a four-hour documentary film directed by Pyotr Bogdanovich.
Tom petty documentary archive#
“But you also understand how much he cared about the recording and songwriting process.” ‘Portrait of the Artist’įor Wharton, the key to making the film was to look at what she had, this entire beautiful archive film, and what she didn’t need to repeat – like repeating the same theme as 2007’s Runnin ‘Down a Dream. “I really loved that he caught the goofy, stupid and funny stuff like him pretending to play the French horn because he had a side that was really off the beaten track.
“He was a pretty amazing guy and I think he got it,” Tench says. “There was nothing similar or edited to be a specific version of the story. The story that Wharton and her team weaved together seemed to be true when Tench watched the movie, which included classic songs like “It’s Good to Be King,” “You’re Destroying Me,” and “You Don’t Know What It Is.” “And I think some of the people who see the film will get an idea too.” “So when I hear him speak and explain what’s in his head, it’s been educational for me,” Tench says. We just went to the studio and followed suit. “I really learned what Tom said because he would never say, ‘Hey Ben, come here, I want to tell you what’s on my mind while I’m writing the album.’ “Mostly I loved hearing Tom talk about the record,” he says. When nothing came of that time, he forgot about it until he was shown what was captured on a beautiful black and white film. Tench recalls filmmaker Martin Atkins occasionally showing up for Wildflowers, and that his fly-on-the-wall style was soothing to everyone. “The tapes give you a definite picture of how deep it was, but the film, especially because you hear so much of Tom talking, takes you further.”
Tom petty documentary movie#
“This movie is part and parcel of the same thing,” Tench says. According to him, the documentary seemed to him almost the second half of it all. Tench has already worked with Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell, Adria Petty and Tom Petty’s widow Dana Petty on an extensive box set of extracts, alternate versions and live Wildflowers tracks. “Working on this film was a gift from heaven for me.” “I can hear Tom talking” So I just dived into this archive of beautiful frames and incredible music. “And then it seemed to me that this solar box fell from the sky into my arms. “The world was in a very chaotic and frightening place,” says Wharton. “I thought, ‘It’s okay, me and the rest of America are in our sweatpants and they have nothing to do,’ says Wharton.Īdria Petty and producer Peter Afterman told her that they had recently discovered an archive of films from the mid-90s when Petty was working on Wildflowers, most of which had never been seen before, and asked Wharton if she wanted to turn it into a documentary movie. Two decades later, in early 2020, shortly after the pandemic sent the world to isolation, Adria Petty called Wharton, who had just finished the documentary Jimmy Carter: President of Rock and Roll, and asked what she was working on. “It wasn’t like ‘I’m Tom Petty’s daughter, so I deserve special treatment.’ She was just a cool girl.
“I was always amazed that she didn’t lead with it,” says Wharton. “I’ve always been a fan of his music, but I really fell in love with him as a person.”Ī few years later, she worked with a new VH1 employee named Adria Petty, who only after Wharton began collecting evidence admitted that Tom Petty was her father.
“He was such a classic southern gentleman,” says Wharton, who loves Petty, who grew up in northern Florida. and producer Rick Rubin brought it together. Early in her career, while working for the music channel VH1, she flew to Los Angeles to interview Petty for the short documentary Wildflowers, a solo album that featured all but one of Petty’s Heartbreakers. In a sense, director Wharton has been preparing for this film all her working life.
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