The Filth and the Fury A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 2000 David N. Butterworth
*** (out of ****)
I remember. I was there.
In 1976, Britain's economy was struggling, thousands were without jobs, and garbage was piling high in the streets. It was time for a change.
In "The Filth and the Fury," Julien Temple's second film about the notorious punk rock band that changed the face of music and "waged war on England without meaning to," the Sex Pistols reminisce about rising from that landscape of despair and hopelessness. "We literally dressed in garbage (bags)" says lead singer John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten). "And when your clothes are falling apart, what do you use to hold them together? Safety pins."
When the Sex Pistols snarled their way to the top of the British music charts with their subversive, anti-establishment hit "God Save the Queen," they did it even though the record was banned both from radio airplay or being performed live. The British have a pretty reliable track record of banning just about anything that's a little bit off-the-wall, a little bit off-color, or anything that points out the political hypocrisy of the ruling classes. "God Save the Queen" fit very nicely into all three categories.
I remember attending one of my first-ever teenage parties at which a copy of "Never Mind the Bollocks... Here's the Sex Pistols" was passed around, its garish pink, black, and yellow ransom-note titles jumping at you right off the sleeve. I remember listening to "Bodies" from that album over and over, a signature tune of unwholesome nastiness with outrageous lyrics ("She was a girl from Birmingham/she just had an abortion/she was case of insanity/her name was Pauline, she lived in a tree"). I remember the buzz in school the day after the infamous Bill Grundy interview, in which the drunk talk show host goaded band members into using the F-word on primetime television.
I was sweet, sheltered, and sixteen.
But what I remember most about the Sex Pistols is their music--driven, powerful, music that stayed with you. And they always knew how to end a song: cleanly, angrily, often with an exasperated expression of disgust from Rotten. In those days it seemed unique to listen to a dozen tracks in a row without any fadeouts. Ironically, "Never Mind the Bollocks..." plays like a quintessential Greatest Hits compilation today since it was the only LP the Sex Pistols produced during their spectacularly short-lived, 26-month career.
"The Filth and the Fury" (the title comes from a tabloid headline decrying the Grundy business) tells the story from the Pistols' point of view. "It's to set the record straight," says Lydon, since Temple's other Sex Pistol's film, 1979's "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle," highlighted the band's meteoric rise and fall from the viewpoint of their egomaniacal manager, Malcolm McLaren. McLaren, whose clothing store in London's King's Road is where he first met drummer Paul Cook and guitarist Steve Jones, always claimed the Sex Pistols as a product of his own making, but "The Filth and the Fury" sees it differently.
In silhouetted interviews (the film's only contrivance outside its jocular opening credits), the four original band members recount their side of the story: what they think of McLaren (not much), Sid Vicious' hooker girlfriend Nancy Spungen (even less), and Sid himself, who replaced bass player Glen Matlock in 1977. Spungen was fatally stabbed in a hotel room in 1978; Vicious himself died of a heroin overdose not long afterwards.
Temple and his editor Niven Howie intercut these talking heads with a kaleidoscopic frenzy of footage of the band in performance, culled from many hours of heretofore unseen archival material--rehearsals, live gigs, recording sessions, and promotional bits--as well as TV outtakes, newsreels, and lots of clips of Laurence Olivier in "Richard III." There's a lot of music too, and it sounds as raw, urgent, and influential today as it did way back then.
If you see only one Sex Pistols movie this year, make sure it's "The Filth and the Fury," as second time around Julien Temple gets it right.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@dca.net
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