Author/director Cameron Crowe’s love of music has been a key a part of his work since his days as a young person writing for Rolling Stone, however a pivotal textual content in understanding that keenness has been lacking till now. Rediscovered after over 40 years, Heartbreakers Seaside Occasion — Crowe’s first effort as a director — has been rediscovered and remastered, giving new life to an intimate portrait of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, as seen by means of the eyes of a fantastic rock journalist.
Actually, Heartbreakers Seaside Occasion opens by billing itself not as a documentary, however as “A Profile by Cameron Crowe” — the clear intent is to ship a video model of the varieties of canopy tales that Crowe had been writing for Rolling Stone as much as that time. Largely specializing in footage shot in 1982 and 1983 (plus some footage of outdated dwell exhibits), the digital camera is on Tom Petty’s face extra usually than it’s not, because the frontman talks candidly about document firm woes and changing bass participant Ron Blair with Howie Epstein.
MTV solely aired the documentary as soon as, in February 1983, at which level (in accordance with the movie’s official web site) “the movie was deemed too experimental and abruptly pulled from the air.” Experimental is an correct description, although meandering is likely to be one other.
Being framed as “a profile” evokes numerous thought in regards to the variations between just a few thousand phrases of print journalism and an hour of filmed interviews and off-the-cuff footage; the latter presents extra immediacy and intimacy, whereas the previous advantages from the writer’s hand guiding the motion. Regardless of Crowe actually being on display screen with Petty all through the doc, it does undergo from an absence of narrative drive — despite the fact that the core of Heartbreakers Seaside Occasion is simply an hour lengthy, inside that timeframe it does are inclined to meander a bit, changing into (particularly within the center) extra of a set of fascinating clips versus a coherent story in regards to the band at this cut-off date.
The clips are actually wonderful, although. There’s Petty composing a foolish lil ditty on the bus by the title of “I’m Silly” (you’ll be able to watch a clip of it right here, courtesy of the band’s Fb web page). There’s Petty addressing a crowd of UCLA college students about album costs. There’s Petty calling bullshit on rock stars who purport to be characters. There’s Petty working with Stevie Nicks on the recording of “Cease Draggin’ My Coronary heart Round.”
And there’s footage of a 2:00 A.M. hangout between Crowe and Petty, throughout which Petty declares “Right here you go, Cameron right here is all of the soiled reality” as he pulls out a field of outdated photographs full of tales, like how James Brown is the one musician Petty’s ever requested for an autograph.
There are just a few core interviews intercut all through the movie, probably the most predominant of which is Petty and Crowe sitting within the backseat of a limo because it rolls round Los Angeles. Even the selection to trip in a limo finally ends up being revelatory about Petty as a rock star at the moment, as he acknowledges that it’s a “fairly obnoxious approach to journey round” however that he would possibly as effectively get pleasure from it whereas he can, as a result of who is aware of what would possibly occur in a 12 months? Plus, he notes, “I don’t need to trip round in an outdated Ford to persuade myself I’m from the road.”
This wouldn’t be the final time Crowe tried to direct a music documentary — he additionally made 2011’s Pearl Jam Twenty, which chronicled that band’s twentieth anniversary — and he technically directed this one with some assist from Doug Dowdle and Phil Savenick (the opposite two credited administrators). Whereas Crowe may be very current within the motion right here, it’s not in a approach the place he pulls focus from his topic, a difficult stability to search out, that solely comes with expertise. It brings to thoughts one of the well-known monologues he’s ever written, phrases he put within the mouth of legendary rock critic Lester Bangs (Philip Seymour Hoffman) in Virtually Well-known:
You can’t make mates with the rock stars… When you’re going to be a real journalist, , a rock journalist – first, you by no means receives a commission a lot. However, you’re going to get free data from the document firm. Fuckin’ nothin’ about you that’s controversial. God, it’s gonna get ugly. They usually’re gonna purchase you drinks, you’re gonna meet ladies, they’re gonna attempt to fly you locations at no cost, give you medication. I do know, it sounds nice. However, these persons are not your pals. You already know, these are individuals who need you to write down sanctimonious tales in regards to the genius of the rock stars and they’ll *damage* rock ‘n’ roll and strangle all the things we love about it. Proper? After which it simply turns into an trade of – cool.
In Heartbreakers Seaside Occasion, Crowe is ten years into his profession as a music journalist, and does appear to have internalized these classes to some extent. What he’s discovered is methods to appear just like the band’s buddy, which makes the movie’s most trustworthy and revealing moments attainable. However there’s nonetheless sufficient fan in him for the movie to in the end really feel like a celebration of their work, if solely as a result of the music is ever-present, a reminder of how within the early ’80s, a time the place (as Crowe says throughout the outtakes) synth was king, actual individuals enjoying actual guitars stood out as one thing particular. And to this point, one thing singular about the best way the Heartbreakers rock out stays.
Tom Petty: Heartbreakers Seaside Occasion is streaming now on Paramount+.