Film Report: Joe Strummer - The Future Is Unwritten
By: Thomas Hannan
The Clash are the best band ever. No, they're not my personal favourite - I'd feel like a reactionary fraud if I claimed that a band who stopped making records the year I was born were my personal favourite - but they are, by demonstrable logic, the greatest band of all time. And a huge part of that greatness, as important as Jones, Simonon and Headon were to the legend, was Joe Strummer. That's the reason that this film exists - to celebrate the man as an individual, rather than just as a part of a whole. He was more than that.
If I was the age I am now during the late seventies and early eighties, then no doubt about it, The Clash would have been my personal favourite band. When this film is at its best, it makes you feel like they're still going, that, as a 22 year old in 2007, The Clash are the most important band ever - including today. Maybe they are... This is achieved through the deft inclusion of some frightfully invigorating, imposingly charged and previously unseen live footage of the band rehearsing, recording and existing where they were at their most virulent - in a live setting. It's nothing short of incredible stuff, the like of which no band has matched since, or even dreamed of attempting before.
But outside of the band, much of Joe's back story is related with a tender sincerity that suggests the film was put together by friends of his, rather than by people looking to cash in on the Strummer legacy. You get footage of Joe's parents smiling as their youngest son does cartwheels in their back yard, the tragic story of his brother David and the pair's formative time at boarding school, all of which clearly moulded the young John Mellor in to the Joe Strummer we knew (or felt like we knew). It's narrated by friends, family and admirers (the most famous of whom are probably Johnny Depp, Steve Buscemi and Bono, who insists on wearing sunglasses on a beach in the evening...pillock) all sat doing what Joe reportedly loved most - playing songs around a campfire. Music wise, when it's not The 101ers, The Clash or The Mescaleroes songs being played in context, the sounds are taken from Joe's programme on the BBC World service - he kindly always tells you what track he'd just played too, so make sure you take a notepad along to the cinema. There are some corkers.
Stylistically, it's odd - when it's not acquaintances and loved ones talking you through the Strummer story, it's Joe himself giving what is at times a very frank account of his life and times in his own inimitable drawl. It's often interspersed with animated version of old scribbles he'd made in notebooks, or snippets from George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' and '1984' - though the reasons for that aren't hard to deduce, given the anti-authoritarian stance adopted by the man the day he arrived at his private boarding school (something which would be at odds with his punk rock persona all his life - he agonised over it).
From there it moves quickly on through Joe's days squatting and fronting pub rock heroes the 101ers to the formation of The Clash (the period of the film where the most alarmingly brilliant live footage is included) through to their masterpiece, the never-bettered-by-anyone 'London Calling'. Here, you forget who you are. You forget that so much tripe exists in the current political and musical climate. It feels like The Clash still exist, and I'm not sure I've ever been happier.
However, this is a film about the man and not the band - for that, see 'Westway To The World' (it's fantastic) - and as such it dwells not so much on the contributions of Mick Jones or Paul Simonon (who, oddly, doesn't appear to talk about Joe at all) but on how the whole thing affected Joe - a strongly idealistic self made man wary of money but always courting fame. Essentially it seems he was a mess of contradictions, unsure of his own place at the head of one of rock's most important bands, and perhaps too willing to take on the advice of manager Bernie Rhodes, rare footage of whom appears here for the first time, each shot suggesting he was a rather unsavoury character.
Joe however, for some reason, idolised him - something which would eventually lead to the downfall of The Clash and Strummer coming to find himself in what he would later deem his "wilderness years", scratching around for soundtrack work, unable to get out of a contract with Epic Records. It ends beautifully however, with Joe forming The Mescaleroes, recording some of the finest and most sonically adventurous songs of his career, and finally reaping some of the hero-worship that he was due after such a long time waiting in the wings.
Of course, relating the story of one mans life in two hours - especially given that the life in question was that of Joe Strummer - isn't easy, and as such director Julien Temple misses a few things out. By way of filling in some gaps, we'll tell you what they are; firstly, The Clash released an album between 'The Clash' and 'London Calling', and whilst it was indeed their worst, 'Give 'Em Enough Rope' is still pretty great, and is certainly worth a mention. Secondly, Joe got married twice, a fact that seems to have been overlooked just because both times he conveniently married pretty, intelligent blondes - we aren't told clearly enough which one was which. Also, in what we presume was an understandable attempt to make this a flawless tribute / worship-fest rather than a rounded picture of his character, there's no mention of Joe's alcoholism, womanising or chronic addiction to marijuana - all essential to understanding the contradictions that made him what he was - a bit of a mess, really, but a glorious one (we heartily recommend Chris Salewicz's excellent book 'Redemption Song: The Definitive Story of Joe Strummer' if you want some further reading).
The most interesting omission of them all, 'The Future Is Unwritten' doesn't mention the point where Joe Strummer actually stops existing - dies, if you will. You leave the cinema in the same mindset you were in when Temple was busy documenting the 'London Calling' era - that The Clash are the most relevant band on the planet, today as much as ever. Like he's still here. And that is a masterstroke.