In the shadowplay, acting out your own death

The story of Ian Curtis and Joy Division now ranks as one of the seminal moments of music in the early 1980s.

Anton Corbijn has written a love letter to that moment with his stunning new film, Control, chronicling the band's meteoric rise and Curtis' concurrent spiral into depression.

After experiencing Control tonight, the myth of Ian Curtis has now been enshrined in one of the most visually stunning movies I have seen in a while. Seeing it on a big screen in glorious black-and-white was surprisingly breathtaking.

It is clear now, that Corbijn's longstanding relationship with the surviving members of Joy Division has served him well. You get the feeling, watching the story slowly unfold, that his longstanding relationship with the people who surrounded Ian Curtis gave him the insight to stick with quiet subtle moments instead of easy melodramatic flourishes.

Corbijn's signature cinematography dances across the screen for two hours, intermingling songs and images to propel the tragic story along. Already knowing how it has to end, you find yourself getting lost in the small clues laid along the way as to how such a talented musician found senseless self-destruction his only escape.

Playing Ian Curtis, newcomer Sam Riley is a revelation. While his impersonation is uncanny at times, the performance is subtle, bringing a softer humanity to a forever-young rock legend. This is in large part thanks to the pitch-perfect counterbalance Samantha Morton provides as Curtis' wife who bears the brunt of the singers meteoric rise and descent.

Control is a dark, haunting, visual masterpiece.


It is showing this week at the fantastic new Neighborhood Flix movie theater on Colfax, here in Denver. Catch it while you can.

For a trailer and some background I wrote a while back, click HERE

See the danger, always danger. Endless talking, life rebuilding. Don't walk away.

In high school, I had a date every weekend with Teletunes, KBDI Channel 12's alternative answer to MTV. At one point in 1998 they started playing a grainy black-and-white video for a song called Atmosphere. I was mesmerized by hooded people wandered across a beach with an enormous photo of some random guy. It would be years later before the significance of the song would dawn on me, but I never forgot this image:

It turns out, of course, that this little video was a coda of sorts for Joy Division, perhaps one of the most important bands I'd never heard about, back then. I knew nothing in high school of Factory Records, the infamous Hacienda or the key role bands from Manchester, England played in revolutionizing a lot of the music I love today. It was the brilliant work of music director Anton Corbijn who seared bleak images into my head.

It's fitting almost 20 years later that Corbijn would go full circle for his feature film debut. Control chronicles the short life of that "random guy" being carried down the beach in the video. From influential trend setting musician to a tragic suicide, Ian Curtis has long been a compelling figure deserving attention from Hollywood. In Corbijn's hand this should be a stunningly visual look at the rise and fall of the face of Joy Division, and the music he left behind.

The film premiered to rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival this past spring. It is just about to be released stateside next month. The preview looks stunning:


For a fun introduction to the world Corbijn will be visiting in Control, check out 2002's 24 Hour Party People (on DVD) which summarizes the Factory Records story and explosion of the Manchester music scene in the late 70's and early 80's.