Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten
Director: Julien Temple
Cinematography: Julien Temple, Ben Cole
IFC films – 124 minutes

John Graham Mellor, better known as Joe Strummer, is probably the best-known punk icon, with the possible exception of Johnny Rotten. Unlike Rotten, Strummer actually lived his left-wing ideals and left behind an impressive musical legacy. Julien Temple knew Strummer in the early pre-Clash hippie days and became friendly with him during the last 10 years of Strummer’s life. (Strummer died of an undiscovered congenital heart defect in 2002 at the age of 50.) Temple uncovered an amazing amount of old footage, both black-and-white and color, and convinced the Mellor family to turn over their home movies of Strummer as a child. The footage is beautifully assembled, and held together by Strummer’s own voice sampled from decades of interviews and clips from his BBC radio show London Calling, which gave him a chance to spin, and comment on, the music he loved, from deep Mississippi blues to dub reggae.

It’s hard to tell if anyone but a Clash/Strummer fan will sit through this two hour documentary without getting restless, but folks old enough to remember the punk rebellion of 1977 will be inspired, and probably a little bit saddened, by this warts and all exploration of Strummer’s life. On the other hand, hearing “White Riot” and “London Calling” blasting out of a theater’s sound system at top volume is almost worth the price of admission alone.

Strummer, who jokingly referred to himself as a “punk warlord,” was a contradictory man, and while the film doesn’t whitewash his failings, it doesn’t dwell on them either. He was a self-admitted womanizer and had his shortcomings as a parent, but his honesty about it all and charismatic presence evokes plenty of sympathy. One telling scene takes place in 1999. Strummer is out on the street handing out flyers, trying to convince teenage kids to come to his show with his post-Clash band, the Mescaleros. The kids don’t know who he is, and they look uncomfortable as he tries to push a flyer on them, but he jokes around and tells them to come to the show without a trace of attitude. He just laughs and shrugs at the camera, sadly aware of the ups and downs of the music business.

Briefly: Strummer was born in Turkey. His father was in the British Foreign Service. He grew up in Turkey, Mexico, and Egypt before returning to England to attend boarding school. “I knew that to survive I’d have to become a victim or a bully, so I chose bully,” he deadpans. He changed his name from John Mellor to Woody, before settling on Joe Strummer. “I could never play guitar except by hitting all six strings, so the name fit,” he explains. He went to art school, was in a pub band called the 101’ers, but quit just as they were about to go national to join the Clash. The Clash had an uphill climb due to their leftist politics, but lived up to their nickname as “the only band that matters” with their incendiary songs and live gigs. After becoming a bona fide rock star when “Rock the Kasbah” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go” became hits, Strummer flipped. He fired Mick Jones and wandered around directionless for almost 10 years. (Both parents died and the Clash broke up in about a year’s time.) His ex-wife says he was a distant father, and he admits he was never home to see his daughters grow up. Just when he was getting ready to stop drinking, the Pogues asked him to join the band for an American tour. He was working on a solo album when he died, incorporating Columbian cumbia and African music into the mix. Just a few days before he died, he’d sent out dozens of hand painted Christmas cards to his friends.

The footage is amazing, from home movies of Strummer as a child to sessions for the album he was working on when he died, it seems like someone had a movie camera in hand for almost every important moment of his life. If the film includes recreations of important moments, they’re blended so perfectly into the story that it’s unnoticeable. Fans and friends of Strummer, from early band mate fiddler Tymon Dogg to Bono and Johnny Depp praise his creativity and talk sadly about his drawbacks. It’s easy to those who loved him and admired his integrity, but it’s Strummer’s own words that resonate most. At the end of the film he gives a brief call to arms asking us to remember that we’re all human beings, here for a short time, and that we owe it to ourselves to enjoy life and make the world a better place for our being here. It’s that magnanimity of spirit that made Strummer, and his music, important.

Watch: Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten Trailer [at youtube.com]