The Filth and the Fury

This film is a documentary about one of the most influential (certainly one of the most controversial) bands in music history: The Sex Pistols.

During their brief career, the Sex Pistols defined the genre of music called Punk Rock. The film details the situation in Britain at the end of the 1970s, where widespread dissatisfaction and alienation, combined with a very dull music scene, helped fuel the anger and craziness of Punk, which, according to John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten), gave a voice to people who previously didn't have a voice.

The film is a collection of present day interviews with the surviving members of the band (given in silhouette, for some reason), archive footage from concerts and TV appearances, vintage movie clips (notably Laurence Olivier as Richard the Third) and surreal animation.

The film mostly sidelines the Pistols' notoriously self-aggrandising manager Malcolm McLaran to concentrate on the band members themselves. The movie gives a good insight into an often quite disturbing world and a scene that was truly anarchic and exciting, whether you were a fan or not. There are also moments of genuine sadness, for example when Lydon talks about his friend, the late Sid Vicious.

This is recommended to anyone interested in popular music, or anyone who wants to see what real Punk was all about.

Was recommended this by a pistols fan who is also into the Punk scene. Not being a Pistols fan I was unsure but my friends tastes are similar so gave it a try. Very pleased I did. It's a thoroughly enjoyable docu film with some great footage and really encompasses the whole scene. It's amazing how times have moved on really and this is also a look at how society was so stuck up it's own arris here in the UK at that period.

John Lydon has always been much more than just a yob of a front man as every interview I have ever heard with him he has always spoken with true meaning and passion. This has not changed my mind and you cannot help but be moved by his interview, especially on the death of Sid. The best moments for me are the interviews and clips of journalist Nick Kent, an absolute 'kent' if ever there was one. As a big Adam Ant fan it was nice to see some footage of the man behind the song "Press Darlings", and boy did he come up trumps. What a complete.... It also reveals McLaren to be the compete t**t he was too. A great film for everyone with even a passing interest in music and not just punk. It's about a change in ideals and the times. And very well done. 9/10 as it does what it sets out to do very very well.

In his documentary, The Filth and the Fury, Julien Temple chronicles the rise and the fall of the legendary punk rock band the Sex Pistols. Temple tells this story through accounts given to him by the still living Sex Pistols, as the opposing side to his other Sex Pistols film, Great Rock and Roll Swindle, which was told to him by the Sex Pistols manager, Malcolm McLaren.

Temple uses interviews with the band members to tell the story of the Sex Pistols and intertwines it with live footage of the band's concerts and a taped interview with Sid Vicious, filmed before his death. The band their formation, joining up with McLaren, firing Glen Matlock, replacing him with Vicious, their problems in the United Kingdom and the United States, and the eventual end of the band due to Vicious's heroin addiction.

The documentary really got inside of the Sex Pistols and showed a more human side of the band. While the band is often made out to be a bunch of rowdy, angry, punk rock kids, the documentary showed a different side to them. Footage is shown of the band during a children's benefit show and the band members are seen playing with and talking to the kids with huge smiles on their faces, their joy at being at the event evident. Johnny Rotten also spends a large amount of time at the end of the film discussing Vicious' heroin addiction and his guilt at being unable to help his friend before it was too late.

I really liked the live footage of the Sex Pistols shows, as it showed the band in their element and also did a lot to show what the scene was like when the Pistols were around, and I could see how little it has changed since then. The footage shown of the Sex Pistols on a British television show and clips of newspaper articles at the time also did a lot to show the band's image in the eyes of the media as well.

One problem with the movie was that live footage of the band would be playing and then the film would cut to scenes from a Shakespeare movie or other random scene, which completely detracted from the film. Every time one of those clips would cut in it would jar my attention from the story, and it definitely broke up the cohesiveness of the film.

I think the film did a good job capturing the image that the Sex Pistols gave off, while also contrasting it with more human images of them, like during the children's show. Overall, I think the film was very well done, though I would have liked to have seen more background on each of the band members, rather than the Shakespearean ode. I would give this film a 7/10 and would recommend it to anyone looking for information about the Sex Pistols.

The first Julian Temple documentary on the Sex Pistols, 'The Great Rock n'Roll Swindle' was a gimmicky treatment that suggested the creation of the band was all a clever confidence trick perpetuated by Malcolm Maclaren. In his version the Pistols were a personal creation that deliberately manipulated the media and the 'suits' that ran the music industry into paying out vast amounts of cash even when the band failed to produce any material.

This second version of events is a little more honest. Maclaren is shown to be a self-deluded egotist, the real driving force being 'Johnny Rotten', and the band, far from having the upper hand, were in fact ripped off financially by the very people they were supposed to be rebelling against.

It all ended in a shambolic final concert where Rotten wails out 'No Fun' for 15 minutes and then walks off with a smirking, 'Ever felt you've been cheated?'

Trouble is; this is a lie as well. The Pistols carried on after Lydon left; sad fun and games with the Great Train Robber, Ronnie Biggs and Sid Vicious' infamous rendering of 'My Way' being the 'highlights'. What's more, within months of Johnny Rotten's noble statement about not selling out at the end of the documentary, the Pistols reformed in the 21st century and gave progressively pathetic concerts.

It's still an interesting documentary but I guess the myth has now become so mixed up with the legend that anything approaching the truth is lost for ever.

This documentary does feature, however, an archive interview with Sid Vicious – whose real name was John, Lydon affectionately remembers - which I have never seen before. It says more about the times than anything else in the film. Although dressed in his trade mark Nazi t-shirt and initially punctuated with all the predictable anarchic attitudes, this veneer gradually slips away to reveal a young naïve man, who's life along with his heroin addiction was spiraling out of control.

No fun, indeed.

This movie almost seemed to zip by too fast, but then, so did the Sex Pistols. Come to think of it, the last 20 years (when I first started listening to them in junior high) also zipped by pretty fast...they put all the best songs, the best performances in there, along with some rare footage. Sex Pistols fans may have already seen the interview with a nodded-out Sid Vicious and sleazy girlfriend Nancy Spungen (who makes Courtney Love at her worst look like Grace Kelly) trying to wake him up for the camera as he snores. But what no fans may not have seen is a short, heartbreaking clip of an interview with Vicious after he is out on bail after being arrested for her murder. When the interviewer thoughtlessly asks him if he's 'having fun right now', Vicious just chuckles bitterly and asks him, "Are you kidding? No, I'm not having any fun, at all." when the interviewer asks him where he wishes he was right now, Vicious' quiet, calm answer to the question is so chilling and heartfelt that it made every hair on my body stand on end. In a scene shortly after, John Lydon talks about Sid getting his wish, and for a minute you think in the voice over he is laughing, because as a rule you don't see him displaying any other emotion other than general crankiness, then you suddenly realize he's actually in tears over his dead boyhood friend. But you can also see the fun the Sex Pistols had while it lasted-especially memorable during a reminisence of how they played a children's party, with footage of them covered in cake later, to one of the Pistol's best songs, "Bodies". The soundtrack, timing, and editing are all perfect. As I said, my one complaint that was it zipped by too fast, but talking with my husband after the movie, so did the Sex Pistols. One of the better rock documentaries I've seen.