The Filth and the Fury does the Sex Pistols Good
Dateline: 06/26/00
It's
not often that a director gets a second chance. Fortunately, Julien Temple makes
good with The Filth and the Fury,
his second documentary on the rise and fall of The Sex Pistols. The documentary
chronicles the lives of the surviving members of the band, while also illustrating
the mid-1970s London social conditions that fermented the creation of punk rock.
Temple should be applauded for finding such revelatory archival footage, such
as news clips, commercials, live performances and a choice 1977 interview with
Sid Vicious. To top it off, Temple juxtaposes those findings with new interviews.
The film is wildly entertaining, but more importantly, it serves to set the
record straight, once and for all.
The Filth and the Fury accomplishes what Temple's first documentary, Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle could not. This time, Temple manages to give his audience The Sex Pistols without Malcolm McLaren getting in the way. Also on Temple's agenda is the debunking of the mythic romance between Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, portrayed in Alex Cox's 1986 film Sid and Nancy.
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