Post by Fuggle on Nov 11, 2007 14:08:38 GMT -5
Temple Talk...
Julien on Joe
By: MATT ASHARE
11/8/2007
Julien Temple
Julien Temple was one of the first filmmakers on the scene when punk erupted in the UK. He chose to follow the Sex Pistols, and that led to the definitive Pistols film, 2000’s The Filth and the Fury. But he spent some time with the Clash early on, and two decades later he formed a close friendship with Joe Strummer. Thanks in part to Strummer’s tendency to embellish, his story is a convoluted one. But after his death in 2002, Temple set out to get to the core of it. Here’s some of what he told me about The Future Is Unwritten.
What was your original relationship with Joe?
I had an intense relationship with him and the other guys in the Clash for about three or four months in late ’76/early ’77. The opening image of the film, when Joe sings “White Riot,” is the first time the Clash ever recorded. I got them to come to the film school, snuck them into the soundstage, and they had a free recording session. So there’s a lot of new footage in there that I think even the most dedicated Clash fan wouldn’t have seen before. I’m very happy about that. But back in ’77, I had to choose between the Clash and the Pistols. So I really didn’t see Joe again for 20 years.
It was that cut and dry?
Well, I’d already been filming the Pistols quite a bit, so I stuck with them. And then, years later, my wife tells me that her best friend from school is coming to stay with us. And when she arrives, she comes through the gate with her good friend, Joe Strummer. It was completely by chance. My wife Amanda and I had moved back to England and we were living down in the west country in Somerset where my family is from, and where Joe ended up settling. I remember, I was making this hot air balloon with my kids, not making a very good job of it. Joe got involved and said ‘I’m going to get this thing flying.’ It took us all night: we had a little fire and wine and by dawn we had it ready to fly. We woke up the kids at dawn, and off it went into the rosy tinted sky, and then suddenly it caught fire and there was this huge fireball. Joe was saying, ‘I love it, I love it, I want to live here.’ And he did: he bought a farm up the road. So for the last seven or so years I got close with him. He had a lot of really close friends, but I counted myself among them.
How well had you gotten to know him in ’76?
Well, when I knew him as a punk-rocker, he wouldn’t let you in to see what made him tick. He had to overcompensate for his background because the punk moment put a magnifying glass to what was already a very class-ridden society. So, in those early months of punk, it was like ‘kick this motherfucker off the stage.’ And, ‘If he’s got a camera, let’s break the fucking lens.’ But it was clear that it was very important. It just reached places other stuff got nowhere near. So I wanted to film it because it was that important. And at that time no one else was really picking up a camera and by hook or by crook getting the footage of these band.
So you knew right away that punk wasn’t just some passing fancy. . .
It took about five second of seeing the Sex Pistols to realize they’d be around in a hundred years time. In fact, I’m actually filming the Pistols shows in November. After thirty years, I’m filming them again.
Yes, they are back again — something the Clash never did. Do you think the reunion shows hurt the Pistols’ legacy?
Yes. I do think it diminishes it a bit when they get back up there and play again. But I understand that although they are a legendary band, they made no money. They do need the money and I think it’s a bit much to say that they shouldn’t play again. And I’m sure they are better than most bands out there. But I will admit that the first time they got back together I couldn’t bring myself to go out and see them.
What do you think happened to Joe in those wilderness years?
I think he had 10 years of feelings of guilt over how he’d handled things with the Clash — how he’d addressed the problem in the wrong way. I think he correctly identified a problem in the band. But by getting rid of Mick he destroyed the whole thing, not just the problem.
Joe was apparently quite fond on bonfires — something you use to good effect in the film. What were those bonfires like?
Joe would just say, ‘let’s have a bonfire.’ And they would go on for three or four or five nights. So it was quite a commitment because you couldn’t leave. You had to be the last guy standing. It was a very interesting process to go through because it was very spiritual as well as Dionysian and incredibly educational in terms of music and humanity. You had all these people from all these different walks of life really connecting and getting on or not getting on, but really exchanging who they were and their points of view. Joe loved that: these different experiences intensely connecting around his fire. And he would DJ and make sure everyone was having a good time. He was a great host: the diplomat’s son came through at these things, as well as a bit of the old hippie, but definitely the punk rock warlord because it definitely had a definite Mad Max element to it as well.
And his BBC World Service radio show is something that you also obviously felt quite strongly about including as part of the backdrop to his story. What was the thinking behind that?
I wanted him to DJ his life as much as narrate it. The weird thing is that the radio show went out on the World Service, and he was reaching 120 million listeners worldwide with the show, 40 million of which spoke English. He was so in love with the idea of talking to the world in that way. He loved doing that show. And he did it all himself. Joe, around the campfire, would be working out the playlists and he did it with such joy and such love for what this music had meant to him. And he would dedicate songs to a cab driver in Mexico who he remembered and that kind of thing.
Those are some of Joe’s more admirable qualities. But you don’t hold back from revealing some of Joe’s less savory character traits, like the way he turned his back on the 101’ers, his mood swings, his tendency to mislead people about his past — those sorts of things. . .
I think Joe was inspirational about where you’re going, not where you’ve come from. And, I genuinely believe he would jump up from his grave and strangle me if I hadn’t given a kind of warts-and-all portrait. I was never going to assassinate the guy, because I loved the guy. But I know the guy was very proud of being human, and tried very much to be honest. He didn’t try to pretend that he had no flaws or bad traits. He was in no way perfect. Of course, none of us are. The inspirational aspects of Joe hugely outweigh the negative ones. But it was a combination of those two things that made him Joe Strummer. And it was these contradictions that helped fire up his creative engines.
You get a sense of that in the footage of him on the bus with the band after the firing of Mick Jones and Topper Headon. He definitely seems fired up. . .
Yea, he must have been quite a character to deal with in those mach 2 years. He was firing on some kind of mad messianic energy that is not totally attractive. Maybe what he was saying was good. But the way he was saying it was too preachy and too messianic. He wanted to return to the punk moment. And I understand that. Where the Clash were ending up was not a place he felt they should be. I think it comes back to what is a band about. If they had continued I think you would have had a strange Clash/U2 hybrid. The Clash in eight years did their work. That’s enough. I think they all — well certainly Mick and Topper — feel that that was the right time to end, even if it was very painful. And I think that they are all quite at peace with the fact that they did that music back then. And even if Joe were still alive, I think they all feel that it would be a very uncomfortable thing to pick up the guitars again.
How long did you spend making the film?
You can say that I started working on it in 1976. I knew I had in my attic this dusty footage I’d shot in ’76/’77, and that for the most part had never been seen. But I had nothing else, other than the friendship with Joe that gave me some insights into who he was that I didn’t have when I knew him as a punk rocker.
I imagine that entailed a lot of looking back on “the punk moment.” And I’m curious, with the benefit of hindsight, whether you view “the punk moment” as a success or a failure?
Well, the changes that were intended never took place. The record industry reverted back to what it had been, although now it’s probably dying in the way that the punk rockers probably wanted it to die thirty years ago. But, you know, for example, London is a totally different place from what it was in the ’70s. It’s a multi-cultural city as opposed to this whitebread Victorian city that was very paranoid of black people, and where there was very little interchange between cultures. And the punk moment really did open that up by bringing in Reggae. British black people were given a cultural handshake. And that spread into the idea that the city could be a more vibrant place if these different cultures were respected. That is the London that exists today, and so much of that goes back to the original ideals of punk rock.
Julien on Joe
By: MATT ASHARE
11/8/2007
Julien Temple
Julien Temple was one of the first filmmakers on the scene when punk erupted in the UK. He chose to follow the Sex Pistols, and that led to the definitive Pistols film, 2000’s The Filth and the Fury. But he spent some time with the Clash early on, and two decades later he formed a close friendship with Joe Strummer. Thanks in part to Strummer’s tendency to embellish, his story is a convoluted one. But after his death in 2002, Temple set out to get to the core of it. Here’s some of what he told me about The Future Is Unwritten.
What was your original relationship with Joe?
I had an intense relationship with him and the other guys in the Clash for about three or four months in late ’76/early ’77. The opening image of the film, when Joe sings “White Riot,” is the first time the Clash ever recorded. I got them to come to the film school, snuck them into the soundstage, and they had a free recording session. So there’s a lot of new footage in there that I think even the most dedicated Clash fan wouldn’t have seen before. I’m very happy about that. But back in ’77, I had to choose between the Clash and the Pistols. So I really didn’t see Joe again for 20 years.
It was that cut and dry?
Well, I’d already been filming the Pistols quite a bit, so I stuck with them. And then, years later, my wife tells me that her best friend from school is coming to stay with us. And when she arrives, she comes through the gate with her good friend, Joe Strummer. It was completely by chance. My wife Amanda and I had moved back to England and we were living down in the west country in Somerset where my family is from, and where Joe ended up settling. I remember, I was making this hot air balloon with my kids, not making a very good job of it. Joe got involved and said ‘I’m going to get this thing flying.’ It took us all night: we had a little fire and wine and by dawn we had it ready to fly. We woke up the kids at dawn, and off it went into the rosy tinted sky, and then suddenly it caught fire and there was this huge fireball. Joe was saying, ‘I love it, I love it, I want to live here.’ And he did: he bought a farm up the road. So for the last seven or so years I got close with him. He had a lot of really close friends, but I counted myself among them.
How well had you gotten to know him in ’76?
Well, when I knew him as a punk-rocker, he wouldn’t let you in to see what made him tick. He had to overcompensate for his background because the punk moment put a magnifying glass to what was already a very class-ridden society. So, in those early months of punk, it was like ‘kick this motherfucker off the stage.’ And, ‘If he’s got a camera, let’s break the fucking lens.’ But it was clear that it was very important. It just reached places other stuff got nowhere near. So I wanted to film it because it was that important. And at that time no one else was really picking up a camera and by hook or by crook getting the footage of these band.
So you knew right away that punk wasn’t just some passing fancy. . .
It took about five second of seeing the Sex Pistols to realize they’d be around in a hundred years time. In fact, I’m actually filming the Pistols shows in November. After thirty years, I’m filming them again.
Yes, they are back again — something the Clash never did. Do you think the reunion shows hurt the Pistols’ legacy?
Yes. I do think it diminishes it a bit when they get back up there and play again. But I understand that although they are a legendary band, they made no money. They do need the money and I think it’s a bit much to say that they shouldn’t play again. And I’m sure they are better than most bands out there. But I will admit that the first time they got back together I couldn’t bring myself to go out and see them.
What do you think happened to Joe in those wilderness years?
I think he had 10 years of feelings of guilt over how he’d handled things with the Clash — how he’d addressed the problem in the wrong way. I think he correctly identified a problem in the band. But by getting rid of Mick he destroyed the whole thing, not just the problem.
Joe was apparently quite fond on bonfires — something you use to good effect in the film. What were those bonfires like?
Joe would just say, ‘let’s have a bonfire.’ And they would go on for three or four or five nights. So it was quite a commitment because you couldn’t leave. You had to be the last guy standing. It was a very interesting process to go through because it was very spiritual as well as Dionysian and incredibly educational in terms of music and humanity. You had all these people from all these different walks of life really connecting and getting on or not getting on, but really exchanging who they were and their points of view. Joe loved that: these different experiences intensely connecting around his fire. And he would DJ and make sure everyone was having a good time. He was a great host: the diplomat’s son came through at these things, as well as a bit of the old hippie, but definitely the punk rock warlord because it definitely had a definite Mad Max element to it as well.
And his BBC World Service radio show is something that you also obviously felt quite strongly about including as part of the backdrop to his story. What was the thinking behind that?
I wanted him to DJ his life as much as narrate it. The weird thing is that the radio show went out on the World Service, and he was reaching 120 million listeners worldwide with the show, 40 million of which spoke English. He was so in love with the idea of talking to the world in that way. He loved doing that show. And he did it all himself. Joe, around the campfire, would be working out the playlists and he did it with such joy and such love for what this music had meant to him. And he would dedicate songs to a cab driver in Mexico who he remembered and that kind of thing.
Those are some of Joe’s more admirable qualities. But you don’t hold back from revealing some of Joe’s less savory character traits, like the way he turned his back on the 101’ers, his mood swings, his tendency to mislead people about his past — those sorts of things. . .
I think Joe was inspirational about where you’re going, not where you’ve come from. And, I genuinely believe he would jump up from his grave and strangle me if I hadn’t given a kind of warts-and-all portrait. I was never going to assassinate the guy, because I loved the guy. But I know the guy was very proud of being human, and tried very much to be honest. He didn’t try to pretend that he had no flaws or bad traits. He was in no way perfect. Of course, none of us are. The inspirational aspects of Joe hugely outweigh the negative ones. But it was a combination of those two things that made him Joe Strummer. And it was these contradictions that helped fire up his creative engines.
You get a sense of that in the footage of him on the bus with the band after the firing of Mick Jones and Topper Headon. He definitely seems fired up. . .
Yea, he must have been quite a character to deal with in those mach 2 years. He was firing on some kind of mad messianic energy that is not totally attractive. Maybe what he was saying was good. But the way he was saying it was too preachy and too messianic. He wanted to return to the punk moment. And I understand that. Where the Clash were ending up was not a place he felt they should be. I think it comes back to what is a band about. If they had continued I think you would have had a strange Clash/U2 hybrid. The Clash in eight years did their work. That’s enough. I think they all — well certainly Mick and Topper — feel that that was the right time to end, even if it was very painful. And I think that they are all quite at peace with the fact that they did that music back then. And even if Joe were still alive, I think they all feel that it would be a very uncomfortable thing to pick up the guitars again.
How long did you spend making the film?
You can say that I started working on it in 1976. I knew I had in my attic this dusty footage I’d shot in ’76/’77, and that for the most part had never been seen. But I had nothing else, other than the friendship with Joe that gave me some insights into who he was that I didn’t have when I knew him as a punk rocker.
I imagine that entailed a lot of looking back on “the punk moment.” And I’m curious, with the benefit of hindsight, whether you view “the punk moment” as a success or a failure?
Well, the changes that were intended never took place. The record industry reverted back to what it had been, although now it’s probably dying in the way that the punk rockers probably wanted it to die thirty years ago. But, you know, for example, London is a totally different place from what it was in the ’70s. It’s a multi-cultural city as opposed to this whitebread Victorian city that was very paranoid of black people, and where there was very little interchange between cultures. And the punk moment really did open that up by bringing in Reggae. British black people were given a cultural handshake. And that spread into the idea that the city could be a more vibrant place if these different cultures were respected. That is the London that exists today, and so much of that goes back to the original ideals of punk rock.