Titan of the Clash

A former public schoolboy turned champion of the underclass. A punk who made sprawling albums littered with allusions to literature and social injustice. A politically charged consciousness perched at the top of the American charts. A hell-raiser who died peacefully in his sleep on December 22, 2002.

All of the contradictions of Joe Strummer are beautifully captured by Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten. This new documentary portrait by Strummer’s old friend, Julien Temple (Great Rock N’ Roll Swindle, The Filth And The Fury) is book-ended by The Clash powering through ‘White Riot’. Remarkably, the film in between the shotgun blasts – a thrilling montage of archival material, social history and an eclectic range of interviews – maintains the same blistering pace as that frantic anthem.
“I didn’t want hagiography,” says Temple. “Joe would have hated that. I took the warts and all approach. I wasn’t worried about showing his darker side. We’re all flawed and I think he has enough in his favour to keep you with him. He used the flaws and contradictions in his work. He embraced them.”
Mr. Temple had known Strummer since the earliest incarnation of The Clash having filmed the band for five months before they signed a record contract. When Temple went on to make the films Sex Pistols Number One (1977) and Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle (1979), he and Strummer tactfully stepped away from one another.
“It wouldn’t do for two middle-class boys to hang around with each other in those days,” recalls the director. “Remember that real punk wasn’t even working class. It was a voice that was beyond or perhaps below that. John Lydon lived in a beach hut in Hastings with his immigrant family. Steve Jones had to sleep in cars and doorways. They were a sub-criminal underclass. Joe became a bit paranoid about being middle-class. He was the son of a British diplomat. I went to Cambridge. It takes one to know one. I could never hide it so I never tried. But he developed this real arr arr arr accent – what we now call mockney. I remember asking Mick (Jones) about it, but of course Mick had never noticed. It was very important to be authentic back then. I have an interview with Shane (MacGowan) where he speaks like a Westminster schoolboy. Then he was a total cockney and then he was Mr. Ireland.”
Inevitably, much of The Future Is Unwritten is given over to Clashology; a compelling trajectory tracing the band’s grotty squatter origins to near stratospheric celebrity and implosion.
“He was always charismatic so I wasn’t too surprised when they took off,” recalls Temple. “I remember staying with the band in a hotel in New York and they had become like The Rolling Stones. That’s why Joe broke it up. The next time I saw him was in L.A. where he was quite depressed. He really didn’t know what he was going to do with himself. Then one day in 1997 he came through the honeysuckle gate of my home (in Somerset) and he had moved in next door. So I still keep expecting his head to pop round the door. I can’t quite shake that.”
In the weeks after Strummer’s death, Julien, keen to create a fitting memorial, started lighting campfires. He gathered friends, family, musicians, contemporaries and celebrity well-wishers under the stars to reminisce and filmed the results.
“I really love campfires,” says Temple. “I can see why they’ve come down to us from the Druids and primitive man. Fire is great anyway. It always makes you think ‘burn it all down and start again’. We had campfires in New York and London and L.A.. Each one was an event. Everybody was sitting around talking about him and toasting his memory. I called Scorsese and he wanted to be part of it, but the other celebrities you see in the film – John Cusack, Bono – all approached me. Everybody just wanted to pay their respects. And the campfire was a great equaliser. Guys who went to school with him got equal time with the famous people. It was very informal. On our trial run with Bez and some of the Mancunians, someone put mushrooms in the tea. It was very interesting but I couldn’t use any of it in the finished film.”
The additional unseen footage and tapes of Strummer’s BBC radio programme add to the intimacy of the occasion.
“I’m not really a documentary person,” says Temple. “I don’t even really think that this is a documentary. This is the same sort of stuff we were doing back on Sex Pistols Number One. It’s chopping things up and putting them back randomly together. It goes back to the punk thing of not having any money. You just filmed things off the TV, cut it together, hoping for the best while expecting the worst. But it’s just a celebration really. I didn’t know what was happening next. I think Joe would have approved.

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten is released May 18.