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Released by: Cadiz Music
Released on: October 16th, 2015.
Director: Nick Hall
Cast: Joe Strummer
Year: 2014
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The Movie:
“It's 1997 and Joe Strummer is interviewed on Spanish radio. He mentions the Dodge he bought in Madrid 12 years earlier but later lost. He puts out a call to the Spanish people to look for his car.â€
This is the sort of documentary that, before crowdfunding, probably would have never been made. Thankfully, Nick Hall's campaign was successful and while it took a few years, the movie got made. But really, what's this about Strummer and a Dodge?
In the mid-eighties, the original version of The Clash was done after Strummer essentially sacked the McCartney to his Lennon, Mick Jones. Strummer got four hired guns about him and they put out Cut The Crap but it wasn't the same, not even close. Under fire from the press and feeling plenty of pressure in London, Strummer split for Spain. While he was there, he not only bought a Dodge, but he wound up kinda-sorta producing an album from an up and coming Spanish group called 091. He went a bit Brian Wilson in a way, exerting his influence over the Spanish record label who really just wanted this done fast and cheap, like they always did it, but he collaborated with a few young men who clearly looked up to him.
Around the time that the album was wrapping up and the label was starting to really question what this strange Englishman was doing, his partner went into labor. Joe parked his Dodge in Madrid and took off to go deal with that and the car was never seen again, at least not by Joe. Hall though? Well, he at least more or less figures out what happened to the thing, and in doing so, he sheds some welcome light on a brief but interesting chapter in Strummer's story, one that isn't covered in all that much depth in other documentaries and books produced about the late Clash front-man's life and times.
Obviously Strummer is no longer around to be interviewed but the guys who were in 091 are and they speak quite candidly here about how they hooked up with him in the first place late one night at a bar. They then talk about The Clash's influence on their work and then go on to discuss what the recording process was like with Joe at the helm. Also interviewed here is the mother of Joe's children, a few members of The Clash Version 2.0, and various friends of Strummer's from his time in Madrid. It all goes a long way towards painting an interesting picture of a man trying to find himself, more than a man trying to figure out where he parked his car, but it works (and it makes an interesting metaphor).
This is well put together and nicely edited, using different clips from various sources both audio and video and using a lot of great archival photographs too. The documentary is well paced and, at least for Clash fanatics, pretty gosh-darned interesting. There's great use of music here too, as you'd hope there would be. Director Nick Hall sort of pokes about for the first forty minutes or so and then in the last twenty starts to look for the car more aggressively. He does about as much detective work as he can here, but the real discovery here isn't what happened to the car, it's what happened to Strummer, why it happened to Strummer, and the effect that it had on the people who met during his stint in Spain.
Video/Audio/Extras:
I Need A Dodge debuts on DVD in 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen. Shot digitally, it looks quite good here. Some of the older archival material is taken from sources best described as rough around the edges but the vast majority of the newly shot stuff is crisp, clean, clear and very colorful.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Sound Mix on the disc is a good one. Levels are nicely balanced, the music sounds good and the dialogue is quite clear and free of any hiss. Most of the documentary is in Spanish language, optional English, French, Spanish, German and Italian subtitles are provided.
Extras on the disc, aside from menus in English, French, Spanish German and Italian, include two bonus audio interviews - Casa Juanillo For Diario Granada from October 28th, 1984 and Glastonbury Festival For Spanish Radio 1997. There are also extended versions of the interviews conducted with some of the people interviewed in the feature - Gaby Holford, Gabriel Contreras, Chiqui Abril, Santiago Auseron, Luis Auseron, Jose Ignacio Lapido, Antonio Arias, Jose Antonio Garcia, Jesus Arias, Tacho Gonzalez, Peter Howard and Nick Sheppard. Most of these are on Spanish but subtitles are provided.
The disc comes house in a fold out book style package that also contains a postcard, a cassette containing the original radio broadcast in which Strummer spoke about his car (at least I think that's what is on it, I don't have a cassette player anymore because cassettes suck) as well as a Joe Strummer dollar bills! The book style package unfolds to look like a ghetto blaster when you take it out of the sleeve, which is a nice touch, and it also comes packaged with an interesting set of liner notes from Chris Salewicz, the author of the Joe Strummer biography Redemption Song.
The Final Word:
I Need A Dodge probably isn't something you're going to watch over and over again but if you're a fan of The Clash or just weird esoteric documentaries this will definitely hold your attention because it is pretty interesting. The DVD is nicely put together and it's got some pretty choice extras too, as well as some fancy packaging if you're into that sort of thing.
