Temple was so unwise as to tell the British press that Meyer had personally shot a deer with a pistol on that first day. Meyer sued for libel in England, the last country where you ever want to be sued for libel. "I don't give a shit about damages," he told me. "I want to clear my name. I don't go around shooting deers with pistols." Temple purchased a full-page ad in Screen International to apologize.

All parties seem to agree that the Sex Pistols grew to despise McLaren, even more so after he depicted them in "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle" as no-talent frauds elevated to stardom by his own promotional genius. That was cruel, because Rotten and Vicious were authentic originals who struck a enormously influential note that continues to reverberate today. They may not have been gifted guitar soloists, but as performers they were phenomena. In less than two years, they fought constantly, insulted the press, spit on their fans, were banned from TV, were fired by one record company 24 hours after being signed, released only one album, pushed safety pins through their noses and ear lobes to more or less invent the modern style of body piercing, broke up during a tour of the United States, and saw Sid Vicious accused of murdering his girlfriend and dying of a drug overdose.

In 2000, Julien Temple returned with another film, "The Filth and the Fury," this time telling the Sex Pistols story from their own point of view and trashing McLaren. The surviving members appear backlit, perhaps to spare us the sight of their middle-aged faces. Incredibly, McLaren agreed to appear in his own defense, speaking from within a rubber bondage mask.

I wrote from the film's Sundance premiere: "The Sex Pistols never had a period that could be described as actual success. Even touring England at the height of their fame, they had to be booked into clubs under false names. They were hated by the establishment, shut down by the police and pilloried by the press ("The Filth and the Fury" takes its title from a banner headline that once occupied a full front page of the Daily Mirror). That was bad enough. Worse was that their own fans sometimes attacked them, lashed into a frenzy by the front line of Rotten and Vicious, who were sometimes performers, sometimes bear-baiters.

"Rotten was the victim of a razor attack while walking the streets of London; McLaren not only failed to provide security, he wouldn't pay taxi fares. Vicious was his own worst enemy, and if there was one thing that united the other three band members and McLaren, it was hatred for Sid's girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, who they felt was instrumental in his drug addiction. 'Poor sod,' John Lydon says of his dead bandmate.

"To see this film's footage from the '70s is to see the beginning of much of pop and fashion iconography for the next two decades. After the premiere of 'The Filth and the Fury' at Sundance, I ran into Temple, who observed, 'In the scenes where they're being interviewed on television, they look normal. It's the interviewers who look like freaks.' Normal, no. But in torn black T-shirts and punk haircuts, they look contemporary, unlike the dated, polyestered, wide-lapeled and blow-dried creatures interviewing them.