Tag Archives: Ian Curtis

Joy Division

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Joy

 

Grant Gee's documentary Joy Division covers the all-too-brief history of the eponymous post-punk band from Manchester. Joy Division was tragically short-lived, only completing two albums before lead singer Ian Curtis' suicide in 1980, but disproportionately influential. Their sound is all over the early U2 albums Boy and October, and the contemporary band Interpol has made a career out of emulating Joy Division's sound.

Gee sets the scene of late 1970s Manchester as a grimy hellhole in which "there's nothing pretty." The core members of the band are perversely inspired by a Sex Pistols concert (their review: "shite, a car crash") to form their own band. Photographer and filmmaker Anton Corbijn took some of the most memorable portraits of the band. Used to Holland's health care system, he was shocked to see poverty in England. He describes Joy Division as undernourished and shivering in their thin coats. Gee also interviews Peter Sav­ille, the graphic designer that cre­ated the remark­ably stark album sleeves that were almost as influ­en­tial as the music itself. Early cham­pion Tony Wil­son, host of the TV show “So It Goes” and later Fac­tory Records impre­sario appears. Ear­lier the sub­ject of Michael Winterbottom’s fan­tas­tic biopic 24 Hour Party Peo­ple. Cur­tis’ widow Deb­o­rah does not seem to have par­tic­i­pated, but her side of the story appears in the excel­lent biopic Con­trol (read The Dork Report review), co-produced by her and directed by Corbijn.

joy_division_1.jpgMal­nour­ished and shiv­er­ing in their thin coats: a famous por­trait of Joy Divi­sion by Anton Corbijn

Ian Cur­tis is described as a reg­u­lar lad who fre­quently bought flow­ers for his wife. In other words, the oppo­site of punk. But he’s also char­ac­ter­ized as “bipo­lar,” moody and unpre­dictable even before his epilepsy man­i­fested itself in fre­quent, dra­matic grand mal seizures. His sin­gu­lar stage pres­ence was marked by his pecu­liar form of dance inspired by his seizures (and some­times he actu­ally expe­ri­enced seizures on stage). The nec­es­sary drug treat­ments caused huge mood swings, fur­ther com­pro­mis­ing his already unsteady men­tal health. Cur­tis con­tin­ued his day job Help­ing dis­abled peo­ple for the Civil Ser­vice even as the band was tak­ing off. In a heart­break­ing bit of syn­chronic­ity, his clas­sic song She’s Lost Con­trol is about an epilep­tic girl he met though his work.

Ian Curtis of Joy DivisionIan Cur­tis of Joy Division

Grant Gee’s clear exper­tise is musi­cal doc­u­men­tary. His 1998 doc­u­men­tary Meet­ing Peo­ple is Easy famously cap­tures Radio­head break­ing through to mass pop­u­lar­ity as their 1998 album OK Com­puter is almost uni­ver­sally declared the album of the year. The frank film shows emo­tion­ally frag­ile Thom Yorke almost phys­i­cally recoil­ing from fame, but receiv­ing wise coun­sel from men­tor Michael Stipe. Gee also co-directed the excel­lent 2005 Goril­laz con­cert film Demon Days Live at the Man­ches­ter Opera House, bet­ter even than the stu­dio album that pre­ceded it. Both films have per­ma­nent spots in The Dork Report’s DVD shelf.

Offi­cial movie site: JoyDivisionMovie.co.uk

Buy the DVD from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report.

Control

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Control

 

Con­trol is a rare musi­cal biopic to appeal to me, even though I am only barely famil­iar with the music of Joy Divi­sion, and even less so of the his­tory of trag­i­cally doomed lead singer Ian Cur­tis. To tes­tify to the film’s power, I imme­di­ately pur­chased The Best of Joy Divi­sion right after watch­ing the movie. Lis­ten­ing more deeply to them for the first time, I’m struck by how much influ­ence they obvi­ously had on even the biggest bands of today, most obvi­ously Inter­pol but also no less than U2 (espe­cially in their first three albums, and in Adam Clayton’s bass playing).

ControlTrans­mis­sion

Con­trol begins with Cur­tis (Sam Riley) as a young lad in 1970s Man­ches­ter, absorb­ing all the rock star lessons that are there to be heard in David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane. He applies androg­y­nous glam-rock makeup mod­eled after Bowie and Brian Eno, pops pills (ironic, con­sid­er­ing the wide cock­tail of drugs he’s later pre­scribed when his epilepsy man­i­fests), writes anguished poetry, and sees the Sex Pis­tols live in their prime: “they were crap.” But his own band Joy Divi­sion cre­ates a gen­uine new sound, a world apart from glam or punk. They seize the atten­tion of Man­ches­ter music scene maven Tony Wil­son (Craig Parkin­son) with a hand-scrawled note read­ing “JOY DIVISION YOU CUNT,” hand-delivered imme­di­ately before a scorch­ingly intense live set. Wil­son, him­self immor­tal­ized by Steve Coogan in Michael Winterbottom’s bril­liant biopic 24 Hour Party Peo­ple, becomes their great­est advo­cate, lit­er­ally sign­ing their con­tract to Fac­tory Records in his own blood.

ControlLove Will Tear Us Apart

Cur­tis’ fame came before the com­forts of money. He found him­self on the cov­ers of mag­a­zines, offered a tour of Amer­ica, and desired by exotic women while still reliant on a depress­ing desk job and tor­tured by his own ambiva­lence towards his young fam­ily. Saman­tha Mor­ton plays his wife Deb­o­rah as a shy, overly trust­ing girl. The real Deb­o­rah was later to write her auto­bi­og­ra­phy and co-produce this film with Tony Wilson.

Direc­tor Anton Cor­bijn is most famous for his music videos and por­traits, includ­ing the iconic The Joshua Tree sleeve for U2. Even though this is his first fea­ture film, he is inti­mately expe­ri­enced with the art of cap­tur­ing rock (and rock stars) on film.

Offi­cial movie site: www.control-movie.com

Buy the DVD from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report.