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The biggest star at this year’s Zurich Film Festival has come to pay tribute to a slightly smaller one: Johnny Depp presents a documentary about the former frontman of The Pogues.
Johnny Depp usually wears sunglasses, sometimes a hat.
Shane MacGowan at an awards ceremony in Dublin in 2006.
This crooked-toothed face already looked dated forty years ago – at the time he was the leader of the London folk-punk band The Pogues and a hero from our student days. Now we see Shane MacGowan, now 62, on screen, his features almost senile, the gaps between his teeth precisely filled in, his eyes darting into space. But the power of the music outweighs that of the images: when the still incredibly fresh songs of the film sound with their raspy voice, memories of the eighties, of wild nights and tender dates arise in us. The Pogues embodied the poetic and melancholic side of punk with their style, which is influenced by Irish melodies.
The average wife
MacGowan never breathed a spark of glamor. If it were to appear at the Zurich Film Festival, hardly anyone would turn to look at it. Johnny Depp, on the other hand, despite all the public (self) dismantling of his persona, caused more of a stir than any other guest on his last visit here two years ago. Now he’s back, despite the pandemic and as the only star in Hollywood. The fans waiting at Sechseläutenplatz can’t get close this time, but the squeal factor is still high. Before that, however, Depp explains the film he recently produced to the press on a more intimate setting: Julien Temples’ Pot of Gold. A few rounds with Shane MacGowan. The rich collage of footage, conversations, and animated scenes reveals a life that was already characterized by alcoholism, Catholicism, and nicotine in childhood.
When The Pogues had their biggest hit in 1987 with “Fairytale of New York,” a sort of counter to “Last Christmas,” Depp’s star was on the rise. Shortly after, he met the singer-songwriter for the first time, as he recalls in the media event: “He was one of my heroes. However, I couldn’t understand what he was saying, and I didn’t get the impression that he particularly liked me. “MacGowan’s wife, Victoria Mary Clarke, who is also present, contradicts:” Shane thinks you’re crazy and funny, that he likes you very much. You are very similar, only in your uncompromising attitude. ”
Depp is incredulous, but it’s really hard to deny a certain kinship when now, hidden under his peaked cap, he has all the trouble finding the thread or keeping it in answers that are more like an internal dialogue. There are only bottles of water, but sometimes he seems intoxicated. That’s what MacGowan was almost always on stage, even when he says in the movie that they were actually better sober: “But it was a lot less fun.” In the 1990s, the band kicked him out because his lifestyle no longer seemed compatible with his professionalism. Johnny was the only one supporting him, says Clarke, making it possible for him to appear in his club and play in the video (he refers to the great “That Woman’s Got Me Drinking” that MacGowan recorded with his new band in 1994).
A slight suspicion
Meanwhile, Depp muttering and praising his friend of five years as a genius and calling himself an ignorant, one is surprised to wonder if he must have thought of MacGowan for his portrayal of pirate Jack Sparrow, as well as Keith Richards, whom likes it as a source of inspiration. ask for this paper. He’s far from done with acting, he says, who has a rock band, by the way, by the way. And when you look at him and his kind, you get an idea of what is great about art: it often ages better than its creator.
Johnny Depp on Friday during his visit to Zurich with Victoria Mary Clarke, Shane MacGowan’s wife.
