The Filth and The Fury: A Sex Pistols Film on DVD

Dom Robinson reviews

The Filth and The Fury:
A Sex Pistols Film
Distributed by
Film Four

    film pic

  • Cert:
  • Cat.no: VCD 0067
  • Running time: 103 minutes
  • Year: 2000
  • Pressing: 2000
  • Region(s): 2, PAL
  • Chapters: 16 plus extras
  • Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
  • Languages: English
  • Subtitles: None
  • Widescreen: 1.78:1 (16:9)
  • 16:9-enhanced: Yes
  • Macrovision: Yes
  • Disc Format: DVD 9
  • Price: £19.99
  • Extras : Scene index, Trailer, Director’s Commentary, Sleeve Notes

    Director:

      Julien Temple

    (Aria, Bullet, Earth Girls Are Easy, The Filth and The Fury, The Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Swindle)

Producers:

    Anita Camarata and Amanda Temple

Featuring:

    Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock, Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious as themselves.


The Filth and The Fury purports to be a warts-and-all look at the 26 months in the life of The Sex Pistols and the social scenery going on around them, be it in terms of TV clips, musical moments or politics.

Introduced by Johnny Rotten, aka John Lydon, who since went on to front Public Image Limited, the film tells the story with the aforementioned images overlaid with life-story descriptions from the four surviving members, Sid Vicious, having long since died of a drugs overdose – on February 2nd, 1979 – although posthumous comments are included, plus their manager Malcolm McLaren.

Comments about themselves and other band members include, “I was a damn, ugly fucker” and “Glen was a cunt, as always”, Eric “Monster” Hall comments at the time when he worked for EMI who employed them, before being dumped by the record label and there’s that clip from Bill Grundy‘s ITV show, Today, broadcast December 1st, 1976, upon which they swore… and “shit” is a very nasty word of course.


If you’re going to buy this, don’t be put off by the low-score for the picture quality. That’s there because all the clips are over twenty years old and mostly from TV shows, but it looks as good as you’d expect and benefits from an anamorphic 16:9 widescreen transfer. The average bitrate is a high and fairly steady 7.68Mb/s.

The sound is standard Dolby Surround, but all the music comes from the raucous “dirty rockers”.


Extras : A 2-minute Trailer, brief Sleeve Notes inside the booklet and a feature-length Director’s Commentary.

Menu : Silent and static, showing Johnny Rotten’s eyes above the basic options.


This is one to be recommended to Sex Pistols fans only as the pace of the film never changes and winds its way along from the start of their lives to the eventually demise of the group.

FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS


OVERALL
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000

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