Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten

Synopsis: A profile of Joe Strummer, leader of The Clash

Having given us the excellent documentary on The Sex Pistols, The Filth And The Fury (2002), Julien Temple’s take on the life and times of Joe Strummer comes highly anticipated. Sadly there is little to recommend it to those other than die-hard Clash fans looking to round out their knowledge about the band’s frontman (there is little of the band in performance). Overlong and bar some animation rather dull in delivery it is, other than the actual subject-matter, indistinguishable from a raft of feet-of-clay rock bios.

Strummer, who died in 2002 at the age of 50 from a congenital heart condition, was born John Mellor in Turkey, the son of a peripatetic British diplomat, attended a public boarding school and, in the tried-and-true tradition of British rock, attended art school before dropping out and then paid his dues in Thatcher-era Britain, living in squats and playing in rough-and-ready pub bands. Sound familiar? Although no rock god, in many ways Strummer’s story parallels that of Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, The Clash, despite Strummer’s assertion that he could avoid the mistakes of the once-street-fightin’ men, in a relatively short space of time and on the back of their huge post-punk hit, "Rock The Casbah", playing to stadium-sized crowds and self-immolating in a bonfire of drug abuse, over-weening egotism and self-loathing.

Strummer however, unlike Jagger, was a genuine rebel and the story of how this happened and how he failed to reconcile rock n’roll’s stick-it-to-the-man mandate with his desperately sought-for mainstream success and the consequential gutting of his anti-establishmentarianist values is the real story here. Unfortunately Temple has not crafted his film around this Mephistophelean tragedy but rather swamped it with a flood of biographical detail, illustrated with wearing fidelity by archival footage from home movies and amateur videos, television appearances, feature films Strummer appeared in, animations of his art work and interviews with friends, family and fellow musicians.

If this over-plentiful material is of some interest, what is definitely not is the now-obligatory-for-the-genre inclusion of reflections from the tired roster of hipster celebrities. Hence "I’m-available-for-comment-on-anything" Bono waxes lyrical on the sense of “jeopardy” in The Clash’s music, whilst Tinseltown habitués, Johnny Depp (in full Keith Richards-cum-Jack Sparrow piratical kit), Jim Jarmusch, Steve Buscemi, Matt Dillon and, stretching the bow more than a little, John Cusack, are all brought in to attest to its genius, integrity etcetera, etcetera, etcetera although it’s clear from those closer to the real person that Strummer’s story was not so noble and that, quite typically, The Clash were a much greater creative force than John Mellon was on his own.  At best gratuitous, at worst incongruous hagiography, these endorsements drag Temple’s film so far into Entertainment Week drool that one can practically hear Strummer (the genuinely anarchic one) banging on his box and crying “Let me out of here”.  Lay your money down to see this and you’ll know why.

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