Sid and Nancy
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| Sid and Nancy | |
|---|---|
 A film poster for Sid and Nancy. |
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| Directed by | Alex Cox |
| Produced by | Eric Fellner |
| Written by | Alex Cox Abbe Wool |
| Starring | Gary Oldman Chloe Webb |
| Distributed by | Samuel Goldwyn Company |
| Release date(s) | November 7, 1986 (USA) |
| Running time | 112 min |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $4,000,000 |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Sid and Nancy, originally titled Love Kills, is a 1986 film directed by Alex Cox. It emerged during a period of renewed fascination in the life of the Sex Pistols member Sid Vicious. It stars Gary Oldman as Vicious and Chloe Webb as his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen.
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[edit] Production
The movie is largely based on the mutually destructive, drug and sex-filled relationship between Vicious and Spungen. Vicious's mother, Anne Beverley, initially tried to prevent the movie from being made. After meeting with Cox, however, she decided to help the production. Some of the supporting characters are composites, invented to streamline the plot.
Oldman lost weight to play the emaciated Vicious by eating nothing but steamed fish and "lots of melon",[citation needed] but was briefly hospitalized when he lost too much weight. Vicious's mother also gave Oldman Vicious' own trademark heavy metal chain and padlock to wear in the film. Courtney Love narrowly missed out on the role and was cast instead in a minor part. Love is reported to have pleaded, "I am Nancy Spungen."[citation needed] Cox was impressed by Love's audition but has said the film's investors insisted on an experienced actor for the co-leading role. Cox later cast Love as the lead in his movie Straight to Hell alongside Joe Strummer.
John Lydon has claimed that Andrew Schofield, who played him in the film, flew to New York to meet him and study his mannerisms, but revealed during the trip that the film was already made and that the trip was there solely to win Lydon's support of the yet-to-be-released film.[citation needed]
Webb and Oldman improvised the dialogue heard in the scene leading up to Spungen's death, but based it on interviews and other materials available to them. The stabbing scene is fictionalized and based only on conjecture. Cox told the New Musical Express: "We wanted to make the film not just about Sid Vicious and punk, but as an anti-drugs statement, to show the degradation caused to various people is not at all glamorous."
The original music is by Pray for Rain, Joe Strummer and The Pogues.
The film was rated R in the USA for drug use, language, violence, sexuality and nudity.
[edit] Reviews
The film has been referred to as a punk Romeo and Juliet[citation needed] and was hailed by most critics, although some expressed concern that it glamorized drug use[citation needed] while others have criticized the portrayal of Sid's friend and ex-colleague John Lydon as too abrasive and one-dimensional.[citation needed] Lydon himself found the film offensive, believing that the film's fantastic climax romanticized drug abuse, and dismissing Cox as an Oxford graduate who made the film because he missed out on the punk years and saying he "should be shot" for not consulting him on the script. Lydon dubbed Oldman "a bloody good actor" and lamented, "If only he had had the opportunity to speak to someone who knew the man! [Vicious]."[citation needed]
In his book Sid Vicious: Rock N' Roll Star, Malcolm Butt describes Webb's performance as Spungen as "intense, powerful, and most important of all, believable."
[edit] Factual errors
The film includes factual errors. One scene, for example, shows Vicious with the band on a boat, watching the airing of an infamous episode of the Today show with Bill Grundy, in which the band appear. However, Glen Matlock was the bassist at the time, not Vicious. Another scene shows Spungen giving Vicious the chain and padlock necklace that would become his trademark. This was, however, given to him as a present by Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders. Poly Styrene is depicted as white, rail thin, with long, straight hair and no braces on her teeth; in reality she had a healthy figure, short curly hair, braces, and is Anglo-Somali.
Throughout the film, Vicious is seen wearing a red vest with a Hammer and Sickle in the centre, which he wore in The Great Rock and Roll Swindle. In real life, however, Vicious's insignia was the Nazi Swastika.
[edit] External links
- Sid and Nancy at the Internet Movie Database
- Sid and Nancy at GaryOldman.info
- Sid and Nancy page on Alex Cox website
- Criterion Collection essay by Jon Savage
| Preceded by: Shock Corridor |
The Criterion Collection 20 |
Succeeded by: Dead Ringers |
