The Filth and the Fury

Julian Temple's documentary "The Filth and the Fury" charts the dramatic rise to notoriety in the late seventies and the equally dramatic fall as the seventies came to a close of the seminal Punk Rock Band The Sex Pistols. Interspersed with interviews of band members and film of The Pistols playing through the mandatory shower of spit and beer cans, is footage of the IRA mainland bombings, the bin men strikes, and the music hall turns which plagued and still plagued our telly and which Johnny Rotten notes as an influence on his stage act. Such footage, with its images of a violent, divided, and hopelessly antiquated Britain make the rise of The Sex Pistols appear inevitable. And yet, more than twenty years on, we could be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss was all about. The success of Temple's documentary is that we are left at the end with no doubt of The Pistols' importance both for British music and British cultural history. The Sex Pistols simply articulated with more energy and conviction than any other band before or since their frustration with and anger at a Britain overburdened with class distinctions, inequality, and hypocrisy. England's still dreaming, as the mass hysteria over the death of Princess Diana proved. The Sex Pistols that we experience in "The Filth and the Fury" still have the power to wake us from such dreams.

Simon Lygo, 4 / 6 / 00