“I called it The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson because Wilko was able to describe how he could see everything in a very revelatory way. “If it’s going to kill me, I don’t want it to bore me.” Wilko Johnson. Wilko Johnson, erstwhile guitarist of Dr Feelgood, came to further prominence in.
It tells the extraordinary, yet universal story of legendary musician Wilko Johnson who, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given a few months to live, accepted his fate with uplifting positivity and embarked on a farewell tour, capturing the imagination of the world as he went. Two years later and confounding the odds, Wilko wakes up in a hospital bed, unexpectedly sentenced to live, having now to integrate those enlightened lessons learnt under sentence of death into the unexpected and ongoing future of his life. The ex-Dr Feelgood guitarist seemed to be living out a surreal final chapter with an unavoidable end when his January 2013 diagnosis with inoperable cancer flooded him with the wonder of life, leaving him content for perhaps the first time. Go here for our interview with Julian Temple.The film confronts our worst nightmares of impending death and turns them upside down. Wilko Johnson’s ecstasy started to fade when he was resurrected. Likeable, erudite and honest – not least when he talks about his delight on the death of his violent father – Wilko is great company, so it’s a joy for us, if not necessarily for him, that he now finds himself “parachuting back down to the real world”. Just as unexpected as his initial elation upon receiving his cancer diagnosis is his grumpiness at being sentenced to life (“Generally through my life I’ve been a fairly miserable so-and-so,” he concedes).
That’s when the bombshell is dropped: Wilko has been misdiagnosed and his condition is treatable. When he loses a £100 bet that he won’t make it until Christmas, he admits it’s all getting rather embarrassing. Meanwhile, the guitarist’s valedictory collaboration with Roger Daltrey, Going Back Home, gives him the biggest hit of his solo career (No. For those who can’t get enough Bergman (or Bill and Ted) references, Temple even persuades a game Wilko to play chess with the Reaper while reflecting on his life. Meanwhile, Temple has fun with blackly comic scythe sharpening and fills the screen with a barrage of mortality-related film clips ranging from the rather obvious ( The Seventh Seal, A Matter of Life and Death) to Murnau’s Nosferatu, Great Expectations, The Vikings (1958 version with Kirk Douglas), The Colour of Pomegranates and a brace of Cocteaus ( Orphee, La Belle et la Bete). “We can’t all be threatened with imminent death,” he observes dryly, “but it probably takes that to knock a bit of sense into our heads.” The engaging guitarist talks about his extensive hinterland, taking in an appetite for literature (Chaucer, Milton, Icelandic sagas), enthusiasm for astronomy, and the unshakeable atheism that he finds such a source of strength (“I absolutely do not believe in god. Get the top Bristol stories emailed directly to you - choose the news you want and when you want it Your email address Sign upĪs the title suggests, Wilko experienced a form of euphoria on receiving his diagnosis.
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