Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12551 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-09-17
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 125 minutes

DVD Description

Documenting the life of lead singer and guitarist for British punk rock group 'The Clash', Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten features many appearances by big name celebrities like Bono, Iggy Pop, Matt Dillon, Johnny Depp, Mick Jones, John Cusack and Topper Headon, to name a few. Special features on the 123-minute DVD include a theatrical trailer, 5.1 Dolby Soundtrack, Director Commentary, and Conversations with Joe--100 minutes of exclusive footage with Joe Strummer’s friends and family. As the frontman for "The Clash" from 1977 onwards, Joe changed people's lives forever. A musical icon and political activist, he was never shy about saying what was on his mind; a voice of a generation, which still resonates today.

Synopsis

Directed and produced by Joe Strummer's long-time friend Julian Temple (director of 'The Filth and the Fury'), Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten explores the life of the iconic Clash frontman, from his birth in 1952 and rise to fame as one of music's most original voices, to his fatal heart attack in 2002.

Customer Reviews

Essential viewing
A superb film. By mixing archive material in an imaginative rather than literal way with contemporary conversations around the campfire, this film the captures the spirit of Strummer and the punk ethos. At the same time Strummer's voice, which narrates and comments on the film almost as if he is still with us, offers a critical perspective on the Clash as a band that turned into the type of rock superstars they set out to attack. Bittersweet, angry, elegiac and, for anyone who lived through that era, extraordinarily moving. Great concert footage too.

Joe Strummer, The Man.
Julien Temple's biography of Joe Strummer, "The Future Is Unwritten", brilliantly captures the labyrinth that was Joe Strummer while reminding us that every stage of Joe's evolution - born John Graham Mellor, to the communal 'Woody' Mellor, to Joe Strummer - was part of Joe's constant struggle to define himself while concomitantly asserting his basic humanity.

"The Future Is Unwritten" provides us with a glimpse into all that comprised Joe Strummer: Joe's rootless childhood with a distant father and troubled brother, Joe's embrace of the communal lifestyle that would follow him throughout his life, Joe's ascent into rock stardom beginning with the 101'ers and then The Clash, Joe's ultimate disillusionment with rock stardom, his wilderness years, followed by Joe's embrace of his entire legacy and the peace at which he arrived in his final years.

The film does not engage in hagiography, however. We see all that comprised Joe Strummer the man including his flaws. Joe admits as much in the multitude of observations from the man himself that are interspersed throughout the film.

In the end, Julien Temple's film captures the life of Joe Strummer with a mood and feeling evocative of one of Joe's beloved campfires, so much so that by the end you feel that you actually are there in some way. I walked away from this film with the reaffirmation of Joe's very accessible genius: through his music Joe wanted to touch humanity in some way while attempting to transcend humanity at the same time.

Joe remains very much missed. Julien Temple's film reminds us why.

Five stars.

Good Little Film
A fan of Strummer? This is worth watching. Points knocked off for not naming any of the people being interviewed though...that was quite frustrating.

Personally, I prefered "Let's Rock Again!". Although that was a documentary following Joe on tour with The Mescaleros, I felt it provided a better insight for me in to his character.