Julien Temple on Wilko Johnson

It’s early July and Wilko Johnson still hasn’t seen Julien Temple’s documentary about him, even though he played a short set before the film was unveiled at the Glastonbury Festival. “He made a point of not seeing it,” says the Somerset-based filmmaker. “He says he wants to see it at the premiere.”

So he’s not avoiding the film altogether then? “Well, there’s always a bit of avoidance with Wilko. But I just hope he doesn’t hate it. I’ve offered him numerous chances to see it. I’ll probably film him watching it and run it as a DVD insert.”

The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson is something of an unexpected follow-up to Temple’s earlier film about pub-rockers Dr. Feelgood, Oil City Confidential. Guitarist Johnson had been diagnosed with late-stage  pancreatic cancer and given 10 months to live. But he just carried on rockin’ until it became apparent that the Reaper was being a tad premature.

“I didn’t run straight out and wave a camera in his face when I heard he was terminally ill,” says Temple dryly when I ask how and when the project arose. “I was devastated, like everyone else that knew him. I had no idea of making a film about it. But time went by and I was aware of the endless farewell tour cycle that he talks about in the film. I was amazed that he was still going. I became more intrigued by the fact that he seemed to be battling away. And then they actually asked me to do a video for that Wilko/Roger Daltrey album [Going Back Home]. So I went down to see him because we wanted some photographs of them as kids. I was talking to him down in Leigh-on-Sea and I was just fascinated by the way he was dealing with it and I suggested the idea of talking about it on camera, which he kind of jumped at.”

So he didn’t take much persuading to get involved? “No. We had a good time on Oil City. I didn’t know him before that, but I found him a fascinating guy, of whom there is a lot more to than just the story of Dr. Feelgood. I was keen to re-engage with his mind, really, particularly because it was in such an interesting space. So we started in March last year. And then in May there was this crazy twist that no one saw coming. Because he’d just accepted it – fully embraced it, in fact. Questioning it wasn’t on his radar really. Strange . . .”

Temple is no stranger to the rockumentary, with credits ranging from the Sex Pistols doc The Filth and the Fury to Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten via Glastonbury. But he set out to do something different with Ecstasy, which boasts a stream-of-consciousness feel and is packed with film clips ranging from The Seventh Seal to Murnau’s Nosferatu. Mercifully absent is the slightest whiff of ‘inspirational’ fromage that the subject of terminal illness tends to bring out in filmmakers. “Yeah, I was helped by having no money, which means you’re free,” he laughs. “You don’t have some idiot telling you what to do. So I allowed it to be a very free-form thing. My mother had a terminal illness at the time too. So I was thinking about death and life, and enjoying what Wilko was saying about things. So I would just free float. I made the film mainly in my head when I was lying half-awake, half-asleep in a bedroom with a high ceiling. I just let images that I love and remember from different times come into my head and think about how I could interlace those with things Wilko said. I wanted it to be quite dreamlike and cinematic rather than a documentary archive-based evocation of things. So I was drawn to films that have been important to me that explore mortality in different ways.”

Was it easy to get the rights to use those film clips?

Well, I have a fantastic researcher. It’s not me who manages to get them. But as long as you’re not dealing with Hollywood studios, they don’t necessarily ask for a pound of flesh. So they were very generous. When you write to the Cocteau Institute, or whatever, and say you’re using a Bunuel film and a Tarkovsky film, they feel their man’s in good company.

It’s often said of actors that the camera loves their faces. But the camera really loves Wilko’s face. Little wonder he was cast as the executioner in Game of Thrones. His regular bassist and former Blockhead Norman Watt-Roy is similarly gnarly. That must be a gift to a filmmaker.

Yes, the planes of Wilko’s face are incredible. He would look good on a marble 12th century effigy in a cathedral somewhere. And Norman too. They’re human sculptures in progress.

At one point in the film, Wilko says of his never-ending farewell tour: “Don’t buy a ticket thinking you can see me keel over.” There certainly seemed to be an unsavoury freakshow element to the proceedings and his sudden canonisation as a ‘national treasure’ after decades of labouring in the shadows. How did he feel about that?

I think with anything like that, it’s a mixed reaction. The fact that people care about him and respect him and love him is something he does get off on. But I think he thinks the national treasure thing is a joke, basically. So it’s a mixture of contempt and revelling in it.

You mentioned the other side of Wilko. How important was it to show him as the painter, the amateur astronomer, the former schoolteacher – and the bloke who has amazing recall of poetry?

Well, that was really important to me – that it wasn’t just a rock’n’roll story. This was a unique human being really. And in a way, it didn’t matter who he was. He was going through something that’s going to happen to all of us, and as long as he could engage you in his enthusiasms and use those as ways of shedding light on what he was going through, that was far more important than the music. I’m a bit younger, but I come very much from that era where we were into a certain kind of literature – Blake and Coleridge, and, you know, Chaucer and Shakespeare. I think his ability to throw that into everyday conversation is fantastic. And we are entering an era when people aren’t going to read these things any more.

As the film’s title suggests, Wilko’s diagnosis also produced a kind of euphoria. But did you find it surprising that his atheism remained so unshakeable?

Erm, not really. I’m an atheist too. It takes quite a lot to shake it. He’s very lucid about  his place in the universe and eternity and so on. What was perhaps more interesting is that it was a great strength to him – to have that humility that you’re just part of a much vaster system of things. There’s a feeling that Wilko has had an amazing life, so in a sense it’s very different from a young person facing that same thing. I was constantly aware of that.

You haven’t made a narrative feature since Pandaemonium, but now you’ve got biopics of the Kinks and Marvin Gaye on the go.

The Kinks we’re going to shoot in October. Marvin Gaye, I was shooting. We shot over half of it and then the money fell apart. So that is somewhere else at the moment. There are people interested in reviving it, so it may not be totally over. But you’ve got to move on really when that kind of nasty implosion occurs.

It seems to happen a lot.

Yeah, more and more these days. It’s unusual that you’ve shot five weeks out of eight and then it falls apart. It’s usually earlier on.

Is the Kinks movie going to centre on sibling rivalry, and how will that be affected by that fact that you’re friendly with both Ray and Dave Davies?

Hoo-hoo! Er, well it does impact on it. The trick really is to find a way through those thickets. It’s a bit like the Greek bailout. I think that’s part of the fascination of the film. That’s what keeps me going.

You still make quite a few music videos. Are those to pay the mortgage or do you enjoy doing them?

I don’t do it to pay the mortgage because you get paid nothing, basically. Or I don’t, anyway. I used to. I used to get vast amounts. But not any more. I do them for the fun of it really. If the person asking you to do it is a friend or an intriguing character or the song is good. I don’t want to do it unless it’s something I believe in. It’s still a great form.

Many of the people you’ve worked with have a reputation for being a little difficult. I’m thinking of Bowie, Babyshambles, Neil Young, The Kinks and so on.

Well, I think difficult means good, probably. I certainly don’t shy away from difficulty. I think the challenge is part of the trip, really. Some people might say people are difficult but it depends who’s casting the aspersions really. Everyone’s difficult if catch them at the wrong moment.

The band that stands out on your CV is Brit metal titans Judas Priest.

I did think they were a comedy band. I was labouring under a misapprehension.

Well, Breaking the Law is the funniest music video I’ve ever seen.

Yeah? Good. It was intended to be. Have you seen Hot Rocking? I remember painting the fire on their motorbike boots.

You’ve worked with them loads of times. What’s the attraction?

Well, they were the first guys to give me a gig. After the Sex Pistols thing [The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle, 1980], I was a pariah really. You’d walk into any office in the music business and they’d hide behind the desk thinking you were going to shit on the carpet or something. And they certainly didn’t want to work with you. Judas Priest didn’t seem to have a problem. And they offered me those early videos. But yeah, I did like them. I’m really happy to have worked with them. I like the one where the noise pollution guy from the council blows up and his trousers fall down. What’s that one called? You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’.

You should definitely make the Rob Halford story. There’s so much material. You’re not convinced, are you? I can tell…

Ha ha. I don’t know about that. I’d take a lot of convincing.

The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson screens at the Watershed from July 31-Aug 6. See the film listings starting here for details.