Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten (2007) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten ( 2007 ) Unrated | As the front man of the Clash from 1977 onwards, Joe Strummer changed people's lives forever. Four years after his death, his influence reaches out around the world, more strongly now than ...

See full summary » Director: From $1.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC a list of 43 titles created 30 Dec 2011 a list of 43 titles created 22 Mar 2012 a list of 22 titles created 06 Aug 2012 a list of 47 titles created 24 Nov 2012 a list of 28 titles created 20 Oct 2013 Title: Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten (2007) 7.7/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. 1 win & 3 nominations. See more awards » Videos A career retrospective of British punk band The Clash, featuring exclusive interviews with the entire band. Director: Don Letts A film about the career of the notorious punk rock band, the Sex Pistols. Director: Julien Temple A young British punk and roadie for The Clash navigates life in socially torn 1970s England.

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Written by IFC First Take A celebration of Joe Strummer - Before, during and after The Clash Genres: 18 May 2007 (Ireland) See more » Also Known As: Il futuro non è scritto - Joe Strummer See more » Box Office $52,751 (USA) (2 November 2007) Gross: (Canada) – See all my reviews I absolutely love The Clash and, because I liked Temple's film about the Sex Pistols, I had high hopes for this. Like many other people, I found the campfire interviews completely unsatisfying, especially since none of the subjects are identified at all. We hear very little from Mick Jones and not all from Paul Simonon. On the other hand, we are treated to John Cusack and a pirate-costumed Johnny Depp. Matt Dillon shares a fascinating anecdote in which he recounts something a taxi driver once told him about Joe Strummer, and Anthony Kiedis tells us that Joe hired someone who used to drum for him. Gosh! If any of these people knew Joe in a meaningful way, they don't make that clear on screen.

Why Bono and not Billy Bragg talking about Joe's political effect on his own music? Perhaps Julien Temple is hopelessly starstruck. The film's only redeeming features were the home movies, photographs, live performances and excerpts from Joe's BBC radio show. This film is not worthy of the man who inspired it. I will keep my fingers crossed that another filmmaker, one who favours substance over style, will some day make the definitive Joe Strummer documentary. 10 of 13 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Super Reviewer ½ Unflinching documentary of one of the most important figures in the history of popular music. I found it a little hard to watch for a borderline obsessive Clash fan like myself, as the focus was not just on the magic in a bottle that the band found, but rather on Joe, front to back... meaning that there was a lot more to learn about his departure from the 101ers, his attempt to keep the Clash going with Mick and Topper gone, and his time in the wilderness before finally starting to make music again with the Mescaleros. And, despite the tinge of iconoclasm, Joe still comes out looking great.

The mythology is debunked, and the man is raised up, with the result being an exciting portrait whose true beauty is in its style: Julien Temple is a great documentarian, and he lets this story out in just the right way. A winner. Daniel Perry Super Reviewer ½ The only fault I can find with The Future Is Unwritten is that some of Julien Temple's celebrity interviewees are not particularly insightful, seemingly having been selected purely with a view to marketing his film. However, Temple does an impeccable job of finding a cinematic style to match the urgency of Strummer's music, weaving a dazzling collage -- of stock footage, home movies, film and television excerpts, animations and live performances -- around some excellent interview material. I think those people who bleat about the lack of identifying titles for the talking heads are missing the essential point: to single those people out would be to elevate them above the common (wo)man, which would be the very antithesis of everything Joe Strummer stood for. Temple's decision is absolutely right; in this film, the rich and famous, spurned bandmates, ex-girlfriends and family are communally anonymous! (Many thanks to s.d.

for ushering me to my seat!) Stephen M Super Reviewer ½ the clash is the music of my youth. with that said, i have seen most clash films and have all the band's music through the years. This is the best documentary in that it humanizes joe throughout his youth, 101ers, the clash and its demise, the wilderness years, and true joy with the mescaleros. i still need to view the bonus footage for the complete portrait. Stefanie C Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten Julien Temple Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten Julien Temple Share on Reddit Theres something a little disconcerting about Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten. Its not the movie itself, which is a solid piece of documentary filmmaking. Rather, it is its depiction of its subject, the inimitable John Graham Mellor. Unquestionably one of the greatest rocknroll musicians to have ever graced this planet, Joe Strummer left in his wake one of the strongest discographies of any single performer.

The Clashs self-titled debut remains one of the most perfect snapshots of Englands late 70s lower-class despair, while London Calling stands up as one of the greatest records of all time. Even his last records with the Mescaleros remain powerful testaments to the mans songwriting prowess. Yet, for all his outspoken political views, charismatic live performances and legendary studio recordings, Joe Strummer doesnt come out looking like a terribly admirable guy by the end of The Future is Unwritten. In fact, he mostly looks like a dick. And yes, he fired most of the Clash, which was pretty weak, but what this film seems to unveil is that this kind of behavior was pretty much par for Strummers course. Despite his status as one of punks most outspoken icons, the man seen in Julien Temples film comes off more like a callow opportunist than a rocknroll visionary, which is no way a condemnation of Temples work.

Best known to punks as the man behind the brilliant The Filth and the Fury, Temple cuts together some truly staggering pieces of old film in creating this portrait, from Strummer recording "White Riot to some thoroughly disconcerting press footage circa Cut the Crap. The remastered songs here make for a powerful soundtrack, one that makes this film well worth seeing in theatres for any fan of Strummers work. But be warned: theres an unsettling amount of well-warranted "Kill Your Idols-type nihilism that pervades Temples film. (IFC) Amazon.com: The Future Is Unwritten: Joe Strummer, Julian Temple: Movies & TV The Future Is Unwritten — Sling Television: 7 days FREE Watch Live TV Programming Any Time and Anywhere. Simple monthly pricing, no long-term contracts or hidden fees. Watch now See all buying options $11.99 Free Shipping for Prime Members | Fast, FREE Shipping with Amazon Prime In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Frequently Bought Together Add all three to Cart Add all three to List Buy the selected items together This item:The Future Is Unwritten by Joe Strummer DVD $11.99 In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. FREE Shipping on orders over $49. Details Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. FREE Shipping on orders over $49. Details Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. FREE Shipping on orders over $49. Details Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1 This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading. Next Special Offers and Product Promotions Editorial Reviews Product Description As the lead singer of The Clash from 1977 onward, Joe Strummer changed people's lives forever. Four years after his death, his influence reaches out around the world, more strongly now than ever before. In The Future Is Unwritten, from British film director Julien Temple, Joe Strummer is revealed not just as a legend or musician, but as a true communicator of our times.

Drawing on both a shared punk history and the close personal friendship that developed over the last years of Joe's life, Julien Temple's film is a celebration of Joe Strummer--before, during, and after The Clash. (IFC Films) Amazon.com Julien Temple, one of the early documentarians of the London punk scene and director of the 2000 Sex Pistols film The Filth and the Fury, turns his attention now to that other seminal British band: The Clash--or more accurately, to the band's co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and lead singer, Joe Strummer. The Future is Unwritten is more than just a biography of Strummer; it is a tribute and exploration of a musician, artist and devoted humanist. Though Temple respects and admires Strummer (his influence is exalted by close friends, peers and fans like Bono and John Cusack), he doesn't romanticize this larger-than-life personality and presents Strummer honestly and not always in flattering light, though the director's fondness for his subject is constant. Most movingly, Strummer himself provides the narration via reassembled excerpts from a variety of interviews and the BBC radio show he hosted during the nineties.

In the wrong hands, this could be contrived, but in this masterful documentary it serves as a testament to not just Joe Strummer the myth, but Joe Strummer the man, telling us his story in vivid detail. The Future is Unwritten is a moving and personal portrait of a musician who helped shaped not just punk, but modern music as a whole. --Kira Canny Special Features Julien Temple, Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten | Filmmaker Magazine Julien Temple, Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten in Director Interviews on Nov 2, 2007 archive footage , Documentary , joe strummer: the future is unwritten , julien temple , Music Documentary , Rock n Roll , Rockumentary , the clash , the sex pistols THE LATE, GREAT JOE STRUMMER IN JULIEN TEMPLE’S JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN. COURTESY IFC FIRST TAKE. For 30 years, Brit Julien Temple has combined his dual passions of film and music, and worked with greats in both fields along the way.

He first came to prominence with The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle (1979), the Sex Pistols’ madcap cinematic offering, and from there went on to become an important figure in the fledgling pop video medium as well as pioneering the feature-length promo with the Human League’s spy-themed Mantrap (1983) and Mick Jagger’s Running Out of Luck (1987). Though Absolute Beginners (1986), the lavish 50s-set musical starring David Bowie and the Kinks’ Ray Davies, famously flopped, he immediately bounced back by contributing a segment to the opera portmanteau movie Aria (1987) and followed that with Earth Girls are Easy (1988), an aliens-on-earth Hollywood comedy with a strong musical aspect.

In the decade that followed, Temple made an IMAX movie for the Rolling Stones, At the Max (1991), a gritty New York crime pic co-written by and starring Mickey Rourke, Bullet (1996), and biopics of French auteur Jean Vigo and the Romantic poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Vigo (1998) and Pandaemonium (2000). <a href=' target='_blank'><img src=' border='0' alt=''/></a> Having recently made two definitive music documentaries, The Filth and the Fury (2000) and Glastonbury (2006), Temple now continues the trend with Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, his film about the iconic Clash frontman. Blending archive footage with campfire remembrances from myriad figures in Strummer’s life, it constructs a portrait of a complex, evolving artist. Initially defined by his politicized rebelliousness and ruthless ambition, Strummer found greater peace after the demise of the Clash. He died tragically of a congenital heart defect in 2002, aged just 50.

As with The Filth and the Fury, Temple’s superlative documentary about the Sex Pistols, Joe Strummer is brought to life by the director’s dynamic cinematic style and passion for the subject, and serves as a fitting memorial to one of the great figures in late 20th century music. Filmmaker spoke to Temple about his unusual first meeting with Strummer, keeping his punk sensibility and why he wishes he’d made Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon. DIRECTOR JULIEN TEMPLE DURING THE FILMING OF JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN. COURTESY IFC FIRST TAKE. Filmmaker: When did you first meet Joe? Temple: I first met him in Chalk Farm [in London] in the rehearsal space that the Clash had. I’d got permission to go there from Bernie [Rhodes, their manager]; he said, “Go there, you can film and they’ll be rehearsing.” So we turned up — it was very cold, I remember, it was winter [1976].

There was no one there in this big, open warehouse space, except there was this really weird smell and there was this table with a plastic tablecloth over it, and the smell seemed to be coming from there. When I lifted up the tablecloth, there was Joe asleep. He still had his boots on, and was not very happy to have been woken. Filmmaker: And how quickly did you become friends with him? Temple: Well, I was filming them quite intensely for three or four months, and then it was all over because they said, “You’ve either got to be with us or The [Sex] Pistols.” So I wasn’t friends with him properly until much later, in the mid-‘90s when he actually moved down to where I live [in Somerset] in England. I met him again by accident: he turned up at my house with my wife’s oldest school friend, as her new boyfriend. It was a quite bizarre moment. Partly because we were spending time down there in the middle of nowhere, we became quite close friends. Filmmaker: What are your strongest memories of Joe?

Temple: My main memory is his knock on my door: it was always very clear that it was Joe knocking on my door and there was a kind of excitement about hearing the knock because you knew you were in for a really good time. It was great spending time with him, he really challenged you and there was always a provoking dimension to what he would talk about. He made you feel that he would listen to what you would say and it’s a stupid cliché but I think people really felt he made their lives better in some weird way. Partly because he was a great listener, which a lot of people aren’t. But the campfires [that Strummer organized] were great in those years, in the sense of seeing him find another direction, or begin to find a direction, after clearly having gone through a disorienting, dark period [after the Clash split up]. Filmmaker: And did the idea for the film only come to you after his death? Temple: Yeah, I wouldn’t have made it if he was still around. I think a lot of people who knew him were very affected by his death and were a little disoriented themselves by it, [so] I had to wait [anyway].

We didn’t have a memorial or a concert, so I felt that it might help people to get back around the fire and talk about him Filmmaker: You brought together all these interesting, diverse people — from Jim Jarmusch, John Cusack and Matt Dillon to Joe’s schoolmates, band members and contemporaries — to talk about him around campfires in London, New York, Los Angeles, etc. That must have been a great experience. Temple: It was. The key was they were all very keen to do it for Joe. They all knew Joe in different ways but it wasn’t as if you had to hunt them down or pressurize them. Some of them said, “I hear you’re doing this, can I come to the fire?” A lot of other people would have been in it if they’d been around in those cities at the time we were doing the fire, but it was a pretty good cross-section. You’re always slightly conflicted about the idea of celebrity endorsements and one thing that helped me with that is that the fire is a great equalizer: around a fire, no knows who you are. You don’t wear a nametag like at a convention.

Filmmaker: It almost seems as if Joe was maybe the only person who could have been the link between that disparate group of people. Temple: Yeah, I think so…that hippie-punk thing that he seemed to own up to at the end. I think he was unique in being able to cross cultural barriers. He was more a beat than a hippie; there was a real beat poet aspect to Joe, a punk aspect and a rasta aspect almost. There was something almost shamanic about the guy but also something rock ‘n’ roll and rockabilly. That’s quite a strange confluence of things. Filmmaker: What was it like finding archive footage of Joe from his childhood and late teens? Temple: I was amazed how much stuff had been shot of him, in photographs and stills as well as bits of moving films. One of the fun things about a project like this is the archaeological dig aspect, finding a horde of treasure on 8mm. We had one bit of film that hadn’t been developed, and they said maybe it was something to do with The 101ers [Strummer’s band before the Clash].

It was great, those images of Joe loading up the van, on the steps of the squat and so on. When we developed it, it looked like it was shot yesterday. It was so strange — no scratches, really good color. Filmmaker: You also found quite a lot of Joe’s art, some of which you animated in the film. How straightforward was that to do? Temple: It’s a lot easier than it used to be. A guy who worked in my garden did that on his laptop. We had all these old carrier bags of Joe’s doodles, and people told me that at one time he did think he’d become an animated cartoonist, so it was like, “Well, Joe, here you are, you are a cartoonist, you drawings now are animated,” which was a nice thing to do. Filmmaker: How easy was it to make this film as Joe’s friend, and to keep a perceived objectivity? Temple: Well, it was helped by the fact that you felt he’d get out of his grave and strangle you if you showed him in too perfect a light.

I had a very strong sense that he would not want to be shown as some kind of saint, partly because I had watched how he worked and the contradictions and the flaws were part of his creativity: he went to those areas to find a creative energy. He liked different opinions and he liked being honest about your faults. I certainly didn’t want to put him down, I wanted to celebrate him but I did want to celebrate a version of him that I felt was truthful and rounded. Filmmaker: Your film career has mostly stuck very closely to music, so how do feel about the tag of “music filmmaker”? Temple: I don’t like it because I don’t think this really is a film about music. It’s [about] a man who made music, but it’s still not his life. The culture he came from, the time he lived— those things, to me, are more what it’s about than music. I think every film is given another dimension by the use of music, or the absence of music. How you play with music and images in a movie is a very powerful part of making movies, whatever the movie is.

But I don’t like [the word] “rockumentary” — I hate that; the name gives me nightmares. Filmmaker: It seems as if in Vigo and Pandaemonium you were investing yourself in subjects you were passionate about and people you were interested in just as much as you would have with a music-themed film. Temple: Yeah, definitely. I think Pandaemonium was something I put a lot into, but you have more “cooks” telling you what to do in those situations, which I’m not so good at. [On documentaries], you’re left alone, partly because you don’t have a script where people can say, “Tear that page out.” There’s nothing physical to control because you‘re making it up as you go along and [have] that freedom to do it very minimally, budget-wise, do it with a small crew and be light on your feet, spontaneous, improvising — if you want to do it, you can do it. But the juggernaut of a big film crew is scary. Your creative function is challenged by this administrative keep-everyone-happy [role].

So you spend a lot of energy doing that and not wrestling with the actual [questions], “Is this a better way of doing it than what we thought of?” or “What’s happening in this moment? Can we use it?” which is really to me what the cinema should be about, chance, and what’s happening as you make the film as well as the planning of it. I think the planning of it is overestimated. Filmmaker: Looking at your career, you’ve worked with Jim Carrey before he was famous (on Earth Girls Are Easy), Tupac Shakur just before he died (on Bullet) and with Jean-Luc Godard and Robert Altman (on the portmanteau film Aria). There seems to be a wild diversity there. Temple: It’s important to me to try and do things you haven’t done before, or at least treat each film as if I don’t know anything about filmmaking.

I like the crew to think I don’t know anything, so they’re telling me, “If you put this lens on…” and so you get ideas from them that way, rather than you saying, “I want this lens.” If you treat each film as a new start then that’s the best way, and often a new subject gives you that as well. Filmmaker: Do you think the current popularity of documentaries will last or that it is a fad? Temple: I think it has every chance of lasting because it is exploring other ways of telling stories. Mainstream cinema that most people have access to has a very limited way of telling a story, but [in documentaries there is] the idea that I was talking about before, that the filmmaker isn’t quite so controlled by the forces that finance films and develop films. This committee idea that a film has to get through all these hurdles to be ready to shoot kills the cinema in a lot of films. Documentary is inherently free of that, and there is real chance in the telling of it because you’re not about to say, “I didn’t like the way you did that, do it again,” it’s just what you get, which is quite interesting.

Filmmaker: Which film do you wish you’d directed? Temple: I don’t think that you should wish you’d directed anybody else’s film really, but the [Georges] Méliès one, A Trip to the Moon, would be quite good. [laughs] It wouldn’t have taken that long to do as it’s only about five minutes long, but it kicked off a whole lot of stuff, didn’t it? I like that idea of something that opens up other things. Filmmaker: Is that something you’ve tried to do in your own career, to make groundbreaking work? Temple: Partly because of the punk connection I’ve had. Yeah, I like the idea of trying to break down conventional rules, and it’s nice if you can show [something] from a different point of view than you’d expect. I think [a film] should provoke thought. Filmmaker: Do you still try and instill that punk ethos into your work, even the narrative stuff that you do? Temple: I do, but I want to do more of it than I have done. They like to take it out — that’s part of the committee thing.

It’s quite hard to demonstrate it until it’s there as an edit and a moment in the film, as that aspect can be hard to put on a piece of paper but you find it in the making of it. That’s the kind of unplanned nature of punk events as well. Filmmaker: What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring filmmakers? Temple: Never give up. If you want to do something, there are ways of doing it if you don’t give up. Also believe in what you’re doing. Don’t take yourself too seriously. These are all mistakes I’ve made. [laughs] <a href=' target='_blank'><img src=' border='0' alt=''/></a> Tim Joe Strummer had Charisma with a capital ‘C.’ I never knew the man but I saw a show The Clash did at Bonds in Times Square. I think it was 1980. When he hit the stage it was like the definition of Rock n Roll come to life. Amazing energy and presence. Such a memorable night. I’m glad that Mr. Temple has taken the time to make this tribute to one of the pillars of Rock.

Related Articles Joe Strummer, the future is unwritten : music from the Julien Temple film. (Musical CD, 2007) [WorldCat.org] Joe Strummer ; and various performers. Description: 1 audio disc (76 min.) : digital, stereo ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 leaflet Contents: "Punk rock warlord" (Joe Strummer) -- White riot (The Clash) (previously unreleased version) -- Rock the casbah (Rachid Taha) -- BBC World Service -- Black sheep boy (Tim Hardin) -- Kick out the jams (MC5) -- Keys to your heart (The 101ers) -- "Mick and Paul were different" (Joe Strummer) -- I'm so bored with the U.S.A.

(The Clash) (previously unreleased demo) -- Natty rebel (U-Roy) (previously unreleased version) -- Armagideon time (The Clash) -- (In the) pouring rain (The Clash) (live, previously unreleased) -- Omotepe (Joe Strummer) -- The Reeler > Features > <em>Unwritten</em> Rules Advertise on The Reeler R: When did you determine that your interviews would take place around campfires -- one of Joe's most cherished symbols -- and that you wouldn't identify your subjects onscreen? JT: That first part sort of cures the problem of the talking head, where you've got these wrinkly old rock stars in a rocking chair with the spotlight on them. It's very uncinematic; I just hate it. The faces disappearing and appearing in the flickering light was just a nice thing; they would lose the sense of the camera being there because it was hidden behind the flames in the darkness on the other side of the fire, which allowed a much more intimate, spontaneous, truthful, equal conversation. And that's what Joe was about: An exchange of ideas, not grilling someone for information.

And no one has ID's like "Bono, rock star" or "Johnny Hallyday, car thief," or whatever. A hierarchy is implicit in that, and the campfire was about breaking that down. Plus you have to do a little detective work; it makes the audience's journey more active. I like that people have to say: "Who is that? The prime minister of Chechnya or is it Mick Jones? My God! It's Mick Jones!" R: Exactly! Of course it's made easier when Mick is the only one who never appears near a campfire. JT: He was Joe's partner, so he could choose how he was presented. He asked for a three-bar electric fire -- that's what he grew up with in his grandmother's high-rise flat in London. He's an urban kind of guy, you know. R: It even looks like there's a campfire in Martin Scorsese's screening room. JT: Yeah, Marty doesn't do campfires either, so I had to go shoot him at his office. Which was fine; I was just happy to go film him.

But I did go down to Canal Street and buy a couple of those really cheap lights that blows around orange ribbons and looks like flickering flames. We stuck it near Marty's head and he thought we were taking the piss out of him. "What? What? You call this lighting?" "No, don't worry, Marty -- you'll understand." I never understood that he was such a nutty Clash fan. He was showing me pictures of his parents having dinner with The Clash at their house. Director Julien Temple R: The New York segment of the film is extraordinary. Everyone seems to forget today that The Clash literally ruled the city for a short time in 1981. Why do you think that is? JT: Many people overlook the past, don't they? Even when it's an important past and useful for the future. But I really don't know why. R: Everybody thinks instead of, say, The Police packing Shea Stadium for one night, but The Clash took over Times Square for a month. JT: And in a much more interesting way. Things were closed down. There were riots outside. They introduced hip-hop to white audiences in New York at those shows. It's more interesting than The Police could ever dream of.

Maybe that's why we don't remember: It's too interesting. We're encouraged to forget about it in case someone else comes up with something that interesting again. The Police are encouraged just because they're so bland, and the people who run the world want it blander and blander. Reunions of The Police ad infinitum is just what they want. R: Of the band's internal squabbles, Bono notes: "The thing that pisses me off about The Clash is that this extraordinary band should still be here." I kind of see his logic, but I don't know if I agree. What do you think? JT: I never think bands -- especially when they come back -- top what they were originally or match the kind of importance that they had in their original incarnation 10 years or 20 years earlier. I understand where Bono's coming from, because he's in a band that's refused to break up and has become a corporation or whatever it is. I don't think it would be a very pretty sight to see The Clash prancing around at age 50 singing "White Riot" for a living.

I think it's much nobler for them to be remembered as they were -- an amazing rock band, not a parody of one. R: Part of the mission seems to be to carry on Strummer's message, but have you seen any bands or even any cultural infrastructure in place that could support such tireless idealism? JT: I think it is around. There's certain -- I guess you'd call it "underground" -- culture in England that's very close to those ideals. When we were having these campfires in England, there were a lot of people who came to them who were very much about continuing that type of attitude. But I think it'll be hard for a band to achieve what The Clash were able to physically achieve in terms of mass commercial success with an uncompromising idea about what they're doing. The whole cultural landscape is so fragmented and broken up into tribal areas. It's harder to get a message across the way The Pistols did when punk broke in England -- the whole media circus would be hit by one thing. They were national figures overnight and hit every level of culture in one go. It will become easier once this bubble-like aspect of the word we live in is punctured.

When things like global warming have the effect that we deny they're going to have? Then other areas of culture will pick up the mantle of The Clash and demand that people have the right to think for themselves. Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten - Movies - Review - The New York Times The New York Times Movies |Friends Sitting Around a Campfire, Telling Stories About a Legend Search Movies | Movie Review | 'Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten' Friends Sitting Around a Campfire, Telling Stories About a Legend Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten NYT Critics’ Pick Continue reading the main story When the Clash was labeled “The Only Band That Matters,” it may have been record company hype, but when I was a teenager, there was probably no band that mattered more to me. The idealism, the earnest anger, the democratic, sometimes clumsy way of mixing styles and sounds — I am almost as susceptible to it now as I was at 15. This is all by way of disclosure: It’s likely that I would have been stirred and moved by “Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten,” even if it were the straightforward, VH1-ready rock star biography it might, at first, appear to be.

The film, however, is much more than a biography of the Clash’s guitarist and lead singer: It’s history, criticism, philosophy and politics, played fast and loud. Directed by Julien Temple , an able and tireless chronicler of the pop life, “Joe Strummer” assembles clips and interviews into a fast-moving timeline. Mr. Strummer’s voice, captured from radio broadcasts and old conversations, provides narration and companionship. That his presence is limited to audio and archival material provides a sad and subtle reminder of his absence, of the void left by his sudden death at 50, from a heart attack, in 2002. Like Mr. Temple’s two movies about the Sex Pistols — the eyewitness “Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle” (1980) and the revisionist “Filth and the Fury” (2000) — “Joe Strummer” is not so much a portrait as a collage. Sometimes the images are conventionally documentary, serving as literal illustrations of the story. But just as often they provide a kind of free-associative context, reminding us that an individual’s life is made up not only of experiences and events but also of ideas, dreams and possibilities.

So while we are treated to marvelous and rare footage of the Clash in rehearsal and Mr. Strummer’s previous bands in performance, we also sample news video and snippets of the cartoon version of “Animal Farm.” Photo The documentary Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten uses rare footage, interviews and even snippets of an animated Animal Farm to tell its story. Credit Sho Kikuchi/IFC First Take And we hear abundant testimony from Mr. Strummer’s friends, lovers, colleagues and admirers. They are not identified in the course of the movie, though some (Bono, John Cusack, Steve Buscemi, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) are not hard to recognize. Mr. Temple gathers them around campfires with other, less well-known people, and by the time the metaphorical significance of the fires is explained, late in the film, it’s clear that they represent Mr. Strummer’s egalitarian, bohemian spirit. The story Mr. Temple tells is, like most rock ’n’ roll biographies, one of self-invention. Joe Strummer was born John Graham Mellor.

His father was a diplomat, and Joe’s youth was more cosmopolitan and more privileged than his scruffy, proletarian musical persona might suggest. An art school dropout in the best British rock ’n’ roll tradition, he spent the early 1970s as a hippie vagabond, taking the name Woody (as in Guthrie) and bumming and busking around London and other English cities. He was part of the West London squatter scene and the leader of a band called the 101ers when punk rock arrived. The Clash did not invent punk — who did is the subject of endless argument among partisans of Malcolm McLaren, John Lydon and the Ramones — but the band was decisive in infusing its raw, raging energy with a sense of ethical integrity and political commitment. The heart of “Joe Strummer” is the narrative of the band’s rise, triumph and eventual unraveling, a tale told by survivors, participants, hangers-on and fans and animated by performances that have lost little of their immediacy or force in the intervening years. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to.

Sign Up Julien Temple on “Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten” – IFC By Aaron Hillis IFC News [Photos: Left, Joe Strummer in “Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten”; below, director Julien Temple, IFC First Take, 2007] Whether you’ve heard London calling, rocked the Casbah, or have no idea what those mean (if so, shame on you!), the late Joe Strummer’s glory as frontman for English punk rockers the Clash will forever be cemented as a keystone in the rock pantheon. Strummer, who sadly died in 2002 at the age of 50, was an astute, politically-charged singer-songwriter and rhythm guitarist whose poetry was as inspired by punk as it was by reggae and world music. Even his work in indie film seems curiously iconic today, from his composing and acting turns in Alex Cox’s “Walker” and “Straight to Hell” to his memorable bit as a drunken crank named Elvis in Jim Jarmusch’s “Mystery Train.” And then there’s filmmaker Julien Temple (“Absolute Beginners,” “Earth Girls are Easy”), who can unquestionably boast punk cred himself.

While still attending the National Film School in London during the ’70s, Temple found himself knee-deep in the early days of punk culture, becoming one of the first to film the Clash. Though he’s best known for his work with the Sex Pistols (including 1979’s cynical must-see “The Great Rock and Roll Swindle” and his 2000 retrospective “The Filth and the Fury”), Temple had personally known and collaborated with Strummer for several years, some of his rare footage emerging in a fantastic new rock doc entitled “Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten.” 30 years after the Clash’s album debut, this celebration is more about the man than his music, one of those rare perfect matches between filmmaker and subject that presents an elegiac but even-handed peek into the personal life behind an influential legacy. Temple sat down to talk about the ghosts of punk past. Do you remember what your first meeting with Joe Strummer was like? It was nasty, brutish and short. The first time I actually met him was at the space where the Clash rehearsed, and I’d got permission to film them. They were supposed to be there, and they weren’t.

It was freezing cold, and there’s nothing in this big room except a table in the middle with some plastic tablecloth over it. This really weird, not very nice smell was coming from under the table, and I lifted up the tablecloth. There was Joe, asleep, under the table with his boots off, where this cheesy sock smell was coming from. It was late morning, and he was not happy to be woken up by some idiot with a camera. I had been aware of him before that, [when he was] in the 101’ers. I was part of a squat that was right around the corner from the second big 101 squat. It had good moments; the party times were great. But you know, waking up in a December morning not wanting to get out of bed because it’s too cold and your waterbed would freeze… You needed antifreeze in the waterbed just to sort it out. You filmed the Sex Pistols throughout their entire career. Was the rivalry between them and the Clash as palpable as the music press always made it out to be? No, certainly not at the beginning.

They were quite friendly; certainly Glen [Matlock, the original Sex Pistols bassist] and Mick Jones were quite close. There was always a thing between John [Lydon, a/k/a Johnny Rotten] and Joe, and John gave Joe a hard time for being middle class, which made Joe have to kind of push further to justify his punk credential. But I think there was a sense that the Pistols were too unstable a mass to love forever, and the Clash had this idea that they were in the wings waiting to come on stage when the Pistols set fire to themselves. They define themselves as pistols and nihilism and negativity, and we are positive ions. Something like that. [laughs] Which wasn’t totally true! I always thought the Pistols were an incredibly positive act. Joe says: “They were the stun grenade into the room that had to clear the space.” That’s pretty positive to me. There’s a great sense of humor about the Pistols that I think the Clash were lacking at that time.

Joe was a very funny person, hilariously witty  that comes through in his lyrics  but at that first moment of the Clash, there was this kind of self-criticism and hard-line sell up in North London that didn’t communicate with anyone else, plotting this kind of thing. “The Future is Unwritten” comes across like a tribute to an artist and friend, but it’s far more impartial than the typically fawning fan account. How did you juggle that, making something that honored Strummer but was critically balanced? [Having] become close friends with him during the last seven or eight years of his life, I certainly didn’t want to assassinate him at all. I wanted to celebrate him. But I was lucky, because I knew that if I didn’t show some warts, then he’s come out of his grave and strangle me. I was very keen to show the defects and contradictions to an extent. I didn’t want to get every bag of dirty linen out and spread it all over the street. I wanted to elude to things without getting into a big personal history of his relationships that you can do, I suppose, with any rock star.

We’re all flawed, so I wanted to make it about the spirit of the man and how he worked with his flaws as a source of energy. He didn’t hide it under the carpet like a lot of people who become really famous and think they don’t have any flaws. [laughs] Or, they’ve lost them along the way, somehow, magically. So, it was trying to do justice to him, and he would have hated a hagiography of Joe Strummer. The film zips along with an appropriately rapid, punk-rock pace. Was there any great material that had to fall out to make the final cut carry that energy? Yeah, definitely. I had an hour or so on the 101’ers, for example. A movie doesn’t want to outstay its welcome. It’s still quite a long film, two hours-ish depending on what speed you play it on. [laughs] I know it’s quite long to sustain an audience in the dark, but as it’s a man’s life, I don’t think it’s too long.

I did try to get it down as much as I could, but after some point you do want to stand your ground: “If I start taking more out, I think I’m taking out things that’ll bring other things falling down, too.” It’s hard to know when you’ve finished a film like this. At least with a script, there’s “The End.” There’s a great story of Joe painting his father’s apples blue in his orchard. His father woke up, and suddenly all his apples were blue. I quite like that. Then he threw blue and white paint over a car and drove off. It was a funny moment, but I think you understand his relationship with his father okay without that. I had painted a load of apples blue in my apple trees, so I was kind of attached to it because I had done all this work, but it was disposable, really. You use a clever device where all your talking heads give their testimonies around communal campfires, a kind of assembly Strummer was fond of. Is it true your first campfire test footage went a little crazy after magic mushrooms broke out? Oh yeah, it was a dry run. There was a blizzard, it looks great.

I shot it because the cameraman collapsed from the mushrooms, so we didn’t have a cameraman. I was shooting the mayhem with infrared so the snow really stood out  the sparks going up, snow falling down, and people were flying high. It was great, all the Manchester guys like [Happy Mondays percussionist] Bez, [former Stone Roses bassist] Mani, and I think I brought mushroom tea, or I put mushrooms in the tea. I can’t quite remember but everyone was not really concentrating on being interviewed after a while. This was always going to be a trial run just to get something done down at Joe’s house, but then Bez threw up, still finished the interview, and I started to feel strange myself. Joe Strummer eventually outgrew it, but let me ask anyway… Is punk dead? I think the ideas behind it have a very long history. They’ve found expression in cultural ways of expression that go back thousands of years. I’m sure they’ll come again in a different way, at least I hope, than an old punk turning up at CBGB’s to try to stop it from being closed down. That doesn’t do much for the future.

Old punks are just as bad as old hippies. But the ideas are part of a ground rebel human tradition that become more and more important as we get closer to maybe [becoming] the first species to design our own extinction. If you want to be human, you should have some of those ideas aired again. I’d like to think this is a bit of a punk film. It’s about a punk guy, but the way I made it. There’s not a Mohican on the front of the film can, but it’s a more anarchic approach to making a film. You’ve seen so many legendary rock acts, even collaborated with them as you’re still doing with your upcoming film on the Kinks. Are you wowed by any today’s up-and-comers? I hear things I like a lot. Amy Winehouse, for example. But it’s hard to wow me in the same way as when I was 18, or 12, or 10 in the case of the Kinks. When I first heard the Kinks, that totally changed my life. I’m not going to change my life by hearing Amy Winehouse or Pete Dougherty.

But kids may, or some people probably will, which is good. I tend to know more English stuff than what’s happening in the States: There’s this guy named Kid Harpoon, and I like the Selfish Cunts, who surprised me by being a punk band that really felt new and dangerous. There’s always good music out there, but I think it’s hard to have the same impact these guys did back in the ’70s because the whole cultural landscape is so fragmented now. In England at that time, they could take it in one swoop. Even with oppositional rebel music, it was possible for that to be commercial across the board. Whereas now, you can have an indie or hip-hop hit in England, but you’re never going to have every tabloid paper proclaiming some new movement. It’s also what makes it so much harder for artists of all mediums to get their work exposed. We’re perpetually bursting at the seams with new media. And there’s too much for your life. You only have 24 hours in a day, and you can’t hope to access what’s out there. In the past, because there wasn’t that much, you could know the culture you’re in.

Now, if you wanted to listen to everything, you’d have to live for millions, billions of years. You know, [Samuel Taylor] Coleridge read every book that had ever been published in English up to that point; that’s pretty amazing. That’s not possible in any form to have that kind of grasp of everything that’s going on. Maybe it’s good. It’s inevitable. But maybe the whole thing doesn’t have to go on like this, does it? It could all pop. Pop? You know, the Roman Empire, a hundred years after it fell, it was like: “How did that happen?” You sit and watch cars in gridlock in a city like New York, no one going anywhere. I’m sure in 40 years’ time it could be possible to say “What the hell were they thinking, living in that way?” Things could happen with electronic media, the world relying on digital information; if the power goes, you’re fucked. There’ll be back-up power and that could go, too. I’m excited by that idea. People would have to think in that context. At the moment, they don’t think which is the biggest worry because that’s what defines you as a human being.

If you give up your right to think, all your other rights are meaningless. “Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten” opens November 2nd in limited release. Advertisement Posted by Ben Cochran on January 19th Photo Credit: Everett Collection, GIFs courtesy of GIPHY Democrats, Republicans and Millennials agree: 2017 is shaping up to be a spectacle — a spectacle that really kicks into high gear this Friday with the presidential inauguration. Not only will the new POTUS swear in, but all the Country’s highest offices will be filled. It’s a daunting prospect, and to feel a little anxious about it is only normal. But if your anxiety is snowballing into panic, we have a solution: Bill Murray. He’s the human embodiment of a mental “Happy Place”, and there’s really no problem he can’t solve. So, with that in mind, how about we all set aside reality for a moment and let Bill take the pain away by imagining a top-shelf White House cabinet filled exclusively by his signature characters. Here are a few hypothetical appointments for your consideration… Secretary of Defense: Bill Murray from Stripes His incompetence is balanced by charm, and dumb luck is inexplicably on his side.

America could do worse. <noscript><iframe src="//giphy.com/embed/2U0Ascd5Qi2je" width="480" height="270" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></noscript> Secretary of State: Bill Murray from Lost In Translation A seasoned globetrotter steeped in regional traditions who has the respect of the whole wide world. And he kills Costello in karaoke, which is very important. <noscript><iframe src="//giphy.com/embed/148aIddm9f0eoE" width="480" height="254" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></noscript> Press Secretary: “Cats and dogs, living together. Mass hysteria.” Dude knows how to brief a room. <noscript><iframe src="//giphy.com/embed/3o72EXwxMhN72EAO7C" width="480" height="197" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></noscript> Secretary of Health and Human Services: Bill Murray from What About Bob.

A doctor-approved people person who knows that progress is measured in baby steps. <noscript><iframe src="//giphy.com/embed/QJOaVHRdyEDXq" width="480" height="270" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></noscript> Secretary of Energy: Bill Murray from Groundhog Day Let’s be honest, this world is going to need a lot of do-overs. <noscript><iframe src="//giphy.com/embed/6GY01XQBkf3lS" width="480" height="268" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></noscript> Feeling better? Hold on to that bliss. And enjoy a healthy alternative to the inauguration brouhaha with multiple Murrays all Friday long in an IFC movie marathon including Kingpin, Zombieland, Ghostbusters, and Ghostbusters II.

<noscript><iframe src="//giphy.com/embed/d7lGJ2B8vEtLW" width="480" height="200" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></noscript> Posted by Ben Cochran on January 17th Photo Credit: Everett Collection Unless you’ve somehow missed every episode of the Simpsons since 1989, then surely you know that Hank Azaria is one of the most important character actors of our time. He’s so prolific and his voice is so dynamic that he’s responsible for more iconic personalities than most folks realize. Basically, he’s the great and powerful Oz — except that when you pull back the curtain the truth is actually more impressive. And now Hank is coming to IFC to bring yet another character to the TV pop culture hive mind in the new series Brockmire . Check out the trailer below.

<noscript><iframe src="/video-embed?media_id=853413955678&video_id=HZiJFs6HpSoO" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen></noscript> Based on the following Funny or Die short and co-starring Amanda Peet, Brockmire follows the story of imploded major league sportscaster Jim Brockmire as he tries to resurrect his career by calling plays for a floundering minor league team in a podunk town. <noscript><iframe width="560" height="315" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></noscript> The series is written by Joel Church-Cooper (Undateable) and produced by Funny or Die’s Mike Farah and Joe Farrell, meaning that there’s funny in front of the camera, funny behind the camera–funny all around. Sounds like a ball to us. Brockmire premieres April 5 at 10P on IFC.

Question: Who is the subject of The Future Is Unwritten, a film by Julien Temple?
Answer: Joe Strummer