Director Julien Temple
Starring Shane MacGowan, Johnny Depp & Siobhan MacGowan
Rated M
Score 6/6

A look at the life of Irish singer/songwriter and Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan.

When watching multiple movies at a film festival you should always consider a movie about music and considering this is for the Irish Film Festival a documentary about Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan is a great choice. I went into watching A Crock of Gold a little bit excited about finally getting a chance to see this because I had already seen the trailer this. Going into this I think I was expecting this to be structured in similar fashion to almost any other music documentary like Daniel Roher’s 2019 documentary Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band. A Crock of Gold had those kinds of elements that you would expect when it discussed MacGowan’s life (the story about the first time McGowan got drunk on Whisky is very hilarious) but what I wasn’t expecting was the elements of the documentary discussing the history of Ireland particularly the troubles between England and Ireland.
Director Julien Temple delivered something that is very watchable I loved how file footage and animation on top of the interviews that he got. I loved the sections featuring Gerry Adams and Johnny Deep. During the section with Depp, you really got a sense of the friendship between Depp and McGowan.
Also be sure to watch the interview between Dr. Edna Murray and Julien Temple. It was very interesting to hear Temple’s behind the scenes account of the section featuring McGowan and Johnny Depp.