Is Ian Curtis just another spoiled rock star, consumed by his own ego to the detriment of all around him, and his subsequent legend yet another bloated entry in the long list of over-hyped, prematurely dead musicians?
You could certainly try and argue the case. If you knew the bare facts of the story. BUt Control, the new film documenting the short life of the Joy Division singer, impeccably presents all sides of the events leading up to his death in 1983, and succeeds in making his tragic suicide all the more overwhelming as a result.
The basic facts are well-known by any music fan – Curtis, an epileptic, was found hung in his house by his wife at the age of 23. Anton Corbijn, better known as a photographer who has taken iconic images of Joy Division and U2, to name a couple, carefully and unemotionally explores Curtis’ adolescence, his family, his job, his early marriage, the formation of the band Warsaw, later to become Joy Division. Curtis becomes, for a while, the calm at the centre of a storm, as pressure of money, work and family and events build up around him and lead him to utter “I feel like I’ve lost control”. Then, to complicate matters, he suffers a serious fit, and is diagnosed as epileptic. The calm has become the storm.
Far from being the grey, depressing stereotype of early eighties independent music, Curtis is portrayed as a hard-working, sensitive family man. But once he is tempted by a Belgian fan, Aniike, into an extra-marital affair it’s not long before his marriage breaks up and the psychological pressure on him becomes immense. He loves his wife, but sees his life as small, northern and parochial. He loves Aniike, too. His stage performance is intense, dark, brooding and alien. The actor who plays him bears and uncanny physical similarity and brings a down to earth realism to the part.
Shot in beautiful monochrome, it captures the stark drabness of Manchester, dark working mens pubs, the backs of vans and the tired sofas of cramped living rooms. Other things to look out for are the inevitably comic portrayal of Tony Wilson, and spot on portrayals of Barney Sumner and Peter Hook.
By the time Curtis’s cremated ashes rise up in smoke to join the persistent, grey Manchester atmosphere, accompanied by his band’s song of the same name, it takes a hard heart not to feel the loss of this interesting, enigmatic man.