The Filth and the Fury should be named 4 Fast, 4 Furious. The documentary covers the full career of 4 English lads (actually 5, as there were 2 bassists), known as the Sex Pistols, who begin their conquest of terrorizing `the man's' estate with what is now known as `Punk' rock. Controversial news reports and interviews commenting on this anti-establishment establishment are molded with Sex Pistols' concert footage, music videos (the documentary plays like one large one, in fact), comedy skits, and even historical film clips. But that's just the problem. While the film does a fine job at blending the music and the politics with the culture, it becomes almost too much when viewing a serious Pistol speak of a drug overdose, only to be intervened by the flimsiness of Olivier's Richard III.
What saviors this uttermost nonsense is the Pistols' brutal honesty. They admit they were not the most musical of bands or, in fact, even talented at all. Their second bassist was so poor he tried to emulate his lead singer's stage presence on stage, rather than playing up to his own aptitude. This man was Sid Vicious, an icon if there ever was one, and a spokesperson for not knowing how to handle `it'. After the breakup with the band, and perhaps with his infamous girlfriend Nancy, Sid died of a heroine overdose on a plane in 1979. He's credited with much of the gothic style (i.e. leather coat, jet black hair) that Marilyn Manson makes so famous today. Even without these immense melodic talents, the band's thematic attitude of attack and destroy was enough to generate a whole movement.
The Sex Pistols, along with rockers Billy Idol and The Clash, were able to break out the Punk scene, feeding off the chaos that was dominating the UK at the time: a rioting middleclass upset about school and job settings. As quoted by the lead vocalist and anti-star Johnny Rotten, `Sex Pistols should have happened and did.' Nothing could be closer to the truth. This Punk rock music, heavily influenced by scar, Irish folk, metal and David Bowie, along with working class backgrounds, helped the band identify with much of the social strife and race hate that was looking for some answers. The documentary's use of montage and reenactments do an excellent job at displaying the austerity of the riot acts, including an unusual garbage strike that gave rockers a new fetish for fashion.
`The Johns,' as Johnny Rotten often called them (apparently all the members birth-name were Johns), helped create new environments to escape from normal everyday life, elevating people to become more individual, original in their ideals. With Punk, women also stopped accepting themselves as second class citizens. Taking notice of this empowerment, ironically, the Pistols still crave groupie sex after all their shows, with nothing else-perfectly normal for these punk-fueled lads, I suppose.
3/5 stars
What saviors this uttermost nonsense is the Pistols' brutal honesty. They admit they were not the most musical of bands or, in fact, even talented at all. Their second bassist was so poor he tried to emulate his lead singer's stage presence on stage, rather than playing up to his own aptitude. This man was Sid Vicious, an icon if there ever was one, and a spokesperson for not knowing how to handle `it'. After the breakup with the band, and perhaps with his infamous girlfriend Nancy, Sid died of a heroine overdose on a plane in 1979. He's credited with much of the gothic style (i.e. leather coat, jet black hair) that Marilyn Manson makes so famous today. Even without these immense melodic talents, the band's thematic attitude of attack and destroy was enough to generate a whole movement.
The Sex Pistols, along with rockers Billy Idol and The Clash, were able to break out the Punk scene, feeding off the chaos that was dominating the UK at the time: a rioting middleclass upset about school and job settings. As quoted by the lead vocalist and anti-star Johnny Rotten, `Sex Pistols should have happened and did.' Nothing could be closer to the truth. This Punk rock music, heavily influenced by scar, Irish folk, metal and David Bowie, along with working class backgrounds, helped the band identify with much of the social strife and race hate that was looking for some answers. The documentary's use of montage and reenactments do an excellent job at displaying the austerity of the riot acts, including an unusual garbage strike that gave rockers a new fetish for fashion.
`The Johns,' as Johnny Rotten often called them (apparently all the members birth-name were Johns), helped create new environments to escape from normal everyday life, elevating people to become more individual, original in their ideals. With Punk, women also stopped accepting themselves as second class citizens. Taking notice of this empowerment, ironically, the Pistols still crave groupie sex after all their shows, with nothing else-perfectly normal for these punk-fueled lads, I suppose.
3/5 stars