The Decline of Western Civilization

To celebrate the long-awaited DVD and Blu-ray release of her trilogy, Spheeris, 69, will be on hand for Friday's and Saturday's screenings at Hollywood Theatre.

WW: These films aren't exactly underground secrets. Why did it take so long to get a DVD release?

Penelope Spheeris: I was afraid I wasn't gonna do it right. Having been in the Hollywood film business for a long time, I was so skeptical. This is my life's work. I've only got one shot. It never would have happened without my daughter [Anna Fox]. Five years ago, we discovered that she had a drug problem. She totaled a car with one of her kids in it, and she tried to get her shit together for a year or so after that. I said, "You need to come to work for me." And she said, "OK, but only if we do the Decline movies first."

Punk singer Alice Bag said she "didn't immediately trust" you and called you "an outsider to the scene." Did you encounter a lot of pushback?

There wasn't everybody filming like there is now. Everybody's got their iPhone. It's not like anybody could say, "I would rather have so and so film it," because nobody else was doing it.

Decline II is hilarious, albeit in a tragic way. Did you want to make a comedy?

No, I didn't. The only reason it's funny is because I wasn't paying for it. I didn't have any money back then. I was totally fucking broke until I was 45 years old, when I did Wayne's World. I had to depend on someone else to pay for it. I probably would have edged more toward the thrash or hardcore scene at that point, but [producers Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris] really wanted it to be hair bands.

All three films are dominated by men—horny, drunk young men who have ugly opinions about women. Did you ever feel uncomfortable with all the misogyny? 

Pat Smear in the first Decline says, "I don't like girls," but I think he says it as a joke. The time of that first Decline, I think, was very liberating for women. It was the first time I saw women dressing in combat boots and cutting their hair down to one inch and not giving a shit about their makeup. Decline II stands out as just being downright disgustingly misogynistic, and that's the way that time was. The groupies subscribed to it, and the guys went along with it. That's just what you did.

While you were making Wayne's World and Black Sheep, did you know you'd return to the Decline series?

I did know instinctively that doing the documentaries was more gratifying. But you get caught up in all that Hollywood crap. I'm actually really glad I had a movie [1998's Senseless] that didn't do so well. As a woman, once you have a movie that doesn't do well, that's it. But that was fine with me. I went, "You know what, why don't I just use this money I made to make my own documentary," which was Decline III. Then I couldn't get it distributed.

What happened?

I couldn't get any distribution. I was only offered deals where I would have to give up the rights to the first two movies. And I wasn't gonna do that. So I said, "OK, fine, it doesn't get distribution." I felt terrible. That's the movie of my whole career that I love the most, and I wasn't able to get it seen.

There's sadness and so much substance abuse through all three films. Was it hard filming people who were clearly bent on self-annihilation?

Even though I'm not traditionally religious, I always say, "God's in charge of life and death." Yes, sometimes—as a mother—I wanted to say, "Don't do that, you're gonna hurt yourself." But I never thought, "This guy's gonna die." I don't know who the hell's gonna die and who's gonna live. I can't believe I'm still alive. 

SEE IT: The Decline of Western Civilization trilogy screens at Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., hollywoodtheatre.org, at 7:30 pm Friday (Part II) and Saturday (Parts I and III), Aug. 7-8. $8.

WWeek 2015