Those Days
Ah well, Control is as good as they said. Saw it Friday, and despite advance hype that risked eclipsing the mundane task of actually sitting in a seat and watching it for two hours, I was indeed transported to late-70s Manchester before they introduced colour to the city (it must have been murder watching the local derby in those days). Even though I've read somewhere in the region of 200 features interviewing all concerned, I still wasn't fully prepared for how uncanny the actual playing by the four young actors portraying Joy Division is. When they first launch into Leaders Of Men, if you didn't know and you weren't one of the three suriviving participants, you wouldn't for a second think it was anybody but Joy Division/Warsaw. Sam Riley (who's perhaps a little too fleshy and not blue-eyed enough for Curtis, but inhabits him nonetheless and has studied his every blink and twitch in pursuit of this supernatural channelling of the dead man's spirit), James Anthony Pearson (who managed to play Barney's guitar parts without having ever picked up a guitar before being cast), Joe Anderson (not the dead spit of Hooky but right there in attitude) and Harry Treadaway (always difficult to mimic a drummer, but he does a beat-perfect job as Stephen Morris) deserve some kind of collective acting award. It goes without saying that Samantha Morton, the only recognisable "name" actor in the film, is totally three-dimensional as Deborah Curtis, moving from schoolgirl shyness to domestic isolation with seamless subtlety, but hats off to Toby Kebbell for bringing life, once again, to Rob Gretton. It is he, not the foppish Tony Wilson, who emerges as the driving force. (It's an amazing coincidence that Kebbell first came to our attention as Anthony in Dead Man's Shoes, alongside Paddy Considine, who played Gretton in 24 Hour Party People.) Although Control is about Curtis, and his pain and morbid frustration dominate the story, it's these supporting players who prevent it from being one long Anton Corbijn photograph. They bring the humour, which is an essential part of Manchester life. I worried that the Dutchman might have missed this, but to his credit, he didn't. Matt Greenhalgh's script even chucks in a joke about Mark E Smith. One for the gallery.
Talking of humour, it's odd to have seen the Joy Division story (ie. the story of Ian Curtis) already played on film, except almost solely for laughs. Even his suicide in 24 Hour Party People had a comic edge. Not in Control. This is a relentlessly grim film, with its tower blocks and overcast skies and grey shirts and sticky carpets, but it teems with life. The early scenes when schoolboy Ian brings home his prized new copy of Aladdin Sane in a paper bag keenly recreate the shared love and escape of music that was so much more vital in the 70s before video and computers and Channel 4. The detail is breathtaking: the NME photos stuck to bedroom walls (later echoed by Joy Division's first cover story), the old-fashioned light switches, the pint glasses with handles, the fact that none of Curtis's pill bottles had child-proof caps ... it's a period drama just like any Dickens or Austen, it just happens to be a period many of us actually lived through. And yes, John Cooper Clarke plays himself, almost 30 years ago, and it works.
It's a shame that there's only one cast recording of a Joy Division song on the actual soundtrack album (there are ten in the film, from Candidate to Love Will Tear Us Apart), but then again, the other music chosen is just as evocative, from Bowie's Warszawa and Drive-In Saturday to Iggy Pop's Sister Midnight and Roxy's 2HB.
Another plus: there were no stupid teenagers in the cinema on Friday. Just grown-up music fans. It was a pleasure, almost unknown these days, to sit in a cinema in collective reverence.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 9:11 AM
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I went to the cinema (20 miles from my house) this weekend with an air of trepidation after the amount of five star reviews in my Unknown Pleasures shirt. Thankfully I wasn’t disappointed. Perfectly evocative of an era I never knew but occasionally got a window in to when I visited my grandparents from the light switches to the old dial phone and the Chemistry lesson. Stunning performances all round and there were times that I truly thought I was watching Curtis on screen, especially on stage. While it wasn’t simply about the way it was shot nearly every frame could have been used as an iconic photograph and a nod at the Academy Awards for the cinematography wouldn’t be too outrageous to hope for. It was good to see a rock-biopic that was not some kind of Walk The Line / Ray redemption story nor an episode in myth making (“I still wash his underwear”). In fact the plot was more driven by Curtis’ illness then his musical career. Despite knowing what was coming that final shot to the strains of “Atmosphere” and the shot of what was to be the line-up of New Order were heartbreaking. More than that though the humour of the North was very evident and who ever compared it as being the end of the seventies equivalent to Withnail & I was spot on.
I live a short walk away from the Macclesfield Crematorium where Ian Curtis was cremated. His little memorial has been mostly ignored over the years, but I'm sure it will now receive a steady stream of visitors on the back of this film...
Easy on the teenager hatred, we're not all like that! I still love going to the cinema and I refuse to talk through a film no matter who I'm with, be it my mates, my girlfriend or my family.
Hey, Aidan, don't take it personally. It's not just teenagers, it's anyone under 19. But it was a row of teenagers who ruined Michael Clayton for me, giggling and talking and texting throughout. You, Sir, are an exception to the rule, and it does you great credit!
I'm not an angry person in general but talking in the cinema will turn me into Travis Bickle very quickly!
I went to see Transformers on IMAX the other day and a mother and her seven(ish) year old daughter sat next to me and had a picnic - they had all sorts of food, all stored in rustling bags. The feast lasted a good hour. When they weren't eating they were talking - despite being continually told to shut up. The little girl had no interest in the film at all - I don't think she looked at the screen once - and kept saying "can we go now?" The mum wasn't bothered about it either but just to annoy everyone in the cinema they stayed to the end.
I mean, WTF is that all about? Why go and see an IMAX movie and not watch it?? Surely they could have gone and not watched a regular sized film?
I suspect the clueless mother thought it was going to be a cartoon...
Lucky you can see "Control". I live in Blackpool and I'll have to travel to Manchester in order to see this one. My local VUE & ODEON cinemas aren't bothering to show this. No audience for it apparently, here by the seaside, we're obviously all thick plebs who jsut want the latest braindead Hollywood blockbuster.
This is a crying shame. The Odeon chain is no better. Of the 13 cinemas showing Control, 6 are in London - the others being Brighton, Manchester, Norwich and the like. This is what happens when you make a film in black and white with no famous people in it, I'm afraid. The Kingdom is showing at 95 different Odeons, including Blackpool, of course. It's not just people who live by the seaside who are considered thick plebs, Darren, it's anyone who doesn't live in London or one of 7 other comparably large cities.
Cheers Andrew. I do appreciate where you're coming from though. I would be annoyed if a group of teenagers ruined a film for me too!
...and yet the Section 25 biopic (Sucking from a Hilltop) is all over the Blackpool Odeon...
...btw I think we're being a bit hard on stupid teenagers, if it wasn't for them we'd never have had New Order.
Unless it's a Working Title film and/or has Simon Pegg/Hugh Grant/Kiera Knightly in it, getting to see a British film on the big screen is often impossible. The fact Control is available to watch anywhere is pretty remarkable.
here in northampton none of the 20 odd screens are showing it - even on their so called filmbuff nites.
since when is norwich a cultural centre?
when i read my 'guardian what's on section' it says 'on general release'
not that general then
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