Looking back in candour

'London swings again!' screamed the cover of Vanity Fair, New York's glossiest glossy. It was March, 1997. Oasis were the biggest band in the world, Kate Moss ruled the catwalk, Trainspotting was huge. Labour were soon to win a landslide election and a group of Goldsmiths' graduates about to cause a Sensation! 'The Nineties,' says James Brown, then-editor of Loaded, 'were the time when all the "What ifs?" actually happened.'

Exciting times, yes. But you might think it too soon for a documentary film about those days. And all too reminiscent of those horrible tabloid clip shows where Stuart Maconie and Kate Thornton pretend to remember Pacer mints and Chorlton And The Wheelies.

But it was precisely those programmes that inspired 32-year-old director John Dower to make a documentary feature about the Britpop explosion. 'I was fed up seeing a gaggle of celebrity chefs and reality-TV contestants talking about popular culture,' says Dower. 'So I thought, let's make a music documentary in which we actually speak to the musicians.'

The result, Live Forever, is an entertaining, often hilarious, account of the era, told by key players of the time - among them, Damien Hirst, Ozwald Boateng and Peter Mandelson. Most screen time is, however, devoted to Britpop's biggest stars - Noel and Liam Gallagher, Damon Albarn and Jarvis Cocker.

'You speak to anyone and they've heard of Oasis, Blur and Pulp,' says Dower. 'We decided that was our holy trinity. We made a pact that we wouldn't make the film unless we had all three on board.' And with no albums or tours to plug, getting them was tricky. 'We started with Oasis,' says Dower. 'We eventually got an appointment with their management, who were clearly thinking, "We get asked this all the time. What makes you so different?"'

What made them so different was the fact that the film's producer, John Battsek, made One Day In September, the Oscar-winning documentary about the 1972 Munich Olympics. And - certainly for Noel, anyway - that was enough. 'Noel was good value,' says Dower. 'He came into our offices, saw the Oscar on the shelf and said, "The only reason I'm speaking to you guys is because you've got an Oscar. I'm that f****** shallow."'

The others proved more elusive. 'I started meeting Pulp's manager, who would keep asking me to tell him more about the film,' says Dower. 'After about three months of this, he said, "Great. Now you should speak to Jarvis's manager." Hang on, I said, You're Jarvis's manager. To which he replied, "No, no, no. I'm his press manager." It was like pulling teeth.

'So I got in touch with the manager, who said I could email Jarvis directly. This is fantastic, I thought. Me and Jarvis, we're e-mailing each other,' grins Dower. 'I must have written more than 20 emails to him. And then it started to feel like stalking - I never got anything back.' Damon was no more forthcoming, and production was shut down for two months.

But even once the big three eventually agreed to take part, it wasn't easy. 'We started doing the Liam interview,' he says, 'and it was just horrendous. I'd ask him questions and he'd sit and stare at me, without giving any answers.

Eventually I stopped the interview and said, "I'm not being funny, Liam, but I'm finding this really intimidating."'

Jarvis was more amenable, but is ambivalent about those days. 'Jarvis lost the plot,' says Dower. 'He started caning drugs and hated himself for going to all those parties. He said, "My music's about being a voyeur, watching things. All I was watching were idiots taking coke at celebrity parties. Nobody wants to hear music about that, it's not interesting."'

Damon is the most sullen interviewee. Always the prettiest of Britpop's poster boys, he sits, bloated and chainsmoking, in the Royal Legionnaire's Club in Kilburn, looking like he'd rather climb a mountain of tramp sick than answer another of Dower's questions.

'In Damon's defence, he finds it difficult talking about that period of his life,' says Dower. 'He got a kicking from the media. He was painted as the villain in the Britpop piece. Oasis were working-class heroes, Blur were middleclass ponces. Damon didn't leave his house for a year. He'd go outside and people would start playing Oasis songs and swearing at him. It terrified him.'

A nervous Damon was shown the finished film. 'Damon gets a lot of shit from people in it - Noel slags him off - so it was painful to watch it with him. But he was nice and self-deprecating about it. At the end, he said, "I'm going to have to once again take it on the chin from Noel Gallagher."

'Then we showed it to Noel, who every time Damon was on screen would shout, "Aaah, you f****** twat!" But when Damon started saying what a terrible time he had, Noel went deathly silent. After the screening, the first thing Noel said to me was, "Shit, man, what the f*** happened to Damon?" He was genuinely concerned.'

These days - having broken America with Gorillaz - Damon is the most successful of them all. Jarvis has moved to Paris with his pregnant wife. Noel 'has worked it all out. He's moved on.' By contrast, 'I don't think Liam really cares,' says Dower. 'Or remembers.'

Live Forever opens Fri 17 Mar.