Julien Temple was born in London in 1953. He had little interest in cinema until, while studying at King's College, Cambridge, he discovered the director who would become his lifelong hero: Jean Vigo. When he went on to the National Film and Television School, he encountered another and, for him, equally influential manifestation of the anarchist spirit: The Sex Pistols. During their short and turbulent life he became virtually their cinematic amanuensis, a process which culminated in his first feature The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1979). By now, however, the band had already split acrimoniously and John Lydon/Johnny Rotten took no part in the film, which turned into something of a vehicle for Malcolm McLaren, the Pistols' erstwhile manager. Structured around this Situationist Svengali's ten lessons on fleecing the music business, the film deliriously juxtaposes footage of every conceivable kind in an effective evocation of the punk spirit, tossing counter-cultural heroes Ronnie Biggs and Mary Millington into the bizarre bricolage along with British cinema stalwarts Irene Handl and Liz Fraser.
