Control
DIR: Anton Corbijn • WRI: Deborah Curtis, Matt Greenhalgh • PROD: Anton Corbijn, Todd Eckert, Orian Williams • DOP: Martin Ruhe • ED: Andrew Hulme • DES: Chris Roope • CAST: Sam Riley, Samantha Morton, Alexandra Maria Lara, Joe Anderson, James Anthony Pearson, Toby Kebbell, Craig Parkinson

Anton Corbijn’s Control is a filmic meditation on the life and music of Ian Curtis, lead singer of Manchester post-punk band Joy Division. To contextualize Control, realize that it fits within the current trend of musical biopics. The 00’s have weathered a wave of these films, particularly of the glossy Hollywood variety: Walk the Line, Dreamgirls, and Ray to name a few. Within this trend, icons of alternative music – be it punk, grunge, rap, etc. – have been unsurprisingly underrepresented. Biopics of alternative musicians have fallen toward the indie/arthouse end of the cinema spectrum. Last Days, Gus Van Sant’s allegorical portrait of Kurt Cobain, and 24 Hour Party People, Michael Winterbottom’s rambling history of Manchester post-punk are clearly the predecessors to Control. Like Control, Last Days artistically interrogates the psyche of the doomed frontman. 24 Hour Party People shares a common subject with Control; there is an extended sequence on Ian Curtis and Joy Division in 24HPP, so the films share several characters and events. But while 24HPP takes a lighthearted approach, Control takes on more potent themes. 

Director Anton Corbijn, of photography/music video fame, and Sam Riley, the little-known lead, focus most of their energies on exactly recreating Ian Curtis’s unique stage persona. Granted, this is a goal of any decent musical biopic. But by using extended performance sequences, Corbijn shifts the attention of the audience away from the biographical toward the purely musical. This may be a prudent move on Corbijn’s part because, compared with the stellar musical performances in the film, the biographical content is not particularly captivating, even for rabid Joy Division fans. Many events in Curtis’s life are portrayed in 30-second bullet-clips, especially in the unevenly-paced first act. Curtis seems to have little agency in the plot; events occur and he’s swept along, only to muse poetically in some trite voice-overs. The only choice he seems to make with emphasis is to cheat on his wife. This lacked much perceptible motivation other than that the temptress Annik (Alexandra Maria Lara) is much more attractive than his wife Debby (Samantha Morton). Debby is portrayed heavy-handedly as overweight, weepy, and maternal. Curtis flounders in his decision to leave her, torn between the two women. Then he gets depressed . . . leaves the band . . . such is the flatness of the ending.

Though the skeletal structure of the film is flawed, it ceases to matter – after all, the point is MUSIC. The meat of the film comes in the form of several phenomenal performance sequences. Here we can thank Corbijn’s vast experience as a music video director and Riley’s remarkable method acting. Corbijn employs low-contrast black and white photography that allows Riley no mistakes in his portrayal of Curtis (we can assume Corbijn and Riley knew what kind of scrutiny they would be under from the Joy Division fanbase). In one sequence, in which Joy Division performs ‘Transmission’ for Granada TV, Corbijn uses the straightforward angles of the TV cameras with his ultra hi-def photography to breathe cinematic life into an historic performance (though the actual Granada TV episode featured the song ‘Shadowplay’, not ‘Transmission’). Corbijn’s aesthetic here obliterates the obscurity of low-resolution television and forces the audience into complete attention, complete submission. And Riley never falters in his portrayal. He embodies Curtis with every slit-eyed moan and sweat-soaked, jittery dance. What’s most remarkable about Riley’s acting is that he sings every song in the film – no lip-syncing here, unlike the handful of Joy Division performances recreated in 24 Hour Party People. Riley squeezes every lyric from a chest tight with fear and mental exhaustion, replicating Curtis’s delivery to a T.

One can conceptualize the performance sequences in Control as elaborate covers. Not only are the songs replayed by different musicians, but the venues are also reconstructed as well as the atmosphere, the lighting, and Curtis’s unforgettable gestures.  There’s something to be said for such attentive reenactment, particularly with a cult icon like Ian Curtis. Originally, Curtis attained his following for precisely such a stage presence coupled, of course, with his tragic suicide. But how has he gained a reputation with those who have never seen him perform? Ask a hip teen about Ian Curtis and they’ll tell you that he was a demigod or, if they fancy themselves a musician, an influence. But ask them if they’ve even seen a video of a Joy Division performance and they’ll surely reply in the negative – Joy Division only just released their performance DVD in a prohibitively expensive box-set. Thus, for today’s youth, Curtis’s status is based mostly on his albums, the romance of his death, and word of mouth. Control makes an excellent argument that Curtis deserves his following not for his tragic coolness but for his raw talent. This might still be problematic, seeing that the New Cult of Ian Curtis will be based on the simulacrum. But the goals here remain the same: sell Joy Division albums, spread the influence, and don’t forget Ian Curtis. Aside from the film’s role as a promotion for Joy Division, the cinematic merit lies in the photography and Riley’s performance. If you have any interest at all in punk or musical performance in general, see this film immediately.

Benjamin Henry DeVries
(Read biog here)

Rated TBC (see IFCO website for details)
Control is released on 14th September 2007
Control – Official website