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Decline of Western Civilization III (1998)
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Penelope Spheeris changed my life. A suburban doofus who only knew
punk rock from records, I took a date to the Sacramento debut of The Decline of Western
Civilization in 1981. The film documented the Los Angeles punk scene at the moment
when hardcore bands like Black Flag were taking over from the artier first generation
bands like The Germs. It was a revelation. This was music more aggressive and cathartic
than anything I'd ever heard, and what's more, it was terrifying: in performance after
performance, Spheeris caught the feel of a club driven to near-riot. The idea that music
could be this alive - this dangerous - utterly redefined my expectations of what art
should accomplish.
Looking back on the film today, it's clear that Spheeris did far more
than simply document a few bands. Her real gift is her generosity of spirit, a profound
compassion for the alienated kids who flocked to the Masque club. The interviews never
condescended to the fans and musicians, no matter how silly their posturing. She can get
past the bluster to find the warmth and charm in virtually anyone.
In 1998, Spheeris completed the latest installment of what's become a
series. (Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years examined the glam
metal scene of L.A.'s Sunset Strip.) Only now receiving national distribution, Decline
of Western Civilization III examines the current L.A. punk scene. It may be the best
film of the three.
For its first forty minutes, it's a retread of the first two
installments. They all open with the same sequence: hilarious, fragmented interviews of
fans are followed by a montage of the featured bands reading snippets from a legal release
("By entering these premises, you are consenting to being photographed...") from
the stage. Leapfrogging from interviews to performances, the film generates the familiar
adrenaline charge while seeming just a little too familiar this time around.
In the second installment, the repetition of the first film's approach
had the effect of an implied critique: watching a bozo hair band like Odin, you couldn't
help but remember the first film's scenes with the vastly superior X. It's even worse
here. The bands (Litmus Green and Naked Aggression are the standouts) all play recycled
hardcore, every song an unintelligible blur. No one's managed to take this style - a
distillation of punk into two chords, a blazing polka beat and a singer screaming bloody
murder - any further than Minor Threat, who made it all up back in '80. It's recycled
culture, the noisy orgy of punk straitjacketed into a genre too rigid to evolve.
The film's first half amounts to a funny look at an exhausted musical
genre, an inside view of the wheel being endlessly recreated. The second half is something
else entirely. Spheeris drops the music in favor of a cinema verite look at the lives of
the homeless "gutterpunks" who panhandle and squat in Hollywood. The first two
films were essentially comedies haunted by a pervasive undertow of sadness: as funny as it
was to hear Nicole Panter describe her attempts to make Darby Crash sing into a
microphone, all of his scenes showed someone so befogged with drugs that his death (right
after shooting was completed) surprised no one. There's nothing funny at all in the
relentless final hour of Decline of Western Civilization III, just grim episodes in
the lives of abandoned children.
It's a harrowing subject. These are children who drink all day, sleep
in abandoned hovels and spend their days just trying to find food and evade arrest.
Spheeris remains respectful, abjuring commentary in favor of allowing the kids to tell
their own stories. The film is ultimately about the way that even the most marginalized
people create community in the face of circumstances most of us cannot imagine.
For all its strengths, the film has problems. Spheeris seems to have
realized that the musical sequences were superfluous once she latched onto her real
subject; because of this, the film's two halves are rather disjointed, the shift in tone
too abrupt. She indulges in lax montage sequences that continue long after their
inspiration has dwindled. She has a weakness for comedic sound effects (lots of drum hits
and guitar blasts under the interviews) that lose their punch with too much repetition.
These are very minor faults in light of the film's remarkable empathy.
No one has gone further in trying to give a sense of the texture of these lives, the
struggle of living on the street. What's most astonishing is the fact that, for all their
tattoos and spikes, these are children. There's a moment in the film as heartbreaking as
anything I've ever seen. A sweet-faced kid talks at length about why he left home: his
father regularly beat him in the face with his fists. Asked what he'd say to his dad now
if he could, he gives a completely sincere, gut-wrenching answer: "I'd say,
'Hi.'"
- Gary Mairs
