liked him enormously. He’s very personable. I asked him to tell me the basic story of what happened with the band, how it all came together. He told me the short form of it. I thought it was so interesting, and so American, and the interesting part was in the details. A success story is a success story, you know the plot, but the details were interesting. I agreed to do it, and one of the reasons I was interested was because I didn’t know much about him. I didn’t know how to do it. That always is an inspiration to me, it kind of pushes me. I didn’t know how to do The Last Picture Show [Bogdanovich’s 1971 film]. I’d never been to Texas, that’s part of why I did that picture. I learned as I went along, and I learned how to do it. As you see we didn’t figure out how to make it shorter.
I wondered if you see Petty as analogous to studio-era filmmakers like Howard Hawks.
I did see a parallel between what he does and between what we [filmmakers] do. Many times I would say ‘I do the same thing in making a movie,’ in terms of trying to keep it fresh or whatever the thing is. […] It’s sort of like how Hawks had a relationship with the industry. He’s a commercial record producer, and they basically leave him alone. He has complete autonomy on the records. It’s quite wonderful to watch.
It seems like out of the post-Bob Dylan American singer songwriters, we take Tom Petty for granted.
It was on my mind a lot. I think Tom was too popular […] there’s a tendency to trivialize somebody who’s very popular. It’s ridiculous, but there it is. He’s a very serious musician; he’s a real artist as you can see. He’s deeply dedicated-- that’s his life. He doesn’t screw around with music. That’s why we focus so intently on the music. We didn’t focus much on the private lives, because that’s not what it’s about.
Are there people from all different generations at his concerts?
I went to a number of concerts in 06 […] It was absolutely cross-generational. I interviewed a couple of the younger people, the teenagers, and said ‘What brings you here?’ And they said, ‘Well, our parents used to listen to Tom Petty, and we thought he was cool.’ How often do you get that? […] But Tom has this amazing audience that cuts through the generations.
You usually don’t hear much about Tom Petty as the “rock and roll bad boy.” Is that part of him being overlooked?
I don’t know if that’s why--maybe that is one of the reasons, because his private life hasn’t gotten in the headlines much. He’s not a bad boy, and often the squeaky wheel gets the most attention. I think that is possibly why he’s had such longevity: what you see is what you get. […] I decided early on that we would have no narrator, but that he would tell the story, because I liked him.
Ben Montench makes a comment about how music used to an artist’s take on things, and now it’s all about gossip. Can you talk about that comment’s context in the film?
It’s a good example of why we made a movie that isn’t about the private life or dirty laundry; its’ about the work. […] I think that what he said is true. As tom says, rock stars are being made on game shows. The culture we have in the United States—I can’t speak for other countries—but it is pretty shallow. This hoopla about Paris Hilton or poor Britney Spears, it’s unbelievable.
How does Tom Petty feel about the final edit? Has he seen it?
He likes it. Early on in the process, I realized that I was not a good judge of the music as a performance. […] I said [to Tom], ‘I can’t be the judge of this. You’re going to have to ell me if the performance is up to your standards.[…] Another thing I decided early on--it’s a movie about the music, therefore we want to see the performance. Let’s show it and not just show a snippet. That’s one of the reasons the length got out of control. I felt you had to see the performances. Tom helped me with that enormously.
What did you learn making this film?
I learned a lot about music, I’ll tell you that. […] I [knew] how I [wanted] this picture to look. I don’t want to sit on people talking for a long time. […] I want a lot of movement, I ant a lot of music, I want a lot of images. If there are going to be 28 interviews then let there be 28 narrators, so we can use their voices over images. I wanted to make it a movie. That was the goal. How we arrived at that was difficult.
One thing I realized it has in common with every other movie I’ve made, which is the rhythm. If you find the rhythm it doesn’t matter how long it is. I said if it works, if it flows, it doesn’t matter how long it is. And if it doesn’t work it doesn’t matter how short it is. That was something that I knew but I learned it more deeply on this project than anything else I’ve done. […] It was always trying to get the flow of it. You couldn’t look at the damn thing every day. You’d do one sequence at a time. It was quite a job. It took almost two years.
One reason the movie flows so well is it’s a series of self-contained narratives. Each of the chapters has a strong, beginning, middle and end. Was that a decision you made during editing or shooting?
The big difference between documentaries and features is this: With a fictional feature you write the script and then you shoot the picture. With a documentary you shoot the picture and then you write the script, so to speak. You don’t know what you’ve got until you’ve got it all. We didn’t really start cutting until we finished shooting all of the interviews. […] This is the first thing I’ve done that literally could not be cut on 35 mm film. You couldn’t get those effects. This would have been impossible to make without computer editing.
What does Tom think of the state of the music industry now?
When Tower Records closed, Tom said ‘There goes my business.’ He was very discouraged about that. He thinks the situation that has evolved is pretty awful. I don’t know that he has a solution to it. He does pretty well; his fans are pretty loyal.
Do you know of any non-traditional forms of distribution Tom will be using in the future?
I don’t think he has any ideas. If he has he didn’t share them with me. This film itself has an unusual pattern. We don’t know quite what we’re going to do. What they’re doing with the film is sort of elephant gun. They’re showing it on the 14th here at the film festival, which has been very helpful to the film. We found that it plays quite well with an audience. […] On October 15 it will be playing one-night only in 27 cities, with an intermission. People can buy tickets now online at tompettycom. On the 16th it goes on sale as a package exclusively at Best Buy.
Tom seems to genuinely enjoy collaborating with other artists.
That’s true, and that appealed to me too because he had respect for the older musicians. I connected with that, because I had a long history of talking to other directors and people who preceded me. George Harrison was a very close friend [of Tom’s]. Dylan loves him too, I think. You can’t get near Dylan, but he seems to be fond of him. He wouldn’t have toured for two years with him if he hadn’t.
[…] From an age of about 11 [Tom] was dedicated to music and that was it. Clearly he was an artist, and an instinctual artist. He disparaged going to school. He knew what he was interested in, and knew what he wanted to do, and he was focused on that.
Do you see yourself as an instinctive or analytical artist? You have some affinity with instinctual artists.
For years people thought of me as being an analytic, academic artist, but I never was. I go a certain way because I think it will work, my feeling is it will go that way. It’s later that I’ve been able to look at it and say ‘That’s why I did it.’
As a director you also seem to be working as a psychoanalyst.
Sometimes films of mine have been judged to be this or that, an homage to this. It’s totally not what I was thinking and not how I got there. I identified with Tom on that basis. That’s why you don’t see much self-analysis. That’s not his thing. […] As Rick Rubin says, [Tom] starts to sing a song and the whole thing comes out. Tom says he’s afraid to even ask how that happens. That’s an instinctual thing. It came from heaven. He’s gifted.
How did you get the clearances for all the images and songs in the film?
It was hell. Every photograph had to be cleared, every magazine cover, every record. It was mind-boggling. […] There’s 18 seconds of the Beatles—you have no idea what we want through. Luckily Ringo and George’s wife Olivia and Paul were all for it, so it worked out. Clearing Bob Dylan was not easy. Everything was difficult. Luckily they like Tom so things worked out. I don’t know how people do it. I don’t know how Ken Burns does it.
Tom’s work wasn’t very political when he was young in the 60s, but it’s become more political recently.
I think tom’s politics has been in his work. He’s a humanist. What he feels about the world and people comes through in the work. […] It’s not about Republican or Democrat or liberal or conservative, it’s on a human level. That appeals to me too. I’ve never been a cause-y kind of person. […] Finally it’s the humanity that works for Tom and works for me. When you see a concert […] thousands of people, and the joy that they get from this, the inspiration they get, it’s something quite extraordinary to watch that. He’s communicating on an emotional spiritual level with these people. […] Everything seems to be OK when you’re with Tom.
