Control (The Miriam Collection)

Location: Home » music » General » Control (The Miriam Collection)

Similar Items:

•	Joy Division (The Miriam Collection)
•	Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division
•	There Will Be Blood
•	24 Hour Party People
•	The Future Is Unwritten

Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com
In his elegiac debut, Anton Corbijn combines the music film with the social drama to stunning success. Based on Deborah Curtis's clear-eyed biography, Touching from a Distance, Control recounts the wrenching tale of a working-class lad about to hit the highest highs only to be waylaid by the lowest lows. Born and raised in Macclesfield, a suburban community outside Manchester, Ian Curtis (newcomer Sam Riley in a remarkable performance) dreams of fronting a band. Just out of high school in the mid-1970s, he finds three like minds with whom he forms post-punk quartet Warsaw--better known as Joy Division (Riley and castmates ably recreate their somber sound). All the while, he falls in love, marries, and fathers a child with Deborah (Samantha Morton, turning a thankless role into a triumph). While Curtis should be enjoying parenthood and newfound fame, he's plagued by seizures. A diagnosis of epilepsy leads to powerful medications with unpredictable side effects. Then, while on tour, he falls in love with another woman. His solution to these problems is a matter of public record, but Corbijn concentrates on Curtis's life rather than his death. Just as Control establishes a link between such disparate black and white works as fellow photographer Bruce Weber's Let's Get Lost and kitchen-sink classics like The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, the Dutch-born, UK-based director presents his subject not as some iconic T-shirt image, but as a deeply flawed--if massively talented--human being. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Description
Control tells the remarkable story of Ian Curtis, lead singer of the influential band Joy Division and one of the most enigmatic figures in all of rock music. Based on his wife's memoir, Control follows Curtis' humble Manchester origins and his rapid rise to fame, tormented battle with epilepsy, and struggles with love that led to his death at the age of 23.

Customer Reviews: Read 43 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

WE'VE LOST CONTROL December 9, 2007
28 out of 36 found this review helpful

A biopic of Joy Division's lead singer, Ian Curtis? Who besides a handful of people like me, (in 1980 we had their posters on our bedroom wall and sketched what Joy Divison's third album cover might have looked like), and the only other patron at the matinee theatrical showing that I viewed could possibly care? Indeed, why should I want to see actors performing a suicidal swan dive when all the sadness of Curtis' death lies imbedded in the gloomy, psyche-rich and beautiful music Joy Division left behind?

Because now Ian Curtis is really dead. Anton Corbijn's film, "Control" brings closure to the first time I heard Joy Division, raced to a record store, and was no sooner through a second listen when I heard the lead singer had committed suicide. I've been in denial ever since, and the sketchy details of Curtis' death, the same sketchy details offered in the film, suddenly ring true to me.

Filmed in the British working class black and white, like the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night", with tones of muted and spacious greys, like The Who's "Quadrophenia", the film brings vitality to the bleak Manchester neighborhoods that were the haunts of the band. It has that wide screen black and white ordinariness that film geeks love. Very common images of modest Brit apartments, cheap recording studios and seedy clubs, are given an immaculate shine by the variable b&w cinematography which conjure not only the do-it-yourself Manchester music scene, but Joy Division's own bleak and surviving psyche. And the head bobbing teens digging the band in the clubs look like the honest to god post punks of yesterday.

You'd thing that was genuine Joy Division during the musical performances, but it is the actors uncannily recreating the music with Sam Riley as Curtis, not only looking the part while delivering a 'let's-let's not' demeanor, but sounding like a dead-on Ian Curtis, with all the brooding deep voiced restraint Curtis possessed. In a subtle performance in which the camera finds him, as opposed to a mugging for the camera, Riley as Curtis, (just another English bloke holding a day job), gives reason to believe in the seemingly petty causes of Curtis' self-destruction. He simply didn't want to live anymore, ("I give them everything 'on stage' and they want more"), and the overload of prescription drugs to combat epilepsy surely complicated matters. Samantha Morton as wife Deborah Curtis, (whose autobiography the film is based), is extraordinary as the plain and sexy love struck young woman who stands like a pillar against Curtis' doomed horizon. The big scene is taken like an arrow through the heart, even as you know it is the only destination the film aims.

My one and only gripe is the movie's insistance to incorporate Joy Division music at times of marital strife, which seemed a lessening of the music's depth.

But now Ian Curtis is really, really dead. He had sung his last song. Finito. Out of here. Love tore him apart.

3 out of 5 stars

Hell Shaped Room November 29, 2007
11 out of 16 found this review helpful

In 1979 a young Dutch Photographer called Anton Corbijn heard an album called `Unknown Pleasures'. Within days he had left Holland and headed for England intent on locating the makers of the record. He found them in Macclesfield and, with a series of monochromatic images, began to forge their legend.

A scant eighteen months later the group were considered one of the most important bands of the post punk era. On the eve of the release of their second album, their biggest hit single and an American Tour, their lead singer hung himself in his kitchen. The first rock and roll suicide - he was twenty three.

Corbijn went on to have an amazing career in which his photography and video promos resulted in much of modern rock's iconography via his work with U2, Depeche Mode, The Rolling Stones and many others, and now, finally, he has come a full circle with his directorial film debut telling the story of the band which brought him to England in the first place.

The band was Joy Division. The film is Control.

Control is the biopic of Joy Division's lead singer; the charismatic but deeply troubled Ian Curtis. Joy Division had emerged from the fallout of the late 70's punk explosion. Taking the inert nihilism of that new sound and instilling it with an intellectualism far removed from the cheap shock tactics which sold it to teenagers everywhere, Joy Division, with the visionary brilliance of producer Martin Hannett, developed an oeuvre of dystopian soundscapes which continues to serve as a ground zero for new music to this day.

Based on the book `Touching From a Distance' by Curtis' widow Deborah and starring newcomer Sam Riley in the lead role, Control does as much to dismantle the Curtis cult as it does to propagate it. The sleek futurism and Ballardian preoccupations of the music are in stark contrast to the kitchen sink dour-ocity from which it emerged. Control is a rock and roll `L Shaped Room' or `Look Back In Anger' with an epileptic Jimmy Porter dumping his trumpet for a Vox Phantom guitar. Terrifying evocations of Curtis' jerking, trance-fixated on-stage persona, juxtaposed with his day job at the local job centre or making cups of tea in the mannered surroundings of his small council house is as far removed from our perception of Curtis the uber-prophet of urban ennui as can be imagined. Think Bowie trying to set the video recorder or Lou Reed doing the washing up.

The musical sequences deftly convey the chaos and excitement of the band's live appearances thanks to Riley's convincing portrayal of Curtis but Tony Kebbell as Rob Gretton, whose introduction and pronunciation of himself as the band's new manager, is the highlight of a film which may be too drama-heavy for fans and, perhaps, too long for everyone else. Nevertheless, Control is a crash-course in the banality behind the bombast and the dissection of a myth. Tony Wilson, owner of Joy Division's record label Factory is often quoted as saying "if it comes to printing the truth or the legend, always print the legend". With Control, Anton Corbijn has managed a collision of both.

Amended to 4 stars (see comments)

Adrian Stranik

5 out of 5 stars

DVD Extras Enhance This Powerful Film June 2, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

Ever since Ian Curtis, lead singer of the British band Joy Division, died in 1980, he has achieved the iconic status of an emerging artist showing signs of brilliance before meeting an early, tragic end. In Curtis' case, he committed suicide on the eve of his band's first American tour. His brief life has already been depicted on film in Michael Winterbottom's fast `n' loose look at the Manchester music scene of the 1970s and 1980s, 24 Hour Party People, but it was only for the first half of that film. Control draws most of its content from Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division, the memoirs of Ian's wife, Deborah, and is directed by music video maker Anton Corbijn. He not only directed the video for their song, "Atmosphere," but also shot some of the most memorable photographs of the band, making him the ideal choice to helm this film.

There is an audio commentary by director Anton Corbijn. With his thick accent, he's a little hard to follow at times but manages to cover the usual topics: casting choices, shooting on location, and so on. He praises the performances of Sam Riley and Samantha Morton while also pointing out technical details, like how the concert scenes where shot with hand-held cameras and everything else was done with steadicams. This track is a little on the dull side but Corbijn does impart interesting factoids and it was clearly a labour of love for him.

"The Making of Control" takes a look at how the film came together. Corbijn moved to England because of Joy Division and took iconic photos of the band. So, he had an emotional connection to the material. His black and white photos influenced his decision to shoot the film in a similar style. The actors who played the members of Joy Division talk about the challenge of playing people who are still alive, learning to play musical instruments, and the songs. This is an excellent featurette filled with loads of interesting information.

"In Control: A Conversation with Anton Corbijn" tends to repeat some of the information from the commentary track and the making of featurette. The director talks about how he discovered Joy Division's music and how he eventually met them. He touches upon how they shot in Ian's hometown for authenticity.

"Extended Live Concert Performances from the Film" allows you to see "Transmission", "Leaders of Men", and "Candidate" in their entirety.

In a nice touch, there are the videos for "Transmission," a powerful rendition done for live TV with a riveting performance by Ian, Corbijn's video for "Atmosphere" that is haunting as it was done after Ian's death, and The Killers' cover of "Shadowplay" which is surprisingly effective.

Also included is a "Still Gallery" with photographs from the film.

Finally, there are "Promotional Materials," trailers for the film, a blurb for Deborah's book about Ian, the soundtrack, and so on.

4 out of 5 stars

Control: The Short, Unhappy Life of Joy Division's Ian Curtis. March 11, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

Based on Deborah Curtis's book, Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division, Anton Corbijn's fascinating and informative black-and-white film, Control (2007), chronicles the short, unhappy life of Ian Curtis (1956-1980), from his pursuit of art and literature at age 17 (while obsessed with David Bowie), to attending a Sex Pistols' show in 1976 (where he met Joy Division bandmates, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Terry Mason), to his contributions as lead singer and lyricist for that brilliant post-punk band (which he joined the same year), to his May 18, 1980 suicide at age 23. Corbijn, who is perhaps best known for directing videos of Depeche Mode, U2, and The Killers, cast an unknown actor, Sam Riley, to play Curtis, and Samantha Morton to play the part of of his wife, Deborah Curtis. Curtis married Deborah in 1975, while they were just teenagers. They soon had a daughter, Natalie, in 1979, while Curtis was also working as a civil servant at a Job Centre in in Manchester and performing with the Joy Division at night. In his spot-on portrayal of Curtis, Riley not only resembles Curtis in his appearance, but in his portrayal of Curtis's quiet, awkward demeanor. For the role, Riley masters Curtis's unique dancing style while performing (reminiscent of the epileptic seizures Curtis was known to experience, sometimes even while on stage). Beautiful Alexandra Maria Lara plays Curtis's extramarital lover, Belgian journalist Annik Honore, the possible inspiration for the Joy Division hit single, "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Corbijn's film conveys all the existential angst, emotional isolation, alienation, and urban degeneration of his subject's short life. The film's dark, final scenes depicting Curtis drinking (on the eve of his first U.S. tour), while watching Werner Herzog's 1977 film, Stroszek, and listening to Iggy Pop's The Idiot, all the while contemplating hanging himself are profoundly haunting. Although this film will appeal to anyone with an interest in Joy Division, it deserves a much wider audience for its mesmerizing character study of a troubled young post-punk artist.

G. Merritt

4 out of 5 stars

Exquisite B/W Cinematography, But Not Enough Substance June 7, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

This film is based on Deborah Curtis' biography and so this "Ian Curtis" is the Ian Curtis that she knew and Control in most respects adheres to her interpretation of his life. But it should be noted that Deborah Curtis knew but one side of Ian Curtis' story, her side. And like any other point of view that might have been chosen to tell this story, this one is limited & distorted. The writer of the screenplay is fully aware of the fact that Deborah's perspective is a limited one (as all of our perspectives are) and the screenplay makes some attempt (though not enough) to find the Ian that Deborah did not know, and that maybe no one knew. To achieve this screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh balances Deborah's own remembrance with the remembrance of other key figures in Ian's life (parents, band mates, Belgian girlfriend Annik) to give us a more rounded look at what it might have been like to be Ian Curtis. Unfortunately, these additional perspectives do not amount to as much as one would have liked them to as Ian was apparently not particularly close or open with parents or band mates. (The film rarely shows Ian interacting with either.) And the girlfriend just seems like a very pretty, very fresh, very young smiling face. Most likely the band has their own story to tell, as does the girlfriend Annik. To Deborah, Ian Curtis was a husband and so her story is one largely dominated by domestic squables. After the fourth or fifth round of domestic argument the film begins to feel like a film about marriage and not about music. The over-reliance on Deborah's perspective/biography begins to feel like a liability before the second hour of this two hour biopic begins, and the second hour is almost entirely devoted to the last moments of marital woe that, according to Deborah, sparked the final act. But there is so much more to this story than the one that Deborah has to tell. In addition to Ian the husband, there is Ian the singer and performer. And, most importantly to fans, there is the Ian Curtis that wrote some of the most austere and hypnotic and compelling rock music ever recorded. This is what is really missing form the film: a sense of where the music was coming from. Certainly some lyrics can be explained as autobiographical confessions of self-loathing and regret but some are comments and critiques on modern life.

To listeners of Joy Division's postpunk sound what was immediately alluring was that it sounded nothing like punk. Punk was manic and Joy Division was subdued. The sound was hollow but hypnotic and the voice was full of romantic longings and yearnings for some kind of transcendence but the romantic longing was always accompanied by the feeling that there was nothing to be done with these feelings. If punk was about irreverence and having a rebellious larf in the face of authority, Joy Division was about looking for something to revere and finding that modern life gave man very little to revere. In the face of utter hopelessness, the only grace to be found was in the music itself because the music offered trance-like beauties unavailable in real life (Unknown Pleasures). To fans, Ian & the band were the rarest of things, the expression of a genuinely original sensibility/musical vision. Unfortunately, this is the part of Ian's story that Deborah has the least access to--the writer Ian and the stage Ian is someone she barely knew--, and so it is simply not dealt with. We get no sense of what music meant to Ian nor what he was looking for in it, and without some kind of understanding of the music it is very difficult to understand Ian. Instead we get a story about a relationship and a cliched one at that. Sympathetic as we are with Deborah, rock wives rarely lead happy lives, and in biopics they almost always look like obstacles to their more talented husbands artistic urges & drives. Thats true here as well. And sad as the relationship between Ian and Deborah was it is simply one part of a larger story.

The other perspective on display here is the directors. As one might suspect from that very romantic film poster, director Anton Corbijn knows Ian as a photographic object. And, as a visual object itself, the film is primarily a chance for Corbijn to display his own considerable gifts for grim yet starkly beautiful composition. From both the still photographs that he took of the actual band circa 1980 (which should have been included in the DVD extra gallery) and from the film itself, one can understand that Corbijn felt a deep connection to Ian & Ian's unique romantic/existential sensibility and vision. As compelling and convincing as the film sometimes is, it is a work of art made by an artist that has his own ideas about what made Ian what he was and what made the music what it was. But, like all great artists, Ian was more than just the sum of his many influences (William Wordsworth, Lou Reed, Brain Eno, David Bowie, Roxy Music, Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop, Apocalypse Now, Werner Herzog...) and so no mere visual record of these influences and sources from which he drew will ever fully explain the artists own vision. Artists recognize greatness in others but the good ones always transcend their sources. Ian Curtis' true sources of inspiration are & will remain mysterious, no film can really know or show what Ian was or knew or what he felt when listening to a favorite song or reading a favorite book; no one can know what Ian was to Ian. Biopics are intriguing and frustrating because they are, at best, speculative. Though the film faithfully represents Deborah's version of things, the key moments in this life are ones that no one had any access to but Ian (how does anyone really know what he watched, or listened to, or thought in those last moments?). Faced with unknowability, it is our nature to be curious and to speculate but one should not mistake speculation for truth. As a result, the most valuable part of this DVD to those fans of Ian the artist and his formidable band mates (given short shrift in this film) will be the actual footage (not included in the actual film but included as a DVD extra along with Corbijn's 1988 video for Atmosphere and the Killers video for Shadowplay) of the real Joy Division playing Transmission.

Powered by Associate-O-Matic

T-shirts, Posters

Pentagram T-shirts, bags, etc...

Gothic Posters