You received four hours of footage from Adria. Watch a Trailer for 'Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers' And then to take on a film about an artist like Tom Petty, who was a perfectionist in everything that he did, certainly the specter of that, and the incredibly high standards that he held himself to, for me, it was a scary thing to tackle, to try to hold myself to those same high standards. There was a sort of haunted quality to that material to him, because it was so strong and so powerful. Always, it was daunting, because it's an incredible album that is surrounded by the mythology - all the tracks that Tom always wanted to release, but he himself was kind of daunted. Did you ever think, "Wow, I better nail this"? So it was perfect, it was something that I could just jump right into.ĭid the project ever seem daunting to you? This is such a beloved album for so many people. I think that Adria was certainly open to, from the beginning, very creatively open to whatever seemed best. It was an amazing phone call to get, because it was so early on in the pandemic that I didn't even know how, or when, I was going to be able to work again, and here was this project that was pretty much archival-based. It was really pretty open, quite honestly. I think one of the most important things in documentary filmmaking is to really listen to the material and let the film be what it needs to be. If you're making a documentary, you can't control it as much as you can control a narrative, scripted film, right? So a lot of times it feels to me like you're corralling wild horses, or herding cats, depending on the case where you're just sort of, like, there's this thing that's out of your control and and all you can do is try to guide it into a direction that makes sense and react to the material. What were those initial conversations like? I'll always treasure that memory of meeting him that day.įlash-forward many years, and you get a call, mid-pandemic, from Petty's daughter, Adria, who says she's got all this studio footage from the Wildflowers sessions. And that interview that he did that day, we used a number of pieces from that interview in the film that we were able to license, and he's just really thoughtful and lovely in that interview. He was so smart and articulate and well-spoken. He was so charming and gracious, and struck me as just a really lovely southern gentleman.
Obviously, I was young and just starting my career, and he was certainly not the first celebrity I had met, but the first one of my kind of rock 'n' roll idols. You first met Tom Petty back in 1994 when you were a young producer working for VH1 and you cut an interview that featured him discussing the making of Wildflowers.
TOM PETTY DOCUMENTARY FOR FREE
The film will be available for free on Petty’s YouTube channel later this year. Wharton talks about the development of the movie, which premieres in theaters tomorrow via Trafalgar Releasing on what would have been Petty's 71st birthday, with UCR. Described as a "love letter to Petty," Somewhere You Feel Free revisits the most fruitful, and haunting, period of Petty's career through the lens of those who were there. Directed by veteran music documentarian Mary Wharton ( Sam Cooke: Legend, Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound, Jimmy Carter: Rock and Roll President) the 90-minute film incorporates never-before-seen footage from the Wildflowers sessions, along with new interviews with Rubin, Campbell, Tench, Ferrone and others. Wildflowers took on new, raw emotions, vulnerability and poignancy as it was created. Faced with a crumbling marriage and substance-abuse issue, Petty was unsure of his future.Ī new movie, Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers, shows the artist at a crossroads as he channels his confusion, pain and hope into songs.
But there was more put into the record than that.
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