The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson

The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson (15)

UK 2015  92 mins  Dir: Julien Temple

“It’s Canvey Island. It’s springtime. It’s 2014. My life is coming to an end. It’s been the most extraordinary year,” reflects Wilko Johnson. What we know and he doesn’t is that there’s another extraordinary twist on the way. Leaving aside for a moment the impact on the musician himself, this the kind of development that any documentary filmmaker craves. To recap: Wilko, who rather brilliantly styles himself “Lee Brilleaux’s berserker”, was the guitarist with Canvey Island pub rockers Dr Feelgood – the subject of Julien Temple’s earlier documentary, Oil City Confidential. In 2013, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given 10 months to live. Moved by his sanguine acceptance of the inevitable during a seemingly never-ending farewell tour, which brought out fans and ghouls alike, Temple picked up his camera and started filming again.

As the title suggests, Wilko experienced a form of euphoria on receiving his diagnosis. “We can’t all be threatened with imminent death,” he observes dryly, “but it probably takes that to knock a bit of sense into our heads.” The engaging guitarist talks about his extensive hinterland, taking in an appetite for literature (Chaucer, Milton, Icelandic sagas), enthusiasm for astronomy, and the unshakeable atheism that he finds such a source of strength (“I absolutely do not believe in god. I believe that death is oblivion”). Meanwhile, Temple has fun with blackly comic scythe sharpening and fills the screen with a barrage of mortality-related film clips ranging from the rather obvious (The Seventh Seal, A Matter of Life and Death) to Murnau’s Nosferatu, Great Expectations, The Vikings (1958 version with Kirk Douglas), The Colour of Pomegranates and a brace of Cocteaus (Orphee, La Belle et la Bete). For those who can’t get enough Bergman (or Bill and Ted) references, Temple even persuades a game Wilko to play chess with the Reaper while reflecting on his life. Meanwhile, the guitarist’s valedictory collaboration with Roger Daltrey, Going Back Home, gives him the biggest hit of his solo career (No. 3 in the UK album chart, fact fans).

Trouble is, the old boy keeps going. When he loses a £100 bet that he won’t make it until Christmas, he admits it’s all getting rather embarrassing. That’s when the bombshell is dropped: Wilko has been misdiagnosed and his condition is treatable. Just as unexpected as his initial elation upon receiving his cancer diagnosis is his grumpiness at being sentenced to life (“Generally through my life I’ve been a fairly miserable so-and-so,” he concedes). Likeable, erudite and honest – not least when he talks about his delight on the death of his violent father – Wilko is great company, so it’s a joy for us, if not necessarily for him, that he now finds himself “parachuting back down to the real world”.

Go here for our interview with Julian Temple.