The Clash: Westway to the World (2000) (V)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Don Letts

Genre:

Documentary | Music

Plot:

This documentary combines recent interviews and old footage to provide a comprehensive view of The Clash...

Plot Keywords:

Band | Punk | Rock Band | Punk Rock | Musician

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Terry Chimes	...	Himself
Terence Dackombe	...	Himself
Topper Headon	...	Topper Headon (Drummer)
Mick Jones	...	Himself
Jordan	...	Herself (archive footage)
Paul Simonon	...	Himself
Siouxsie Sioux	...	Herself (archive footage)
Joe Strummer	...	Himself

Runtime:

60 min | UK:79 min (director's cut)

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

UK:15 | Australia:M

Quotes:

Joe Strummer: Whatever a group is it was the chemical mixture of those four people that makes a group work. That's a lesson everyone should learn, "Don't mess with it!" If it works just let it... Do whatever you have to do to bring it forward but don't mess with it. And like, we learned that... bitterly.

Where's the context?

This short film is celebrated by devotees of The Clash; to non-fans, it's still interesting, less in the story of the band but in the style of its telling. "We came, we fought, we made great music" - that seems to be the take home message, all four of the band's original members contribute (and the film indeed contains little other than a mixture of their interviews and concert footage); but there seems to be a very deliberate decision not to present a blow-by-blow description of every action, but rather, for the band members to present their history as a simple fact of nature - something that just happened. Given that the band rose and closed in just five years, maybe there's some truth in this curt account, although perhaps also the band (and film-maker Don Letts) realised that less can be more in terms of effect. In spite of past quarrels, the band all essentially sing the same song here; the other thing of note is quite how posh lead singer Joe Strummer can actually sound. But I'd have liked a little more social context - regardless of their musical talents, the post-punk Clash represented their times (the end of the seventies and the start of the eighties) maybe more than any other band - but this is only weakly conveyed in this (somewhat introverted) account.