Death Is Their Destiny (1978)

“There’s a sense of privilege at being allowed to see the humanity; to share the humour, the fun and sense of theatre that the punks embody.” Michelle Dee, This Is Hull If Carnaby Street embodied the London fashion zeitgeist of the 1960s, in the 1970s the baton passed to Chelsea’s King’s Road, running nearly two miles between Sloane Square and Stamford Bridge. It was there that Malcolm McLaren and his girlfriend Vivienne Westwood opened a boutique which, under various names (it can be glimpsed in the film as Seditionaries), heavily influenced punk fashion and became a popular meeting place. By 1978, when Phil Munnoch (aka ‘Captain Zip’) started documenting the King’s Road with his Super 8 camera, the more enterprising punks were even charging tourists for photographs. The original film was silent, but in 1991 Munnoch added a soundtrack that combined personal reminiscences with evocative tracks by Elvis Costello, X-Ray Spex and others. Munnoch’s footage has made frequent appearances in documentaries about the punk era, as did that of fellow Super 8 specialist Don Letts, who focused on the music. This is the first in what was a series of ‘Captain Zip’s Video Trips’. Later films were Don’t Dream It – See It, The Last Resort, In the Gutter (all 1978), We’re No Angels, The Battle of Beaufort Market (both 1979), Brains in Frames (1980) and Citizens Banned (1981).