Product Description

"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" sneers Johnny Rotten at the Sex Pistols' farewell performance. After seeing this picture you'll understand his disgust, but Julian Temple's sharp portrait of the ragged, raw band of working-class Brits won't leave you disappointed. The Sex Pistols left their legacy in a whirlwind 26-month reign, spitting out a caustic, confrontational brand of rock & roll that became the rallying cry for angry, disaffected youths in late 1970s England and defined the punk movement. Their story was first told two decades ago in the cynical The Great Rock and Roll Swindle, also directed by Temple but produced by the Sex Pistols' smarmy manager, Malcolm McLaren, who stage-managed the film into a self-promoting vanity project. For The Filth and the Fury, Temple turns to the four surviving band members to tell their own stories. His vibrant, vigorous direction captures the period of social unrest and alienated youth without turning into a history lesson, and shows the Pistols in all their insolent glory: spewing obscenities and gesturing lewdly to audiences and press alike, screaming out lyrics, overcoming musical limitations with pure passion and attitude. Rare, raw concert footage (including their final performance, which is appropriately enough the song "No Fun") and previously unseen interviews with the deceased Sid Vicious further energize the portrait. There's even footage of the smiling band cutting cake for kids at a fundraiser with nary a nasty gesture or sneering comment. Now there's a side of the Pistols you don't see everyday.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18274 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2005-10-11
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 103 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" sneers Johnny Rotten at the Sex Pistols' farewell performance. After seeing this picture you'll understand his disgust, but Julian Temple's sharp portrait of the ragged, raw band of working-class Brits won't leave you disappointed. The Sex Pistols left their legacy in a whirlwind 26-month reign, spitting out a caustic, confrontational brand of rock & roll that became the rallying cry for angry, disaffected youths in late 1970s England and defined the punk movement. Their story was first told two decades ago in the cynical The Great Rock and Roll Swindle, also directed by Temple but produced by the Sex Pistols' smarmy manager, Malcolm McLaren, who stage-managed the film into a self-promoting vanity project. For The Filth and the Fury, Temple turns to the four surviving band members to tell their own stories. His vibrant, vigorous direction captures the period of social unrest and alienated youth without turning into a history lesson, and shows the Pistols in all their insolent glory: spewing obscenities and gesturing lewdly to audiences and press alike, screaming out lyrics, overcoming musical limitations with pure passion and attitude. Rare, raw concert footage (including their final performance, which is appropriately enough the song "No Fun") and previously unseen interviews with the deceased Sid Vicious further energize the portrait. There's even footage of the smiling band cutting cake for kids at a fundraiser with nary a nasty gesture or sneering comment. Now there's a side of the Pistols you don't see everyday. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Now I Got a Reason, Now I Got a Reason, Now I Gotta Reason..
...to pull out all my old Pistols LPs and remember how fun they are to listen to.

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 and chopped my hair off into a spike) also zipped by pretty fast...they put all the best songs, the best performances in here, 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 on one of her bad days look like Grace Kelly in comparison) trying to wake him up for the camera as he snores ("Sid, wake up...they're tryin' ta interview ya..."). 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' (what was that reporter thinking? the kid looks completely miserable), 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 aforementioned wish, and for a minute you think that in the voice over he is laughing, because as a rule you don't see John Lydon displaying any other emotion other than general crankiness. Then you suddenly, shockingly realize he's actually in genuine tears over his dead boyhood friend.

But you can also see the fun the Sex Pistols had while it lasted-especially memorable during a retelling of how they played a children's party (still not sure what the story behind this was, or what the people who organized it were thinking, but it was a stroke of genius), with footage of them covered in cake after they start a food fight, to one of the Pistol's best songs (in my opinion), "Bodies". What struck me is how the Sex Pistols (who, at the time, were not far out of their teens themselves) look and act about the same age as the kids at the party. They are obviously having just as much fun as the kids, too- they try to look like tough punk rockers but can't wipe the smiles off their faces as they joyfully have a ball.

The soundtrack, timing, and editing are all perfect. "Submission", another of my favorite songs (and in my opinion, one of their more underrated ones) is played over the credits, and it fits perfectly. 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. A must see for Sex Pistols fans.

One of the best of the young millennium
While the Filth and Fury doesn't necessarily present any new or shocking information to the average Sex Pistols fan it does succeed in framing the band in its proper context. For that, I give this film five stars.

It's sometimes easy to dismiss what we read and hear second-hand as hyperbole or exaggeration. Certainly the mythology surrounding The Sex Pistols is fantastic at times, but it's nothing compared to what really happened. Picture Parliament council members, television show hosts, parents and adults of every ilk saying, and more importantly *believing*, The Sex Pistols posed a bigger threat to the youth than Russian Communism. Wow. Kind of makes those conservative Christians who protest Marilyn Manson seem tame in comparison. I think this is the root cause of the film's success -- not so much the history of The Sex Pistols themselves, but the people all around them cheering for them or demanding their arrest. That's where this film finds its fresh angle on the band in my opinion.

Also particularly poignant are the present-day interviews with the band members hidden in shadows. At random points they express regret and unabashed guilt that they couldn't make it happen in the long-run. Perhaps, this partially explains the reunion a couple of years ago (in addition to the filthy lucre). Johnny Rotten and Steve Jones provide the best and most-moving interviews. The former for his guilt over not being able to do more to help Sid Vicious and the latter for his brutally honest statement on why he started a band.

Lastly, I liked this film because it will hopefully dispel the notion that Sid Vicious and his lefestyle were cool. Sorry, but when you're a junky standing trial for murdering your girlfriend and the one thing you want most is to die that doesn't equal cool in my opinion. It's a tragedy.

Huge kudos to Julien Temple for making an engaging, enlightening and vastly entertaining documentary on one of rock history's most notorious bands.

You can almost FEEL the spit.
In a day and age awash with formulaic drivel from boy bands, Britney, Madonna, Kid Rock, etc., this film is a breath of pure fresh rock n roll air. A must for any devotee of the band. The movie contains incredible live performance footage and fascinating interviews with the surviving members of the band. John Lydon emerges as an erudite, sensitive, creative, and deep thinking punk rock pioneer, but above all a sincerely motivated social critic. Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen in the flesh here have the effect of rendering the Alex Cox's "Sid and Nancy" obsolete. What this documentary primarliy impressed upon me me was the strong political streak that runs through the Sex Pistol's work. And on top of it all, it ROCKS.