The film describes how punk redefined popular music and fashion and legitimised an independent, rebellious, do-it-yourself attitude and inspired and influenced an entire generation of film makers, poets, photographers, fashion designers and artists. Ultimately, punk is linked through to anti-establishment music, bands and youth culture of today.

Now before go anywhere I have to say I have mixed feelings for this film not helped by the PR sheet that comes with it. Its important to remember the title of the film is 'Punk Attitude' as opposed to 'Punk Rock'. That matters. Its not an A-Z history. So if people moan bands are left out then tough! Most people couldn't even agree on a top 5 in punk let alone a whole film.

The use of 'punk attitude' entails a mixture of tangibles and intangibles that enables you to place artists subjectively in either having it or not having it since the dawn of time.  Punk rock says a rigid style of guitar and fashion; Punk attitude, says the film and Don, is a way of thinking, of challenging the existing order and of originality in creation. In short 'punk attitude' is the underground or alternative thought from Mozart to Lenny Bruce to Sonic Youth to Trotsky and so on. Jimmy Hendrix is punk attitude but U2 aren't. 'One day you're gonna wake up and know what side of the bed you're on!' as someone once said in so many words!

Where I feel the film isn't successful is being able to present this premise with sufficient force as the very word 'punk' has firm temporal, sonic and visual connotations on both sides of the Atlantic. If there had been a short narrated introduction about 'punk attitude' then that would have provided the framework to hang the film on. That said its a a brave stab and a viewpoint

 Punk 77 itself makes throughout this site.

Don Letts Interview October 2005

Don Letts was without doubt the most animated and enthused interviewee I have ever come across. His enthusiasm and passion and knowledge of a wide range of subjects came over in waves and I almost felt like picking up a camera, guitar or paintbrush. Instead however I picked up the keyboard and began to type because the recorder fucked up! So from memory here we go…and I've missed loads. This is not the whole interview but the bits concerning the film. Respect to Don Letts.

How did you come to make this film?
DL: I was asked to do it and I thought oh not another bloody film on punk rock. It seems that every 5 years punk rock seems to come around or someone wants to do a documentary on 1977 punk. This time I thought lets do something different lets trace that punk attitude from early rock beginnings right up to the present day.

The premise of your film seems to traces a line of punk rock from Elvis to Nirvana via the Sex Pistols et al. A lot of early UK punks from 1976 believed punk rock dead by mid 1977 by which time punk had became well and truly overground. Do you think punk rock is alive now? If so what do you see the main differences between now and then? Is it challenging, thought provoking or now integrated into rocks rich tapestry like the blues and another means to a buck?
DL: For those early punks they did believe it was dead after the Grundy incident. When it became a fad a fashion and went overground. When it began to lose its originality and become boiled down to spitting, the safety pin and loud music. I wanted to prove that there was more than the traditional UK/US Seventies view. I wanted to go further and say there ‘s punk attitude everywhere, from Marcel Duchamp to Tracey Emin to Sun Ra. Punk is being inventive and changing things and challenging. The problem now is everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame when they don’t even have 2 minutes in the tank. Punk was the last movement to offer so much visually, sonically and intellectually. If it wasn't why do people keep harking back to it as a golden age. God knows it needs something now with the state of the music business.

In a book what you have attempted would be a huge undertaking but in a film constricted by time even more so. It’s so big, loads of stuff must have been left out. How hard was the film to edit?
DL: Its not supposed to be an A-Z of punk. The footage was originally 3 hours or so and then cut down. Some of that footage cost $10,000 for a few seconds. The worst thing is that the money doesn’t even go to the artists but to the people who own the footage and who didn’t even realise they had it.

Why did you stop at Nirvana and why no clips of them?
DL: Courtney Love took exception to a comment Legs McNeil made and withheld permission. That fucking bitch! She ruined the end of my film!

Did Punk change the world? The Sniffin’ Glue interview that comes with the DVD has you saying punks will change nothing. Do you think you were proved wrong?
DL: (Laughs) Oh why did they reprint that interview its so embarrassing. That was a young Don Letts full of Punk attitude. Yeah it changed the world. It changed me. Everything I do has punk attitude.

What next for Don Letts?
DL: Just finished a film on Sun Ra ( now he was a punk rocker before punk rock). Doing a film on All The Mod Cons. We all used to think in 1977 "Fucking Jam! Bunch of fucking yokels in suits. Now listening back to that album you think fuck its great and he was only 18.

Any last comments?
Do me a favour make it short and sweet, not Don Letts waffling. Make it like like a Ramones song 1234.