Sid and Nancy – Punk Love, Drugs and Music

Sid and Nancy (1986) directed by Alex Cox stars Gary Oldman as Sid Vicious, Chloe Webb (Nancy Spungen), David Hayman (Malcolm), Andrew Schoefield (John Lyndon), Xander Berkley (Bowery Snax), Perry Benson (Paul), Courtney Love (Gretchen).

The thing about a movie like this that it can’t really go wrong, even if it’s not all it could be. It’s sort of like Backbeat that way. The narrative focuses on the relationship between Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. This is recent history, even more so when it was made, so there’s bound to be the requisite bickering about weather or not it’s true to the actual persons depicted in it. It really doesn’t work that way, no matter how much a movie claims to be “based on a true story”. The best you can hope for is a movie that captures something of the essence of things and makes them interesting enough that the viewer can get something out of them.

I saw this one back in the day, and frankly I have no idea what possessed me to see it again now. I must have had a punk moment. It happens.

This is Gary Oldman’s film debut and he is frighteningly good as the out of control Sid. Chloe Webb is equally good as the high-strung Nancy. Everything hinges on that. I remember her whiny, annoying voice from the first time I watched this and it doesn’t get any less irritating with time.

There’s always been controversy around whether or not Sid could even play the bass, but in the context of what they were doing Sid was the embodiment of the punk attitude. What he lacked in skill he made up for in attitude and this movie focuses on that as well, with a rail thin Oldman posturing, prancing and beating up members of the audience.

It is also a good depiction of the gradual decline of Sid and Nancy as they grow increasingly dependent on drugs. Nancy was supposedly the person who introduced Sid to heroin. It is very much a sex, drugs and rock’n’roll movie with a seriously kick ass soundtrack, no matter how bad the music is at times.

There are moments of levity, there’s also big time drama and watching this train wreck of a relationship unfold really puts the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional. It is a beautiful disaster all the way through. It also has moments of fantasy and surrealism, like the music video like sequence in which Sid performs his version of ‘My Way’ or the final scenes where Nancy comes to fetch Sid in a cab.

The look and feel of the movie has stood the test of time really well, leaving it feeling like a documentary in some ways and a completely fictional piece of Peter Pan-like fantasy in others. I have real issues with that last scene, but it fits the Romeo and Juliet aspect of the thing.

The movie is told in a semi-circular fashion, starting as Sid is arrested for Nancy’s murder in the Chelsea Hotel in New York, so even the viewer who knows nothing about the couple will see that this can only end badly right from the start.

It’s also somehow reassuring to know that Johnny Rotten spews vitriol over this movie whenever he’s asked about it. Reality always trumps fiction, and movies are always fiction, which is a good thing to keep in mind.

Sid Vicious died of an overdose of heroin his mother injected him with after he got out of Riker’s Island Prison on bail waiting to stand trial for Nancy Spungen’s murder. It’s said his mother did this deliberately. Life is stranger than fiction no matter how strange the fiction is and that’s why I recommend this movie.

Mule

This is England – murky moral ground and skinheads

This is England (2006) directed by Shane Meadows stars Thomas Turgoose (Shaun), Stephen Graham (Combo), Jo Hartley (Cynth), Andrew Shim (Milky), Vicky McClure (Lol), Jospeh Gilgun (Woody), Rosamund Hanson (Smell), Andrew Ellis (Gadget), Perry Benson (Meggy), George Newton (Banjo) and Frank Harper (Lenny).

The basic premise is that the twelve year old boy Shaun is having a hard time in the early 1983’s in England. He’s just lost his father in the Falkland wars and he is living with his mother in the poor part of town. The opening sequence shows a montage of 80’s news and sets the scene nicely. We then get introduced to the young Shaun who is bullied at school for wearing the wrong clothes and gets into a fight.

On his way home from school Shaun runs in to a pack of skinheads lead by Woody (Joseph Gilgun) and for some reason Woody takes pity on the young boy and tries to cheer him up. The dynamic of the skinhead pack is reminiscent of a pack of dogs, there’s a lot of snarling and physical correction of behaviour, but at the same time they act like Lost Boys with their own screwed up version of Peter Pan in the lead.

There’s a certain lawlessness to their behaviour, tinged with fantasy, and that has it’s appeal for the young Shaun, who has no other friends and nowhere to pour his anger. He quickly becomes accepted into their circle and adopts all the trappings of a little skinhead, boots and shirt and suspenders.

It’s not until Combo (Stephen Graham) appears on the scene that things take a sinister turn. Combo is fresh out of prison and clearly more political than the rest of the gang. Things get worse from here on out. The gang gets split up and Shaun, for reasons that seem very clear when you operate within the logic of the movie, opts to stay with Combo’s fraction.

It doesn’t end well, but then again, why would it?

It’s hard to avoid the parallel to Geoffrey Wright’s Romper Stomper (1992) and Tony Kaye’s American History X (1998), but there is, for lack of a better wording, a kind of innocence to this movie, probably largely due to the fact that the protagonist is so young. The unpremeditated cruelty of the very young lends itself to a more uncomplicated way of relating to this kind of behaviour. Shaun can’t see the sinister undercurrent to everything that Combo says, but we, the adult viewers, see it and understand it for what it is. It’s easy to be seduced by someone who promises to never leave you, to always look out for you and care for you, especially for a young boy like Shaun who has lost his father and is already toeing the line of acceptable behaviour.

It isn’t until Shaun gets to see Combo behave in a way that is not acceptable within the group, assaulting and beating up one of “their own” that Shaun wakes up to what kind of environment he has found himself in. Basically, it’s all fun and games until someone gets kicked in the head.

I’ve had issues with the convoluted morality of all three films mentioned here. I think it is mostly about the seduction – the attempt to portray these fractions from the inside with an insiders more forgiving eye, that makes them seem a little too lax. Even the attempts at moral anagnorisis always come up a little short. Shaun actually has to see his would be father-figure beat seven different kinds of crap out of someone before he clocks on to there being something wrong with this whole thing.

That being said, this is a movie that provides food for thought, gives at least a glimpse into the mechanisms behind what makes a group of people chose this lifestyle. The acting is solid all the way through, and that includes the young Thomas Turgoose, who plays Shaun with a lack of artifice that makes all the difference. The movie stands and falls with his performance so that was a clever piece of casting. Stephen Graham (Combo) also gives a very good performance especially in the scene ending with him assaulting Milky. You can literally see in his eyes where things start going wrong which adds to the sinking feeling in this viewers stomach.

All in all, this is a movie well worth watching. It’s funny in some places and very dark in others, and it is not simple and certainly not unambiguous, but then again – it really shouldn’t be. If it were, the director would have failed miserably.

Mule