Control (2007) [Blu-ray] Overview
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
Customer Reviews
You know the story. Ian Curtis, singer and songwriter of Joy Division, tragically ending her young life only as one of the most influential British bands post-punk of the late 70's began their meteoric rise to fame.
This film, has asked to be shot in black and white, and luckily Anton Corbijn has the good sense to do so. The camera, guests (if you call a "score" they want - especially songs by other artists such as Bowie, Lou Reed and Kraftwerk who influenced Curtis), andCasting are all top. Sam Riley is uncanny as Ian Curtis and Samantha Morton as Debbie Curtis and Alexandra Maria Lara as Annik Honore probably would cast even better. Tony Kebbel is a football, like Rob Gretton Clock.
How long does it know the film focuses mainly on the relationship between Curtis and his wife and his affair with Annik Honoré, okay. And there are enough musical material in most Joy Division fans, which, as I add content thrown, when more thanas realistic as you would expect from a movie. However, there are two or three parts of the film, which can be critical. The first is technical in nature, but is huge for me. It is a scene in the studio when the engineer Taping "isolation" is - Ian is laying down the vocal track added to the existing band. Why in God's name, after so much effort involved, as Riley Curtis Sound (which was in 90% of the films surprising success), that allow him to singIsolation in a way that does nothing sounds like Curtis? This scene completely mystifies me. Riley sounds like a choir boy sick, so I expect the coach to say: "Ian, what's wrong ?"... but at the end of the song, he says, in effect, "great job, that's a wrap. Sorry, no. The vocal track is not even close to reality. The second problem is with the ending. Corbijn probably lay nearby, Ian took his life, mainly because of his anxiety to relationship problems, his love forAnnik and guilt for what he did his wife. This is of course entirely possible, and no one will ever know the truth, but who knows the history, music, text, environment seems epilepsy .... this implication a little 'too simple (although to be honest, since the film on the book by Debbie Curtis' "Touching From a Distance" was based, perhaps Corbijn tries to stay true to what she had written, and I have not read the book). Also made it seem CorbijnCurtis's suicide was almost a last minute or as a "last hour" decision. Once again .... maybe. But it rang true, but my sense of what was appropriate. Results may vary. Finally, I was disappointed there was no reference to the album "Closer, even though we hear tracks from it. Strange, to say the least.
Definitely a movie to see, but for the real fan of Joy Division, Grant Gee use the documentation. Superb.
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