Johnny Rotten

Johnny Rotten has some sound advice for anyone planning to attend "The Filth & The Fury," the volatile new film documentary about his pioneering, notoriously inspirational punk-rock band, the Sex Pistols.

"This is the wrong film to take a date to and share popcorn," said the onetime enfant terrible-cum-braying-anti-christ of punk, speaking in his trademark sneer.

"It's definitely not appealing for that audience. There's no point trying to appeal to them; you'd have to make something trivial and full of car chases, because we're talking deadly dull people and morons, and I won't pander to them."

That said, Rotten is quick to suggest one reason why the deadly dull and imbecilic should attend the film, which chronicles his short-lived but legendary band.

"If they wanted to be really annoyed, I'd recommend they go," he said of "The Filth & The Fury." "Because this film will (anger) morons. And many 'fake punks' will be (angry), as well, because the film isn't (about) the myth they wanted it to be."

Indeed, it isn't, which is precisely why Rotten and his former bandmates were eager to be involved in this uneven but often riveting documentary. So eager that they were undaunted that the film's director, Julien Temple, is also responsible for "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle."

That wretched 1980 film was the self-aggrandizing brainchild of former Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren, who - Rotten charges - financed it with misappropriated record royalties that should have gone to the band's former members.

Not surprisingly, McLaren is often dismissed (and more often disparaged) in "The Filth & The Fury" by Rotten and the other three original members of the Sex Pistols: guitarist Steve Jones, bassist Glen Matlock and drummer Paul Cook. (Matlock was replaced in 1977 by Sid Vicious, who soon became a heroin addict and died of an overdose in early 1979.)

"'The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle' was a pile of crap of Malcolm's from start to finish. It was his fantasy world, his fantasy island," said Rotten, who is so incensed by the mere mention of McLaren's name that he spit loudly each time it was invoked during a recent phone interview.

"And I thought it did damage to what the Sex Pistols were, by making them into a shoddy, pathetic pop band that was just out for a scandal. I didn't write those songs to be ridiculed that way. I thought that film was an act of spite. Not at me, particularly, but at a situation and outlet Malcolm had no control over.

"So by manipulating it into his wonderful fantasy, he got some kind of sweet revenge," continued Rotten, who spent years embroiled in an ultimately successful legal battle against McLaren, a point "The Filth & The Fury" fails to acknowledge.

"Later, when we finally raised the money to make this film ('The Filth & The Fury'), we - the band - decided to put out the truth of the story, and basically make the film that should have been."

Asked point-blank if McLaren contributed anything to the Sex Pistols, Rotten responded: "In the long run, no," before unleashing another ear-popping saliva projectile.

Ultimately, "The Filth & The Fury" fails to set the record straight about the Sex Pistols, the combustible English quartet that swiftly and irrevocably turned the music-industry and popular culture inside-out in the mid-1970s, and - much to Rotten's dismay - inspired legions of cheesy imitators and cookie-cutter punk wannabes around the world.

The film also lashes back too frequently at ex-band manager McLaren, whose few interview segments are heard over the image of a rubber bondage mask (which, tellingly, appears to be emitting a constant stream of hot air).

But the film does offer some potent performance clips and a series of revealing interviews, including never-before-seen footage of the tragic, but surprisingly coherent, Vicious. And it provides much-needed context about the appalling social and political conditions in mid-'70s England that gave birth to the Sex Pistols and punk-rock.

"When I gained access to the Sex Pistols' assets, there was miles and miles of unused film stored away, and from there it just blossomed," said Rotten, who used his real name - John Lydon - until he recently began hosting the periodic series "Rotten Television" for VH1.

"And, obviously, Julien Temple was the person to rope in to oversee things - regardless of the fact he worked on 'Swindle' - because you can't get too bitter. Julien shot most of the film himself, so he was the best person."

Rotten, 44, also insists that Temple was not a pawn hired to carry out the whims and dictates of the Sex Pistols' former members.

"We debated issues, and he requested a free hand to come up with his own ideas, as well as (using) ours," the orange-haired vocalist said. "It was pretty much a free-for-all, but basically sticking to the story, the truth."

Yet, while "The Filth & The Fury" has received almost uniformly favorable reviews, Rotten still expects the worst.

"You know as well as I do that this film will be reviewed negatively by a lot of people," he said. "Because their perceptions have been altered by so much filth from before. It's very hard to overcome a series of lies. But I live in hope."

Rotten also lives in Malibu, Calif., which may contradict his claim that he is an average working person.

"Actually, it's just a community like any other; I think there are more expensive houses in Pasadena. It's not quite what people think. It's basically a bunch of wooden huts by the beach," he insisted.

"While I'm saying that, I find it amusing that Herb Alpert (who, as the head of A&M Records, had the Sex Pistols bounced from the label before they could record) lives two houses down from me," Rotten cackled.

"I throw rocks over his fence whenever I can."Sidebar with Johnny Rotten'Fury' follows the Pistols' rebellious pilgrimageBy George Varga

Copley News Service

In just 26 months during the mid-1970s, the Sex Pistols exploded and imploded with such earth-shaking impact that neither popular music nor culture has even been the same. That impact, and the origins of the band that fueled it, is the subject of "The Filth & The Fury," a documentary that fascinates and galvanizes in spite of its shortcomings.

Fast, loud and ugly, profane, profound and incendiary, the Sex Pistols were held together by safety pins and enough youthful anger, Angst and nihilistic fervor to spark several revolutions. The Johnny Rotten-led band was the fuse that ignited punk-rock in all its tattered glory, leaving behind just one album, but an enduring legacy.

Indeed, the Offspring, Prodigy, Green Day and blink-182 are just a few of the legions of bands who owe a huge debt to this seminal English quartet. This holds true even if many fans of blink, et al, are too young to know about that debt or its enormity. Because these are precisely the people who most need to see "The Filth & The Fury," which - in spite of its flaws - ranks alongside such classic rockumentaries as Penelope Spheeris' "The Decline of Western Civilization" and D.A. Pennebaker's "Don't Look Back."

Those flaws include the failure to even mention three of the Pistols' biggest musical inspirations: U.S. punk prototypes the Ramones; English sub-cult band Van der Graf Generator; and - ahem - the Rod Stewart-fronted Faces. There's also no reference to the Sex Pistols' aptly named "Filthy Lucre" reunion tour of 1996, which took place in spite of Rotten's repeated vows he'd never reteam with "these money-mongering whores." And there's way too much sniping at erstwhile band manager Malcolm McLaren.

Regardless, "The Filth & The Fury" effectively documents the swift rise and fall of bona fide punk rock, while lamenting the hordes of punk-wannabes who, to this day, ignore the fact punk was created to foster individual expression and legitimate rebellion, not blind conformity and ready-for-MTV imagery. And director Julien Temple (a longtime Sex Pistols' associate) deftly mixes archival film footage with recent interviews with surviving band members Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock, whose short-lived replacement, Sid Vicious, is shown here as a sobering (if totally messed up) study in fatal rock 'n' roll excess.

The film also shows that the outrage this band created was as genuine as its outrage with the stifling confines of England's dead-end social and political system in the mid-1970s. Invoking the slogan "No jobs/no future," Rotten says: "That was the seeds of the Sex Pistols. England was in a state of social upheaval ... people were fed up with the old way."

With dizzying speed, the Sex Pistols turned the music establishment and "proper society" upside down, before falling prey to infighting, drugs, betrayals and a record industry all too eager to make the band into a harmless marketing vehicle.

By the time it reaches its sad conclusion, "The Filth & The Fury" reaffirms that, yes, this band irrevocably changed a bleak world, and that the world responded by doing everything possible to destroy the Sex Pistols. The world won - and lost.

(c) Copley News Service

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Author: George Varga