Director Susan Dynner pokes a safety pin into all of these issues, but lets the punks speak for (and against) themselves. Her beautifully crafted documentary features some of her own vibrant photos of the Washington, DC punk scene in the '80s alongside rare (and raw) live footage that really captures the excitement and variety of punk in its various forms. Punk is such an umbrella term, meaning something slightly different for each individual and each punk scene, that the film can offer no coherent answers to the questions it raises, except that punk is still alive and well, if a little richer, more professional, and more mainstream than it was in the beginning.
Dynner also debunks the myth of a punk renaissance. As punk historian Alan Parker points out, there seems to be an invisible line from The Sex Pistols breaking up at Winterland to Nirvana, a gap of some 15 years when punk disappeared from the mainstream consciousness. There was certainly a low point for punk in the late '80s, but it didn't cease to exist; it simply went back underground, where its roots always have been and continue to thrive. Old school bands like Stiff Little Fingers, Social Distortion, UK Subs, The Adicts, and Subhumans have either kept playing or reformed and are still on the road. "Yeah, give it to them raw while you're still alive," says Subhumans front man Dick Lucas.
Dynner used the Internet to solicit material from DIY punk scenes all over the world to contribute to the film. Eighty-six minutes in, she includes footage from New Zealand, Serbia, Iceland, Indonesia, Lithuania, Belgium, Russia, Israel, Spain, Croatia, Italy, Finland, Austria, Uruguay, Japan, France, and Australia, capturing the old underground DIY spirit of the early days of punk.
It's this sort of material that makes the film stand out from conventional music documentaries that always feature old-timers proselytizing nostalgically about the old days and harping on about how cool they used to be. There is a fair bit of that in this film, but it's also refreshing to focus on the people and the scene they created rather than the heard-them-once, heard-them-all stories of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' boring roll. (If that's the sort of film you're after, End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones (2003) and New York Doll (2005) do it very well.)
Article comments
1 - Christopher Whalen
Punk's Not Dead is being released on DVD (in the US?) on 8 July 2008. It doesn't appear to be stocked on Amazon yet, but it is available through the official movie website.