The Filth and the Fury (1999)

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General		Extras
Category	Documentary	Theatrical Trailer-1.78:1, not 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 (2:11) Audio Commentary-Julien Temple (Director)
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	103:03 (Case: 105)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Julien Temple
Studio Distributor	Magna Home Entertainment	Starring	Paul Cook Steve Jones Glen Matlock Johnny Rotten Sid Vicious
Case	Click
RPI	?	Music	The Sex Pistols

   They had but a relatively brief existence as far as major bands are concerned, but in their short 26 month existence there is little doubt that The Sex Pistols generated more press than probably all the other bands of the 1970s and 1980s combined. Banned up and down the length and breadth of Great Britain, they were equally one of the best examples of manipulators of the media there has ever been. There is nothing more sure of garnering press attention than controversy and the easiest way of generating controversy, especially in conservative England in the mid 1970s, was as easy as swearing heck of a lot and spitting at everyone. Regrettably, that is perhaps the way The Sex Pistols will be most remembered but that is to tremendously understate the impact that the band had upon the music of the era. Single-handedly they established a new genre of music that spoke most eloquently to the disenfranchised youth of a country labouring under the hand of ineffective government that failed to address the increasing social frustrations brought about by strong racist attitudes that had been boiling in England in particular since the 1960s.

   Probably best remembered for three great "anthems" of the punk era, Anarchy In The U.K., God Save The Queen and Pretty Vacant, which get a run or two here, they actually did have a few more songs than that and managed to come up with one actual album. The meddlings of others (not mentioning that bloke McLaren) actually ended up with not only the single "real" album Never Mind The B******, Here's The Sex Pistols but others including The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle. As a youngster I will always remember the impact that Never Mind The B******, Here's The Sex Pistols had on me and the way it changed music. It enabled a whole plethora of good bands to come to the fore, including the best of them all in The Clash. None however went to the extremes that The Sex Pistols did and none suffered the vilification that The Sex Pistols did. But they all rode the coat tails of The Sex Pistols initially in some way, and that is what makes The Sex Pistols so important to music of the 1970s and 1980s.

   This documentary does as good a job as any ever has of putting that importance into context, as well as documenting the rise and fall of the band. Ultimately, the band fell apart due to egos and crap management, but those 26 months were as memorable as any in music. The whole time is pretty well encapsulated in this documentary, which is one of the best that you are ever going to see in my view of music of the era.

   I guess that if you have read this far you are a fan of the band or at least the era, and thus there is no reason why you would not be looking to acquire the DVD. Well, it is worth it but by golly you will have to endure some ropey source material, at least as far as the video is concerned.

Video

    This is a conglomeration of video from various sources and using various different film and video types. The result is an interesting mix that sure does not let you sit back and enjoy the ride! The transfer is presented in a Full Frame format that is not 16x9 enhanced. The original aspect ratio is believed to be 1.85:1, but it was transferred on to 35mm film. When comparing the main feature with the trailer, it would seem that the feature shows a little more top and bottom information which would lead me to suspect that the matting is opened up and thus is a Full Frame format and not a Pan and Scan format. However, anyone with definitive information is welcome to let us know.

    The transfer is all over the place, with sharpness ranging from virtually totally diffuse to quite sharp, depending upon the source and quality of the original source material. Detail is fairly average at best and at worst descends to almost non-existent. Shadow detail is pretty average too, but that is not of overall great concern, especially as the recent interview material is deliberately shot with the speaker totally shadowed. There is a consistent and generally quite awful presence of grain throughout the transfer, but in most respects this seems to be inherent in the source material or done as an artistic measure. Either way, it looks pretty woeful. Clarity is thus virtually abysmal throughout, but again is a reflection of the source material or artistic choices. There appears to be little issue with low level noise in the transfer.

    The colour is also all over the place and varies from poor to quite good, which is once again a reflection of the source material. There is also a mix of black and white and colour footage, together with video and filmed footage, and this is never going to aid the situation anyway. Generally the material is undersaturated throughout you will certainly be seeing nothing in the way of bright, vibrant colour here. About the best looking part of the transfer colour-wise is somewhat perversely the recent interview material, which despite being shot in a shadowed manner does display some decent saturation in the background picture. There did not seem to be any serious indications of colour bleed in the transfer.

    There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer, although pan shots show the characteristic loss of resolution for material of this age. There was a decent sampling of film-to-video artefacts in the transfer, mainly comprising aliasing. There is a veritable smorgasbord of film artefacts in the transfer, and these range up to plenty of picture break up at times as well as obvious white and black dirt marks throughout the transfer, that do detract enormously form the documentary.

    Once again, Hearing Impaired readers have been forgotten with no subtitles present at all on this DVD.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    After the depths of despair generated by the rather woeful looking video transfer, anything in the audio department has to be an improvement. And in general it is, but not spectacularly so. There are two soundtracks on the DVD, namely an English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack and an English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. I listened to the Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack in its entirety, but only endured the Audio Commentary as far as I was able before turning it off, of which more anon.

    The dialogue and music comes up quite well in the soundtrack, although we are not talking about any sort of masterpiece here at all. There were constant audio sync issues in the transfer it seems, but these are more than likely inherent in the source material and not the fault of the mastering. I would also suspect that at times the audio sync was intended to be that way.

    There is nothing that bad about the soundtrack but equally there is nothing that great about the soundtrack. Whilst I would have loved to have a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack to give the music more body, I would suspect that such a format would have highlighted even more the disparate sources of the audio material included here. Perhaps a more balanced sound would have been preferred, as some of the recent interview material has considerably more presence in the mix than the archival television material for instance (as we would expect of course). Nonetheless, whilst not being that great it does the job required of it pretty well indeed and clearly presents The Sex Pistols in just the way they probably should be presented, at least in the opinion of non-fans. Surround channel use is limited and only noticeable here and there, with nothing consistent from the front surrounds and nothing from the rear surrounds. There is nothing in the way of bass channel use here at all. There are some short sections of the soundtrack that are distinctly hissy, such as between 37:30 and 37:40.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Whilst the single layer, single sided DVD is pretty well filled by just the documentary, one could hardly consider this an exemplary package.

Menu

    Quite possibly the worst menu I have yet seen, since it comprises only the Magna Pacific logo over which appears just the highlighted current selection. To highlight other selections you need to push the right arrow button, but even that does not help when you get to the selection that says just "on". Ah, by a leap of faith, this has to be the selection for turning the commentary on... To make matters even worse, after the documentary is over you are returned to the menu - minus the Magna Pacific logo!

Theatrical Trailer (2:11)

    Well, given the quality of the main feature, you can pretty much guess how good the trailer looks. I suppose the consistency in presentation is to be applauded. Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, it is not 16x9 enhanced and comes with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Decent enough, but it is always difficult to promote this sort of documentary without showing the most controversial bits from the main feature.

Audio Commentary - Julien Temple (Director)

    I vaguely recall someone once saying that just because you can get someone in front of a microphone, it does not necessarily mean that you should or that the result is worthwhile enshrining for posterity. This is definitely one of those instances. Julien Temple is a boring speaker, when he actually decides to say something, and imparts nothing really memorable to add to the documentary at all. This is so blessed with long periods of silence that I simply could not endure this past the first twenty minutes - which basically totalled about five minutes of actual commentary I reckon. Not worth the effort at all and instantly heads to my listing of worst commentaries on DVD.

    The Region 4 release misses out on:

• 16x9 enhanced widescreen presentation
• 37 minute documentary Un-defining Punk

    The Region 1 release misses out on:

• possibly a lousy menu
• Full Frame format

    The generally authoritative Widescreen Review describes a video transfer that despite 16x9 enhancement and widescreen presentation certainly is no better than what we have got on the Region 4 release. This indicates that the source material is the culprit for most of what ails the video transfer. Their description of the audio transfer tends to make the Region 1 transfer sound pretty similar to the Region 4 too. However, they virtually rave over the 37 minute documentary Un-defining Punk, and it would seem clear that the Region 1 release is the better proposition.

    Whilst The Sex Pistols are still pretty much an acquired taste as far as music goes, they were certainly one of the most influential bands of the mid 1970s and that is perhaps reflected in the considerable attention they have garnered in print and in film, in one form or another. I would doubt that any of those efforts however would approach The Filth And The Fury in depth and accuracy. If you can endure the sub-standard video transfer and the mediocre audio transfer, you will be blessed with plenty of contribution from the members of the band, and ultimately that is a worthwhile thing indeed. This is one of the rare efforts that places The Sex Pistols within the context of Great Britain of the time and their emergence to fill a void for desperate youth with little positive outlook in their lives. The Sex Pistols might not have added anything positive to their lives, but they sure added something different to the lives of British youth. That difference will probably never be seen ever again in this age of roboticised music. Mind you, given the ever present gullibility of the press to promote controversy, there is always the chance that some foul-mouthed jerks might generate enough ire to be banned and generate lots of press as a result. Hang on a minute - isn't that what that talentless jerk Enimen or whatever does?

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall