The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988, Penelope Spheeris) (Patreon)

48/100

Speaking of declines. (My rating for the first film: 71.) Having lived through the hair-metal era and been mostly repelled by those bands and their aggressive preening, I suspected that Part II might be significantly less enjoyable for me, if only because I’d much rather watch performances by Black Flag and X and Fear than performances by Lizzy Borden and Faster Pussycat and frickin' Megadeth. Sure enough, there’s not a single song here that I wasn’t looking eagerly forward to no longer hearing. What caught me off guard, though, is how much more conventional The Metal Years turns out to be as documentary filmmaking. There’s very little sense, as there was in the original film, that Spheeris has been given intimate access to these musicians and their everyday lives; each interview has been carefully, professionally staged, often in the same sort of anonymous space that a movie’s EPK would employ. One can argue that this glossier approach better fits the genre, I suppose, and I admit to laughing aloud the first time we see Paul Stanley’s requested setup (even though only one of the three lingerie models surrounding him is visible in that initial close-up!). All the same, it gives the film a strangely antiseptic feel, even when Chris Holmes is floating in a pool, pouring entire bottles of vodka down his throat and over his head, while his mother stares impassively at the camera. So, too, does the primary editing rhythm, which introduces a topic of conversation and then speeds through everyone’s response to it, a soundbite at a time. This means that if you don’t go in knowing who e.g. Lemmy is, you’re not gonna find out (apart from text that identifies him as a member of Motörhead). He’s just a dude inexplicably standing atop a plateau overlooking downtown L.A. and talking for 15 seconds about how truly connecting with a live audience is more gratifying than sex, and then it’s off to the next person’s answer to that question.

One aspect I did find compelling—enough so, in fact, that I dearly wish Spheeris had shaped the entire movie around it—is the contrast between superstars (Ozzy, Alice, Aerosmith, etc.) and relative unknowns. Because I’ve never listened to metal (excepting a few key Metallica albums, their purchase directly inspired by my first viewing of Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills), it wasn’t immediately apparent to me that nobody else in 1988 would’ve been familiar with Odin or Seduce; eventually, though, Spheeris starts asking the younger musicians what they’ll do with their lives should they fail to become rock stars, prompting me to look them up and discover that they didn’t. (“Odin lead singer Randy O went on to become a teamster trucker for the film industry.”) It’s undeniably poignant to watch every single one of these long-haired but baby-faced hopefuls insist that there’s no possibility they won’t soon be headlining massive arenas, especially when you know that they’re wrong. Had Spheeris explicitly conceived The Metal Years as the musical equivalent of Hoop Dreams (minus following anyone over several years), shooting and structuring everything accordingly, it might have not mattered so much that I’d honestly rather listen to Anne Murray. Instead, that feels like just one element among many in a barely coherent stew that throws in stuff as tangential as Bill Gazzarri’s tacky dance contests. I did not get a lot out of watching Ozzy Osbourne make breakfast (something else I have zero experience with, FYI: The Osbournes), and was immediately suspicious of the spilled orange juice, since he seems entirely together in that scene. Sure enough, it’s a faked bit that’s clearly hoping to capture some of that Spinal Tap magic. A year ago, I expressed surprise that The Decline of Western Civilization was made by somone who would later direct a Beverly Hillbillies movie. This time, that’s easier to believe.