Watching: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers: Playback

Overview

From the lyrical juxtapositions of two generations of teenagers in "Free Fallin'" to the award winning "Mary Jane's Last Dance" featuring Kim Bassinger, Petty treated his clips as small films. The narrative "Into the Great Wide Open," which features Faye Dunaway and Johnny Depp, actually resulted in offers to make Petty's story/song into a full length motion picture. Petty's reaction was, "It already is." Here are the best videos of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, a powerful document of the early evolution of a new kind of art -- and some rockin' tunes by a great band. --Bill Flanagan, September 1995