The Decline of Western Civilization by Penelope Spheeris (1981)
Shortly after its release, Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates demanded that The Decline of Western Civilization never be shown in the city ever again. And honestly, I can see why. Penelope Spheeris’ documentary about the early ’80s punk scene in L.A. is frequently disturbing; everyone in the film — the bands and their fans alike — seems devoted to mere debauchery, anarchy, and nihilism. Seminal punk bands including Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, Germs, and X are captured on stage, riling up crowds with a chaotic mix of loud music, confrontational behavior, and crass invective. (In one particularly disturbing scene, a clearly stoned and intoxicated Darby Crash — lead singer of the Germs who committed suicide via heroin overdose before the film’s release — stumbles drunkenly around the stage, slurring his lyrics and asking for beer while the audience defaces his body with markers.) Suffice to say, those expecting raucous punk rock fun may be sorely disappointed. To her credit, Spheeris lets her subjects largely speak for themselves and never editorializes, but the resulting film is often sad and sobering. By and large, everyone Spheeris interviews seems strikingly desperate: desperate to be seen as rebellious, desperate to stick it to the status quo, desperate to be truly “punk.” In the end, however, many of them seem tragically lost, and you can’t help but wonder how many of them survived the scene.
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