In Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten, director Julien Temple presents a fascinating portrait of the Clash frontman, whose life was filled with contradictions. He was embarrassed by his boarding school education. He was a hippie who became a punk. He was politically liberal and open-minded but occasionally staunchly ideological. And he was fascinated by American culture, even though he wrote a song called "I'm So Bored with the U.S.A."

Temple is uniquely positioned to tell this story. Not only was he was a friend of Strummer's, but he's made a number of excellent music films, from a well constructed history of the Sex Pistols, The Filth and the Fury, to Glastonbury, a portrait of Britain's venerable rock fest. To tell Strummer's story, Temple utilizes a mix of images, from concert footage to scratches of Strummer's writings. Before his death from a heart attack in 2002, Strummer became obsessed with the idea of the community of campfires, and Temple uses the concept as a framing device, interviewing Strummer's friends and famous fans (including Bono, Johnny Depp, and Melle Mel) next to a campfire.

Temple spoke with Rotten Tomatoes at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where The Future is Unwritten screened before its limited release this week. The director discussed a number of subjects, including the legacy of the Clash, the challenge of making original musical documentaries, and why Tupac Shakur was one of the few musical artists who could actually act.

Rotten Tomatoes: Someone like Joe Strummer is indicative of punk becoming a cultural phenomenon. He went from an underground situation to selling out stadiums and becoming this beloved figure. What's the story you wanted to tell in making this film about him?

Julian Temple: I wanted to tell the story of his life beyond the Clash, what led up to that and what he had to deal with breaking it up. I was interested in it on a number of levels. I was born in the same year [he was] so I wanted to make a history of our culture through [that] kind of framing device: how Joe was educated, how he was shaped by our culture and then went on to have some quite profound impacts on English and global culture. On one level it was a social history, on another level it was a film about a friend. It wasn't really a film about music. You can call it a music film if you want but it's about celebrity [and] its effect [on] not just the fans but on somebody famous. Those were various elements that seem intimate to me but his life throws up so many ideas. I like him as a philosopher more than as a rock star.

Joe Strummer sort of embodies a contradictory spirit. He began as a hippie and then he jettisoned that and then the Clash became something else. Your film is a celebratory film but not altogether.

JT: It's not a fan film. That was Joe's strength. He was very, very human and that's what he fought to retain: his connection with his own humanity. Obviously that means flaws and faults. A lot of rock stars I think believe they're perfect. A lot of a--holes thinking they're above criticism and confliction and contradiction. In contrast with that, I think Joe used the flaws and contradictions as the motive for his work.

Was it tough making a "warts and all" film about a person you knew?

JT: It is. I knew I had to do that because Joe would have risen from the grave and strangled me. He may yet do that, I don't know. He would have wanted "warts and all" but what was quite hard was getting the balance in your own head and getting over this thing of trying to second guess what he would have thought. In the end he's not going to give you an answer but obviously I didn't want to assassinate the guy because I loved him. But on the other hand I wanted to show what was special about him. He was deeply flawed as well as deeply generous and inspirational like most people.

You seem to have a pretty interesting way of making these biopics in the sense that you're not doing the "talking heads" thing. Are you trying to break out of the model?

JT: I'm just trying to find another way of doing it. Treat each time as though you know nothing about the form. Certainly, I do hate, more than anything, the curse of the talking head. Going on about how he made an album, that's as bad as it gets. It's so far away from the cinema but you do have to include talking and you have to find ways of doing that that doesn't kill everything else stone dead.

Were you at all concerned the narrative might get lost if people didn't know who was whom?

JT: Not really. In a film with that many people you'd be having a title every two seconds. So you wouldn't be watching the film, you'd be reading names. You have to do it for everybody or else you shouldn't do it. What I'd hoped to do is treat [the story] like cinema and fly [viewers] into the screen, into this life that Joe lived. And if you've got captions, you can't fly. It's like barbed wire. You get caught.

Your fiction films include musicians of some stripe. At Cannes, Wong Kar-Wai said singers have a sort of built-in actor-ly rhythm. Does that appeal to you?

JT: I disagree with that. Some singers are the worst actors you can dream of. Mick Jagger, for example. Singers have a rhythm they have to lose, unless you want them to play themselves. Performance, Mick Jagger isn't bad in that. But if you want him to play Ned Kelly, he's got a big handicap. He has to get rid of his Mick Jaggerisms.

How was it working with Tupac Shakur on Bullet?

JT: It was cool. I think rap stars are a bit different than pop stars. I had a great time with Tupac. We got along really well; I think he's a very intelligent guy and a real rebel so I liked him a lot. I was lucky actually, because I have Mickey Rourke in the same film and Mickey can play up the bad guy and because, I think, he realized Tupac was badder than anything he could come up with so he behaved a bit more. Tupac had quite an aura about him; like if you want to do something, take it seriously and do it. In a context like we were in, that was really helpful.

Do you think on some level the Clash, who had something to say and sold out arenas, do you think they're the last group who could have that? Is that something your film is saying?

JT: The film is about the process because it does show a no-win situation. You believe things you're doing and saying in your music and reaching an audience with that music. And when you do, you have to sign up with some machine that allows you to play places that'll reach big audiences and sell records but in doing that you're doing a deal with the devil and you have to live with that and you don't like it. That's part of why Joe is really interesting. On a bigger level, he wrestled with that. And that's the drama of the film: that struggle with what you want and what you get.