The Decline Of Western Civilization Part III

Dir: Penelope Spheeris

1998

****

The Decline of Western Civilization Part III is definitely the most profound of Penelope Spheeris’s trilogy. Coming seventeen year after the first and a decade after the second, some of the kids featured in the movie were only just born when the trilogy started, some wouldn’t be born for a couple of years later. Yet, these are the kids born from the likes of Darby Crash, who featured in the first film. Unlike the first two films, Decline Part III deal more so with the punks themselves, rather than the punk bands they follow. This touched upon in the first two films but the bands definitely take a back seat for the final film. Only one band, Naked Aggression, feature for any length of time, generally down to their political and social message and the fact they understand that their fans and punks in general are an important part of society that need to be listened to. They’re a far cry from the ‘no future’ bands of the late 70s, in that they motivate the kids to actually fight back and harness their anger. However, much of the film deals with the gutter punks who have largely given up on being any part of society and are more interested in getting drunk. The title The Decline of Western Civilization probably has more poignancy to this film than the first two of the series, a generation of homeless kids who have been abandoned and abused, who don’t care about anything, even their own futures. Spheeris approaches the kids with great sympathy, a sympathy that is deserved. While she is always an outsider, ‘one of them’ in that she is actually part of society, she does seem to get through to the kids, who only now and again remember to keep up their bravado and skepticism. They fear and play up to the camera at the same time, by the end of the film Spheeris is almost mothering them, out of sheer desperation as she sees these largely-nice kids destroying themselves and wasting their lives. She interviews a cop who pretty much states that he and his colleagues stop them all the time, purely because they don’t like the way they dress, and all the things the kids say happens to them suddenly ring true. It’s both bitterly sad and utterly frustrating. A frightened and abused dog will bark at strangers, it doesn’t take that much to tame them by showing love. Spheeris gets far more involved than most documentary film makers, indeed, she actually started a relationship with one of the older interviewees and is still with him. She donated all the proceeds of the film to homeless children charities and she even adopted five homeless kids. Any rose-tinted ideas of positivity are then smashed at the end of the film, when we learn that one of the kids featured had burned to death in a squat fire just weeks later and another had been stabbed to death by his girlfriend, who came across as one of the sweetest of the group in her interviews. The kids play up to the camera, they say they don’t care and they’re alcoholics but their bravado makes you not quite believe them. By the end you believe, and it is one of the saddest things I’ve seen on film, indeed, it is hard to argue that it couldn’t be seen as an example of the decline in western civilization. The film was originally to be titled 'The Decline In Eastern Civilization' and was to cover the Japanese heavy metal music scene but thankfully Spheeris decided to stick with sub-culture in Los Angeles, just like the first two films. A shocking and poignant ending to a remarkable trilogy.