2007: Control

Control (Corbijn, 2007) 10/10

The past is part of my future, the present is well out of hand (Heart and Soul)

Upon a brief inspection, premature death and art appear to be cosmologically entwined entities. A quick perusal through the past three hundred years exposes a wealth of artists who died in the hallowed visages of youth.

Whether it be through accidental circumstances or premeditation, scholars and followers have canonized those who perished in their prime: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Arthur Rimbaud and Charlie Parker all died before their fortieth birthdays; Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain never reached thirty. And then there is the case of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis.

While the likes of Charlie Parker and Janis Joplin succumbed to excess, Ian Curtis' demise is particularly tragic, yet quotidian in comparison. Curtis' suicide at the age of 23 was not the product of senseless drug abuse or rock n' roll decadence, but the result of variegated factors ranging from severe depression, his declining health due to epilepsy, the collapse of his marriage and the pressures of fame. It is elements such as these that Dutch photographer and music video director Anton Corbijn explores in his beautiful and haunting analysis of Curtis' life in his stunning debut feature film Control.

Primarily based upon Curtis' widow Deborah's memoir Touching From A Distance and interviews, Corbijn's film is a unique entry into the music film canon. Despite, Corbijn's acknowledged devotion to Joy Division and his noted work with them as a photographer and director of their 1980 single Atmosphere, Corbijn's film is not a biased martyrdom of Curtis, but rather a balanced and critical study of the singer's life and fate.

Beginning in the industrial Northwest town of Macclesfield, Corbijn's film tracks Curtis' life from the solitary introspective years as a teenager stealing prescription medicines, listening to David Bowie records and reading the works of J.G. Ballard. There Curtis (Sam Riley) meets his future wife Deborah (Samantha Morton) whom he quickly marries as a teenager. Settling into work as a civil servant, Curtis soon absconds married life to return to his teenage practice of locking himself away with his books, music and writing materials.

After witnessing the Sex Pistols perform in Manchester, Curtis meets the future members of Joy Division Bernard Sumner (James Anthony Pearson), Peter Hook (Joe Anderson) and Stephen Morris (Harry Treadaway). Operating under their tentative name Warsaw, the band acquire a record contract with Manchester media mogul Tony Wilson's (Craig Parkinson) Factory label and begin to record. With Deborah now pregnant, Ian struggles to fulfill his marital duties, as well as those in his civil servant position and touring.

However, the sudden realization that Curtis is an epileptic further hinders his daily regimen, as he is prescribed an array of experimental drugs that affect his mood and personality. Avoiding doctor's orders to abstain from alcohol and late nights, Curtis engages in the weary trappings of the road, including an affair with a Belgian fan Annik Honore (Alexandra Maria Lara). His relationship with Deborah and his newborn child become increasingly strained, as his mental and physical health deteriorates.

In Control,Corbijn presents an engaging, bleak, yet surprisingly amusing portrait of Ian Curtis that feels authentic in its complexity. Utilizing real locations and unfamiliar actors, Corbijn avoids the cliched structures of traditional music cinematic biographies by presenting the film in the minimalist fashion of the British "Kitchen Sink" cinema of the 1950's and 1960's. The crisp and sharp black and white cinematography by German cinematographer Martin Ruhe superbly captures the period in its haunting photographic quality, which culminates in the film's superb tracking shot that captures Curtis' two minute walk to work and the film's devastating finale.

Set to the music of early Joy Division incarnation Warsaw's No Love Lost, the former sequence astutely ensnares the mood of the punk period, as Curtis troops to work past decaying houses, elderly citizens and diminutive cars, whilst wearing a jacket emblazoned with the self-painted legend "HATE" on the back. This segment is also interesting in its circadian nature. While most rock stars are envisaged as spending countless hours in chic lofts spectacularly wasted or composing music, Curtis is viewed in Control as an everyday figure going to work and an informal member of the array of autodidactic working class pseudo-intellectuals that populated post-punk music during this era such as The Fall's Mark E. Smith, the Gang of Four and John Lydon.

Corbijn also arrestingly posits Curtis within the theme of control. Throughout the film, Ian Curtis is pictured as a control freak, desperately trying to utilize others to his specifications. Yet, through his bouts with epilepsy, the failure of his marriage, his hyper-impulsive personality and the myriad of prescriptions he is forced to consume, Curtis quickly embodies a figure rapidly losing control over his life and his health. Prone to volcanic outbursts and recoiling introspection, Curtis becomes increasingly detached and alienated from those around him as the film progresses.

The pressures of fame produce another interesting theme within Corbijn's film. The strain of a multitude of commitments and demands results in Sam Riley's Curtis pleading for a return to earlier times, when the band were a local phenomenon. Yet, fatefully despite his increasingly personal lyrics meditating on suicide, death and his loss of control, we witness those around him shrug off his suffering words and cries for help as mere examples of his genius and his art.

In the decades since Curtis' death, the suicides of morose figures such as Kurt Cobain and Elliott Smith demonstrate the continued failure of the media and record companies to identify such traits beyond the realms of art. Control subsequently offers a warning from the past about the realities and pressures of fame. With Sam Riley's astutely breathtaking turn as Ian Curtis, these traits are brought to life in all their warm and cold tendencies. Samantha Morton's role as Curtis' long-suffering widow Deborah achieves a full-bodied performance that feels representative of her character's repressed desire to step out of her dour loveless life.

Coolly directed, superbly acted and stylishly shot, Control is a fantastic, breathtaking and melancholy paean to Ian Curtis' troubled life and legend. In Control director Anton Corbijn creates an axiomatic portrait that avoids genre cliches in favour of documentary minimalism. Although Corbijn could have offered more insight into Curtis' childhood and relationship with his parents, the director's decision to break with hackneyed portrayals of Curtis as simply a brooding and insular being is refreshing.

Thus, the Ian Curtis of Control is subsequently a detailed, multi-dimensional figure inlayed with paradoxes and doubts, yet also an extremely spontaneous, caring and humorous young man. Thus, the mythical character apotheosized in books and articles becomes effortlessly human and genuine under Corbijn's careful eye and Riley's superlative-inducing performance. Featuring a star making effort by newcomer Sam Riley, Control is an indie masterpiece and a perfect example of how cinematic biopics should be constructed aesthetically and contextually.

The best film of 2007.

* Control is available on R2 DVD from Monumental on February 12th

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque