When Alex Cox "Sid and Nancy" was over, I checked the only feature in the DVD Bonus section, it was something called "Street Punk Club" and featured four French music experts -some had met the real Sid Vicious, others Gen Xers had been literally breastfed by punk music- and I turned off their chit-chat after ten minutes. All they kept blabbing about was how the film was or wasn't faithful to the reality of Sid's persona and some were bragging again about that revolutionary music that the film hadn't paid a proper tribute. I'm no music authority but I know that 1977, the year Elvis died represents a major turning point, hell, I even knew some self-proclaimed experts claiming that Rock music was born in 1977.
Frankly, I didn't care for the historical perspective, nor for accuracy for that matter, I didn't specifically expected a film to be a semi-documentary about the Sex Pistols and the disillusioned atmosphere of the period... and what I expected was exactly what I found in Roger Ebert's review and I've got to say this was one of his most brilliantly written essays, and take it from someone who always reads his review. He nailed it perfectly: the point isn't to be a fan of punk music to understand the movie, the point isn't even to like Sid Vicious or his groupie-turned-wife-turned-partner Nancy Spungen, and that's good because the film doesn't try to manipulate the audience by portraying them as likable persons anyway, with all the victimhood narrative... if anything, they're their worst enemies.
But what Ebert said is that the film is effective as a true, passionate but no-less complicated romance between a man and a woman who've lost all the willingness to confront the world, not even through artistic inspiration. That Sid had talent was undeniable and that Nancy loved him and could -and did- take him places was, too... but the stakes were too way high and so was their addiction to drugs too grand not to make their downfall inevitable. I won't act as a mouthpiece to the late critic and so I'll make up for my constant paraphrasing by using one word that escaped his review and that sums up pretty well what "Sid and Nancy" is: a tragedy.
Even those who wouldn't care for the music knew when the film opened, that Sid died of a heroine overdose after Nancy's infamous death and Sid, charged of murder, was cleared of any accusation. Controversy put aside, that he died shortly after her might be a hint about his 'innocence' if that's the right word. And when we first see, Sid, played by Gary Oldman in the role that put him in the map, looks like an empty shell, as if a part of his soul had been gone forever. He doesn't claim his innocence, not even his guilt, and we're left with a long flashback showing the whole chain of events from the day he meets Nancy and the slow descent into drug addition, not the one so falsely connected with burts of artistic creation, but the real stuff, the bad one, the one that kills slowly until it kills quick.
And still, there's that love connection, these two performances with Chloe Webb so vulnerable and heartbreaking as the tormented muse, the bond between them is so spontaneous and immediate that every other element that goes around them seems superficial. You've got to credit Coch for having recreated the sort of dystopian ambiance of the late 70s in Britain where slogans such as "no future" and the lack of job prospects moulded the punk movement before it became synonymous of black leather jackets, tattoos, piercings and crazy hairstyle for us 80s babies.
And when he joined the Sex Pistols, Sid did bring that angry energy that could only be channeled in the street throughs acts of gratuitous vandalism such as trashing a house or jumping on a Rolls Royce, for non fans, the music can be compared to loud roaring and roachy vociferations with hundreds of drug fans banging their heads frenetically, but as Ebert put it again, it's one violence reacting to another one. There were the swinging 60s, those were the wrecking 70s and Oldman and Webb's performances are integral to that state of artistically constructive wreck before it got destructive... alienating them from friends, families, the rest of the world.
"Sid and Nancy" belongs to that wave of sordid romances like "Leaving Las Vegas" or "The Panic in Needle Park" where two misfits found together a fusional strength that make them indispensable one to another, but not strong enough to face the world. Sid's defiance confined to immaturity and Nancy's maturity to pessimism, both attitudes made them perfect candidates for drug addiction and alcoholism. Nancy's dream was to die with her lover in a blaze of glory and even Sid's last remains of sanity couldn't bring her back to a state of normality, and so his death reminded of the drowning of Victor Hugo's daughter. Incapable to bring her back to the surface, her husband let himself drown as well.
It's a morbid poetry that doesn't attenuate the tragedy but immortalize the couple as one of these iconic artists whose intimate story transcended their art.
"Sid and Nancy" is quite an unforgettable experience with three standalone scenes in my opinion: a surreal fire sequence that elicit the strangest reactions, a heartbreaking family moment with Nancy's grandparents and naturally, one of the best scenes I've seen Oldman in, where he sings his own rendition of "My Way" in the stairs (you know the version in "Goodfellas"). Perhaps a swan song before time, a way to say that whatever he did, it was his way, but the film has a way to tell you that it wasn't the right way... but the way it does is certainly the best.
Frankly, I didn't care for the historical perspective, nor for accuracy for that matter, I didn't specifically expected a film to be a semi-documentary about the Sex Pistols and the disillusioned atmosphere of the period... and what I expected was exactly what I found in Roger Ebert's review and I've got to say this was one of his most brilliantly written essays, and take it from someone who always reads his review. He nailed it perfectly: the point isn't to be a fan of punk music to understand the movie, the point isn't even to like Sid Vicious or his groupie-turned-wife-turned-partner Nancy Spungen, and that's good because the film doesn't try to manipulate the audience by portraying them as likable persons anyway, with all the victimhood narrative... if anything, they're their worst enemies.
But what Ebert said is that the film is effective as a true, passionate but no-less complicated romance between a man and a woman who've lost all the willingness to confront the world, not even through artistic inspiration. That Sid had talent was undeniable and that Nancy loved him and could -and did- take him places was, too... but the stakes were too way high and so was their addiction to drugs too grand not to make their downfall inevitable. I won't act as a mouthpiece to the late critic and so I'll make up for my constant paraphrasing by using one word that escaped his review and that sums up pretty well what "Sid and Nancy" is: a tragedy.
Even those who wouldn't care for the music knew when the film opened, that Sid died of a heroine overdose after Nancy's infamous death and Sid, charged of murder, was cleared of any accusation. Controversy put aside, that he died shortly after her might be a hint about his 'innocence' if that's the right word. And when we first see, Sid, played by Gary Oldman in the role that put him in the map, looks like an empty shell, as if a part of his soul had been gone forever. He doesn't claim his innocence, not even his guilt, and we're left with a long flashback showing the whole chain of events from the day he meets Nancy and the slow descent into drug addition, not the one so falsely connected with burts of artistic creation, but the real stuff, the bad one, the one that kills slowly until it kills quick.
And still, there's that love connection, these two performances with Chloe Webb so vulnerable and heartbreaking as the tormented muse, the bond between them is so spontaneous and immediate that every other element that goes around them seems superficial. You've got to credit Coch for having recreated the sort of dystopian ambiance of the late 70s in Britain where slogans such as "no future" and the lack of job prospects moulded the punk movement before it became synonymous of black leather jackets, tattoos, piercings and crazy hairstyle for us 80s babies.
And when he joined the Sex Pistols, Sid did bring that angry energy that could only be channeled in the street throughs acts of gratuitous vandalism such as trashing a house or jumping on a Rolls Royce, for non fans, the music can be compared to loud roaring and roachy vociferations with hundreds of drug fans banging their heads frenetically, but as Ebert put it again, it's one violence reacting to another one. There were the swinging 60s, those were the wrecking 70s and Oldman and Webb's performances are integral to that state of artistically constructive wreck before it got destructive... alienating them from friends, families, the rest of the world.
"Sid and Nancy" belongs to that wave of sordid romances like "Leaving Las Vegas" or "The Panic in Needle Park" where two misfits found together a fusional strength that make them indispensable one to another, but not strong enough to face the world. Sid's defiance confined to immaturity and Nancy's maturity to pessimism, both attitudes made them perfect candidates for drug addiction and alcoholism. Nancy's dream was to die with her lover in a blaze of glory and even Sid's last remains of sanity couldn't bring her back to a state of normality, and so his death reminded of the drowning of Victor Hugo's daughter. Incapable to bring her back to the surface, her husband let himself drown as well.
It's a morbid poetry that doesn't attenuate the tragedy but immortalize the couple as one of these iconic artists whose intimate story transcended their art.
"Sid and Nancy" is quite an unforgettable experience with three standalone scenes in my opinion: a surreal fire sequence that elicit the strangest reactions, a heartbreaking family moment with Nancy's grandparents and naturally, one of the best scenes I've seen Oldman in, where he sings his own rendition of "My Way" in the stairs (you know the version in "Goodfellas"). Perhaps a swan song before time, a way to say that whatever he did, it was his way, but the film has a way to tell you that it wasn't the right way... but the way it does is certainly the best.