Primarily a record of The Sex Pistols’ first and last tour of America, in 1978, also a study of disintegration and self-destruction: Indeed, the nonmusical highlight is a truly harrowing interview with Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen shortly before their deaths. We also witness Johnny Rotten feuding with the other Pistols off-stage and with the nonplussed and belligerent audiences while on stage. As a document of British Punk at its most naked and powerful, D.O.A. is without equal.
John A. Platt. Lincoln Center NYC CineRock film festival
“For me, punk symbolised the last idealist vision of the world”, Lech tells us. “A romantic and beautiful vision of a world at war. Yes, it was a war, charged with energy, denouncing the capitalist system we were heading for. Malcolm McLaren had planned the Sex Pistols’ tour itself like an invasion to take the soft belly of redneck America by storm. New York had been carefully avoided – too big! In fact, the tour had originally been planned for the New York Dolls. The band was starting to hit the skids and McLaren wanted to get them back on track. But Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan were high from morning to night. One day, they just quit and went back to New York… So McLaren went back to England. That’s how he had the idea of palming the tour off on the Sex Pistols.”
Lech Kowalski
