"So this is permanence; love-shattered pride. What once was innocence, has turned on its side. "
"But now Ian Curtis is really, really dead. He had sung his last song. Finito. Out of here. Love tore him apart."
-- amazon.com reviewer for "Control" on DVD
I watched Control last night, a film that my British friend (and music guru) Damon called "good, but very wifey." I had read Deborah Curtis' Touching From a Distance back towards the end of high school, and you know how sometimes you read a book or watch a film, and the details end up completely lost on you ten years later, even if it was great? This book stayed with me, maybe because I was fascinated by Ian Curtis's writing in the first place, maybe because I marveled at what a troubled man he was, maybe because I couldn't understand how a woman could love a man who would do that to her.
Or maybe I couldn't forget the trajectory that lead to Ian Curtis's suicide.
Either way, thinking it over a few years later, I had recognized that the book was very heavy from the troubled-wife perspective, and Anton Corbijn's film pretty much remains in that point of view, but the film does not deteriorate into Lifetime Cliche or anything like that. I was disappointed that this seems to be Corbijn's only feature film, but he had an emotional connection to the band that apparently stayed with him for 25 years. It bleeds through the film, you can tell the filmmakers had much respect for the subject, and the casting was spot-on all around.
In the end, it's a great movie for late-night viewing, it's a greater movie if you're a Joy Division fan, and it's the greatest movie if you've ever been really into Anton Corbijn's music videos. However, it wasn't just love that tore Curtis apart, and I don't think he will ever be really, really dead. He comes back to life in the tone, the melancholy, the torment, and the music of this film. To me, that defines its success.
-- amazon.com reviewer for "Control" on DVD
I watched Control last night, a film that my British friend (and music guru) Damon called "good, but very wifey." I had read Deborah Curtis' Touching From a Distance back towards the end of high school, and you know how sometimes you read a book or watch a film, and the details end up completely lost on you ten years later, even if it was great? This book stayed with me, maybe because I was fascinated by Ian Curtis's writing in the first place, maybe because I marveled at what a troubled man he was, maybe because I couldn't understand how a woman could love a man who would do that to her.
Or maybe I couldn't forget the trajectory that lead to Ian Curtis's suicide.
Either way, thinking it over a few years later, I had recognized that the book was very heavy from the troubled-wife perspective, and Anton Corbijn's film pretty much remains in that point of view, but the film does not deteriorate into Lifetime Cliche or anything like that. I was disappointed that this seems to be Corbijn's only feature film, but he had an emotional connection to the band that apparently stayed with him for 25 years. It bleeds through the film, you can tell the filmmakers had much respect for the subject, and the casting was spot-on all around.
In the end, it's a great movie for late-night viewing, it's a greater movie if you're a Joy Division fan, and it's the greatest movie if you've ever been really into Anton Corbijn's music videos. However, it wasn't just love that tore Curtis apart, and I don't think he will ever be really, really dead. He comes back to life in the tone, the melancholy, the torment, and the music of this film. To me, that defines its success.