Film
Many punk-themed films have been made, and punk rock music videos and punk skate videos are common. Punk films often intercut stock footage with news clips and home videos of band concerts. Several famous groups have participated in movies, such as the Ramones in Rock 'n' Roll High School, the Sex Pistols in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, and Social Distortion in Another State of Mind. Some well-known punks have had biographical films made about them, such as Sid and Nancy, which tells the story of the Sex Pistols' bassist Sid Vicious (portrayed by Gary Oldman) and Nancy Spungen (portrayed by Chloe Webb).
Original footage of punk bands is also often used in music documentaries. The seminal punk documentary is The Filth and the Fury, detailing the rise of the Sex Pistols. In addition to the members of that band and its affiliates (Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood, Nancy Spungen, etc.) it also features archival footage of Billy Idol, Sting, Shane McGowan, and a young teenaged girl who would grow up to be Siouxsie Sioux, among others. One of the highlights of the movie is footage of the Sex Pistols playing "God Save the Queen" on a barge in the middle of the Thames during the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II, and their subsequent arrest.
Penelope Spheeris' first installment of the three-part documentary "The Decline of Western Civilization" (1981) details extensive footage of the early Los Angeles punk scene through interviews and early concert footage from Alice Bag Band, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Germs, Fear, and Catholic Discipline, among others. In addition to performance footage, the film features interviews from musicians such as the Germs frontman Darby Crash, who committed suicide shortly before the debut of the film. Crash is also featured on the cover of the film, a scene taken from their performance which was later recreated for the Rodger Grossman's Germs biopic What We Do Is Secret. The third installment of "The Decline of Western Civilization III" explores the gutter punk lifestyle in the 1990s.
The self-produced documentary If It Ain't Cheap, It Ain't Punk explores the contemporary DIY punk rock movement through footage from the 2006 Plan-It-X Fest put on by Plan-It-X Records in Bloomington, Indiana. It features interviews and performances from bands such as label-founder and staunch DIY musician Chris Clavin, Ghost Mice, This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb, Latterman, Defiance, Ohio and Japanther, among others. The film explores the DIY community in the 21st century and its impact on the genre's past and present.
The No Wave Cinema and Remodernist film movements owe much to punk aesthetics. Derek Jarman and Don Letts are notable punk filmmakers. Many other films are associated with punk, such as 24 Hour Party People, which presents the evolution of punk rock into New Wave and Madchester, and Threat, which focuses on militant Straight edge punks in the New York hardcore scene.
Read more about this topic: Punk Subculture
Famous quotes containing the word film:
“All film directors, whether famous or obscure, regard themselves as misunderstood or underrated. Because of that, they all lie. They’re obliged to overstate their own importance.”
—François Truffaut (1932–1984)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)
“If you want to tell the untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you’ve got to find a language. Which goes for film as well as prose, for documentary as well as autobiography. Use the wrong language, and you’re dumb and blind.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1948)