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Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten, 2007

Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten

English

Ireland, UK

Rating:7.6
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Profile of Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten

The mood of Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten is sincere, stylized, and touching. The plot centers around a music band, partners, and friendship. It is a documentary and drama movie. Stylistically, it is a music concert. In approach, it is realistic. It happens in the 1980s and in the 1990s. The musical score of it is pop and rock.

Summary of Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten

Filmmaker Julien Temple has spent much of his career documenting the music scene in England, including such seminal works as THE GREAT ROCK AND ROLL SWINDLE and THE FILTH AND THE FURY about the Sex Pistols. In 1976 he had originally set out to do a film about a different British punk band, the Clash; more than 30 years later, he directed THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN, a heartfelt film about of one of the leaders of the Clash, his good friend Joe Strummer. Born John Graham Mellor in Turkey in 1952, Strummer, the son of a career diplomat, traveled a great deal as a child, eventually settling down in England, where he became an artist and a musician and took part in the mid-1970s squatters' movement in London. He soon formed the influential punk band the Clash with Mick Jones and later headed the band Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros before his tragic death in 2002 from congenital heart disease. Temple speaks with many of the men and women who knew Strummer, gathering them around a campfire in Brooklyn Bridge Park to pay tribute to the Strummerville campfires where Joe would meet with friends and discuss life, love, and the state of the world. Among the celebrities and music fans sharing their thoughts on Strummer and his legacy are Flea, Bono, Martin Scorsese, Steve Buscemi, Matt Dillon, John Cusack, Johnny Depp, Mele Mel, Jim Jarmusch, Courtney Love Cobain, Anthony Kiedis, Damien Hirst, Roland Gift, and Joe Ely. Temple doesn't place his main focus on Strummer the musician but rather on Strummer the human being, delving into his childhood and politics, displaying his art, and including excerpts from Strummer's radio show, making it seem as if Strummer is narrating his own story. The amazing soundtrack features songs by Strummer's early group, the 101ers, as well as the Clash and the Mescaleros as well as the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, Bob Dylan, Big Audio Dynamite, Woody Guthrie, the MC5, the Slits, and others. THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN is a marvelous look at yet another major musical figure who died too soon.

Details

Language: English
Country: Ireland, UK
Release date: 20 January 2007
Runtime: 123 min

Cast and Crew

Flea

as Himself

Bono as Himself in Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten
Bono

as Himself

Martin Scorsese as  in Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten
Martin Scorsese

Steve Buscemi as Himself in Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten
Steve Buscemi

as Himself

Photos

Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten (2007)
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten (2007)

Clips

Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten: Official Trailer
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten: The Clash Invade America
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten: Mick & Paul

Critics Reviews

Washington Post
One artist's moving tribute to another.
Salon.com
The most powerful documentary I've seen all year, and one of the two or three best films ever made about an artist or musician.

Users Reviews

Listen, I love Joe and the Clash. But Joe didn't make this movie. There was so much going on in it that it made it difficult to focus on what the interviewees were saying - often the music and noises drowned them out. Also, with all the non-Joe...
Likely to see
Not for me

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