Julien Temple

Julien Temple (born 26 November 1953) is a British film, documentary and music video director.

He began his career with short films featuring the Sex Pistols, and has continued with various off-beat projects, including The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, Absolute Beginners and a documentary film about Glastonbury.

Temple was born in Kensington, London, the son of Landon Temple, who organised the travel company Progressive Tours.

He was educated at St Marylebone Grammar School (from which he was expelled), William Ellis School, and King's College, Cambridge.

He grew up with little interest in film until, when a student at Cambridge, he discovered the works of French anarchist director Jean Vigo.

This, along with his interest in the early punk scene in London in 1976, led to his friendship with The Sex Pistols, leading him to document many of their early gigs.

Temple's first film was a short documentary called Sex Pistols Number 1, which set out to show the rise of the band from 1976 to 1977, in a series of short clips from television interviews and gigs.

This led to Temple making The Great Rock And Roll Swindle, another documentary.

As band members Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious had left the band by this time, the story of the group is told from the viewpoint of their manager, Malcolm McLaren.

The Great Rock And Roll Swindle tells of the rise of The Sex Pistols, apparently as manipulated by McLaren, and how he had shaped the band throughout their short career.

Many of the 'facts' given by McLaren were disputed by John Lydon (who had dropped the Johnny Rotten name after leaving the band), who accused McLaren of using the film to attack him personally.

This helped split opinion on the film as, although it was praised for attempting to capture some of the punk scene of the time, it was seen as too skewed towards McLaren's vision.

Controversy aside, Temple was praised for his mix of animated scenes, documentary footage, and specially shot footage which he used to tell McLaren's story.

This helped launch Temple into a career making music videos, something for which he would be best known for much of his career.

In 1983, Temple directed a film for the BBC Arena series called It's All True, named after the 1942 unfinished Orson Welles film.

Compered by Welles himself, the film comprised many short segments about the state of the video industry, both real and imagined, many featuring cameos by celebrities including Mel Brooks, Grace Jones, Ray Davies, and Koo Stark.

This was followed by Temple's next theatrical release, the short film Jazzin' for Blue Jean featuring David Bowie which was released as a support feature to The Company of Wolves.

By 1985, Temple was now well known for being a director of successful music videos by the Kinks, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and other British artists, several of which were early, groundbreaking, videos for the new MTV channel, but he was yet to direct a major film.

In 1986, Temple directed the film version of Colin MacInnes' book Absolute Beginners.

One of the most expensive films in British history, the fate of the studios involved (as well as several careers) were dependent on the success of the film.

The film was critically panned in the UK.

As it was a musical, rather than a straight adaptation of the book, it was attacked for a lack of narrative; it was also called "a series of badly-linked music videos".

Absolute Beginners was financially unsuccessful and was partly responsible for the Goldcrest company going bankrupt.

Temple found himself being blamed personally for the failure.

He moved to the United States, where he was offered the film Earth Girls Are Easy, as well as a series of music videos for such artists as Duran Duran, Janet Jackson, Neil Young and Tom Petty.

Temple returned to the UK in the late 1990s, where he continued to make films and music videos.

Vigo: Passion for Life (1998) recounts the passionate relationship between French film maker Jean Vigo (1905–34) and his wife Lydou, who both suffered from tuberculosis.

The film was not well received.

A reviewer in Sight & Sound commented that the film "although absolutely faithful to the facts, is absolutely dreadful".

Films which followed included Pandæmonium (2001), a critically acclaimed film about the friendship between Romantic poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, and The Filth and the Fury (2000), another documentary about The Sex Pistols.

This time the film was made with the full cooperation of the surviving members of the band and told the story of the band from their viewpoint.

This film mixed newly shot footage and interviews with footage culled from The Great Rock and Roll Swindle and previously unseen interviews.

The film was a critical success and was seen as setting the record straight in regard to the history of The Sex Pistols.

Between 2002 and 2005, Temple completed a feature-length documentary about the Glastonbury Festival.

This involved him shooting footage at the festival as well as drawing on the vast amount of archival footage, as well as footage sent in by fans of the festival.

It was released in the UK in April 2006.

In 2006, Temple made a film of the life of his friend, in Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten.

It premiered in January 2007.

In November 2007, Temple filmed several of the Sex Pistols' comeback shows at the Brixton Academy in London.

This was followed by several filming sessions with each member of the band as they re-visited their old London haunts.