Joe Strummer – The Future Is Unwritten [DVD]

I do not know what makes a documentary good; but I do know what I like and over the years I’ve found a few documentaries that have struck my fancy. Now I can add another one to that list with Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, a documentary that sees director Julien Temple tell the life story of The Clash‘s front man Joe Strummer.

The documentary starts, as all stories should, at the beginning with stories from Strummer’s youth. Narrated by old friends of the song writer, Temple introduces the viewer to the man before he became Joe Strummer. We see old movie clips of him at school while he still went by his real name of John Mellor. Friends reminisce about his attitude at school and his interactions with classmates, friends, teachers and most importantly his brother and his reaction to his brother’s suicide.

It then moves onto Strummer’s first foray into the music scene with The 101ers where you get a real look at the years which formed Strummer’s ideology. College friends tell stories about squats and parties and old band mates talk about the ideals behind the music and their surprise when Strummer abruptly ended the band to form The Clash. From then on you get the story of The Clash and an unforgiving look at Strummer as a human being. The Future Is Unwritten never holds Strummer up as a holier than thou character but instead tells the true, honest story of the man – his flaws and all. From being a womanizer, a poseur, an idealist and a recluse, Temple successfully paints the picture of Strummer’s personality from all sides and he does it with class.

The whole story is told through a melee of fashions; be it stories being retold around a blaring campfire or archived video footage of live sets, interviews, news footage and random back stage mishaps, The Future Is Unwritten isn’t propelled by any sort of narration (other than clips from a radio show that Strummer hosted in his final years) but instead told through stories and interviews. It creates a more straight forward sensation as people who were there when it happened talk about it instead of it being second hard stories.

At the same time though, it would be helpful if Temple had taken the time to introduce some of the people telling the stories. As we see dozens of people pass by the fire pit – everyone from Mick Jones to Johnny Depp makes an appearance – some faces are more recognizable than others. Yes, we know who Bono, Matt Dillon, Martin Scorsese, Flea, Anthony Kiedis,Steve Buscemi, and John Cusack are but it would be helpful has they said who some of the friends or lesser known interviewees were. As it is, you’re left guessing who they are and how they’re related to Strummer’s story.

Despite all the good things found on the documentary, I can’t honestly see myself watching it again. Temple has done a solid job at telling a story without any barriers or forced fed agendas but it doesn’t contain a large amount of replay value. Still, fans of The Clash and Joe Strummer should watch it at least once if they can.