Product: Filth to Fury [VHS]
Rating: 3.0
Absorbing subject but montage assault is exhausting
What is most fascinating about the Sex Pistols is not their meteoric rise to infamy, but the utter implausibility of it. How two nogoodfernuthins happened to hook up with someone who can actually play and with a provocateur to manage them is already hard enough to swallow. Add to that their discovery of the charismatic and hyperarticulate Johnny Rotten in a random search for a front-man, and it becomes the proverbial discovery of the proverbial needle in the proverbial haystack. This documentary, solely from the band's point of view as McLaren was not invited, will captivate any true music fan. We get to hear about all the juicy stuff firsthand: Their profanity-strewn appearance on a British TV talk show that first gave them their notoriety, A&M wilting under public pressure and dropping them off their roster after signing them less than 24 hours earlier, the infighting between the band-members, the accelerating mutation of punk culture into something even the band did not understand, McLaren's underhanded dealings, Sid Vicious' girlfriend and their destructive habits, etc. It must've been a wild and chaotic two-year ride for the Pistols and based on the interviews, they appear to be just getting over the shock now. I think Temple tried to capture some of that woolliness in his approach because this is not your typical talking-heads documentary. Instead, Temple assaults us with a collage-montage barrage. I found the technique to be exhausting, and I imagine people uninterested by the subject matter will not have the patience to endure it. And it's too bad that McLaren wasn't involved in the project because although he would invariably have overestimated his contributions to the Pistols' rapid ascent, it would be interesting to know more about how he pulled the strings behind the scenes. I also didn't like Temple's approach of shooting the interviews with the band-members backlit. In fact, I don't know anyone who liked this approach, so I have no idea why the Pistols decided to hide their faces. Perhaps it's because they wanted to preserve in our minds their images as wild, young punk-avatars, since there was no mention of the Filthy Lucre reunion tour either.