'The Filth and the Fury' review, as well as some ranting

It's not often that I buy a movie, get home, and immediately watch it but that's what ended up happening last night with 'The Filth and the Fury'. I'd seen parts of it before but never had the opportunity to watch it all the way through until last night.

Wow.

It's the story of the Sex Pistols, one of the more important early punk bands. The documentary covers the reasons why the band formed, how the band formed, and what happened after that until they disintegrate about two years later. All four surviving band members (as of 1999 when the documentary was recorded) were interviewed. They come across as honest about the time and their actions.

The power of the documentary is that everything is in their own words. There is no narrator to tell us the story, what we should think of things, where the 'truth' lies. The guys tell us what they did and why both in the 'current' time as well as clips from interviews from the 70's. Sid Vicious is represented by archival footage. None of the band is shown on screen in the 'current' time. If they do appear, it's in shadows, as if keeping their identities secret.

Two things in particular struck me as very powerful.

One was the build-up to the formation of the band. Most documentaries I've previously seen about the band or punk in England have a narrator explaining how things were really bad in England at the time, they show a couple crummy looking tower blocks, and then the bands start forming as a protest. This film shows riots, violence, trash piled high while the band explains how rough things were. The context of the time is more understandable this way.

The other is Johnny Rotten's relationship with Sid Vicious. They were long-time friends before the band's creation. Sid became a fan and was drafted in when the band dumps Glen Matlock. Throughout the film Johnny explains how Sid was his mate and he tried to protect him but Johnny just wasn't smart enough at that age to fully keep Sid from the drugs that would take his life. Near the end of the film, Johnny finally breaks down over it, as he'd mentioned he does earlier in the film, and bewails his lost friend, cursing the media that he feels contributed to the situation. While in the shadows, you 'see' Johnny Rotten cry. I didn't think he could as he comes across as so cool and cutting as his on-stage character. It was affecting.

If you already can't stand the Sex Pistols' music, there's nothing for you here. There's too much of it and it'll drive you up the wall. Otherwise this is a fascinating look at a specific band at a specific time in history. It works to separate the truth from the myth surrounding the Pistols.

Also included is another documentary, 'Un-defining Punk', which focuses more on the American scene, but not totally. Again, it's just people that were involved in the scene in the 70's and 80's talking about what they did and why and what they think about it. Not as interesting but still interesting.

For what it's worth, I feel that Punk is not a particular sound of music or style, but was a message, a style of creating, of empowerment. It says 'Go out and do. I am doing it and you can too.' At the time of it's creation, the easiest thing to go out and do was music, be in a band. They were Punks because they wanted to do things their way. When the establishment said 'You must do things this way', they said 'No, we're doing it this way'. Upstarts, rebels, how dare they express themselves in the manner they want!

Technology has allowed the world to become Punk. Heck, even this blog in it's way is Punk. In the 70's, if I had opinions I wanted to share, I'd probably need a typewriter, make copies in a 'zine, and find a place to sell them from. Now, I can just type on my computer that I already had for other purposes. The standard form is provided by others.

Big media is afraid. They see bands offering their albums for online download and realize they're becoming unnecessary. Newspapers fade in importance to online reporting, both in the old style and in bloggers who have a journalistic bent. TV is even disintegrating under the influence of YouTube and similar things that let someone with a camcorder and some editing programmes make entertainment for others.

The Punks are winning. It feels good. I've known this but it hasn't felt as immediate, as truthful to me as it does right now. It's incentive, it's motivation, and heaven help me if I lose it.

I have things that need doing.