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Quick Facts
- NAME: Julien Temple
- OCCUPATION: Director
- BIRTH DATE: November 26, 1953 (Age: 59)
- EDUCATION: University of Cambridge, King's College
- PLACE OF BIRTH: London, England, United Kingdom
- ZODIAC SIGN: Sagittarius
Best Known For
Julien Temple is an English filmmaker and music video director who began his career directing the Sex Pistols documentary The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle (1979).
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Play NowJulien Temple. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 10:24, May 18, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/julien-temple-20903033.
Julien Temple. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/julien-temple-20903033 [Accessed 18 May 2013].
"Julien Temple." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 18 2013, 10:24 http://www.biography.com/people/julien-temple-20903033.
"Julien Temple," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/julien-temple-20903033 [accessed May 18, 2013].
"Julien Temple," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/julien-temple-20903033 (accessed May 18, 2013).
Julien Temple [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 18] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/julien-temple-20903033.
Julien Temple, http://www.biography.com/people/julien-temple-20903033 (last visited May 18, 2013).
Julien Temple. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/julien-temple-20903033. Accessed May 18, 2013.
Synopsis
Born in London, England, in 1953, Julien Temple was in his teens when he discovered his love for films and filmmaking. He cut his teeth shooting footage of the Sex Pistols early in the band's run, and later directed the landmark Pistols documentary The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle. In the 1980s he became a noted music video director. He's also directed several other full-length feature films.
Contents
Quotes
"I've tried to stay true, in my own fashion, to the ideas of the Sex Pistols."
Early Years
Born in London, England, on November 26, 1953, Julien Temple showed little interest in film throughout much of his childhood. A troubled student who didn't always fit in at school, Temple was enrolled at King's College, Cambridge, when he discovered French filmmaker Jean Vigo.
Vigo's work illuminated for Temple the power of film, which pushed him to attend the National Film and Television School in Buckinghamshire. Upon his graduation, Temple returned to London, where his world was opened up again after encountering the Sex Pistols and England's burgeoning punk rock scene.
Temple became the band's de facto documentarian, filming several of the group's early gigs in London in 1976. After the Pistols broke up in 1978, much of Temple's work helped form the backbone of what would serve as his debut film: the Pistols documentary, The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle (1979).
Told largely from the perspective of the band's manager, Malcolm McLaren, the film recounted the story of the Pistols' rise and fall. But while some accused McLaren of having an agenda against the band's two departed members, John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten) and Sid Vicious, Temple was praised for his work.
Weaving together interviews, live music, animation and other footage, Swindle proved to be a critical success. Variety went so far as to say it "represents the most imaginative use of a rock group since The Beatles debuted in A Hard Day's Night."
Later Work
Following the success of Swindle, Temple became a wanted man among rock's elite. In the 1980s he helped pioneer the use of the music video, directing projects for the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Neil Young and Janet Jackson, among others.
He also didn't abandon longer-form filmmaking. In 1986 he oversaw the film production of Colin MacInnes novel, Absolute Beginners, starring Bowie and Patsy Kensit. While a commercial flop, the film, which cast Bowie as a celebrity photographer who falls in love with a young fashion designer, went on to become a cult classic.
That same year Absolute Beginners debuted, Temple directed the comedy Earth Girls Are Easy.
In 1995, Temple made the thriller Bullet, and then returned to Britain for three later projects. The first of those was Vigo (1999), which told the tale of Temple's idol's life and had been a passion of Temple's for many years. Later he directed Pandaemonium (2000), which was built around the relationship between two poets during the French Revolution. That same year he returned to his roots with a fresh new documentary about the Sex Pistols, The Filth and the Fury, which was told from the band's perspective.
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