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Features
• NTSC
In Theaters : 2007
DVD Release : 03 June, 2008 |
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Control description
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 |
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Control: The Short, Unhappy Life of Joy Division's Ian Curtis.
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Based on Deborah Curtis's book, [[ASIN:0571174450 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 HonorA , 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, [[ASIN:B000059PPT Stroszek]], and listening to Iggy Pop's [[ASIN:B000000WH7 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 |
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