Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. Good god, these Toronto reports are killing me. One great film after another, it sounds like. I think Corbijn has long been one of the grand masters of the music video, and his work as a still photographer is beautiful and fascinating. I’m thrilled to hear from so many people that he’s done a great job with his first narrative feature, and the news that he shot this in 2.35:1 black-and-white gives me a major cinematography chubby. So how is it, Copernicus?
There is a stereotype that when music video directors try to break into the world of feature filmmaking they can layer on the flash and verve, but telling a story and developing solid characters gives them fits. With CONTROL Anton Corbijn not only avoids this trap, he goes as far as he can in the other direction and in the process he's created a timeless, masterful feature debut about Ian Curtis and Joy Division. Of course calling Anton Corbijn a music video director is like calling Andy Warhol a silkscreener -- he's really an artist that sometimes makes videos. Whether you know it or not, you've seen his work -- he's shot for Rolling Stone, Spin, and Vogue, and photographed a boatload of musicians, and if you've seen a photo of U2 or Depeche Mode, there is a good chance it was shot by him. He's helped to shape the image and imagery of both bands, including directing videos such iconic videos as "Personal Jesus" and the original version of "One." CONTROL sticks right to the history -- it follows Ian Curtis (Sam Riley) as he falls in love and marries his sweetheart Debbie (Samantha Morton) at a young age, and becomes the lead singer of a group that will eventually become Joy Division. As the stresses of the band, having a child, and a medical condition pile up, his marriage becomes strained, and he starts seeing a Belgian groupie, Annik Honoré, played by the stunning Alexandra Maria Lara. Torn between the two, and plagued with fits of epilepsy, Ian's life slowly disintegrates. Corbijn excels at black and white photography, so it will come as no surprise that he opts for monochromatism here. I can't imagine the film would have the same impact in color. Whatever limits this imposes at the box office it more than makes up for in terms of artistic power. When asked why he did this at the screening I attended, Corbijn, said simply that in his mind he associates the band and that era with black and white. He's being modest. He also gave credit to his cinematographer, who he claims helped him because, as Corbijn said, "I am no good at shadows." I thought this was hillarious, but nobody seemed to get it -- I think more people were there because they are fans of Joy Division rather than fans of Corbijn. Well, one other person in the audience seemed to be laughing his ass off -- I think it was Daniel Lanois, a man that has helped to shape bands sonically as much as Corbijn has visually, especially U2. The absolute revelation here is Sam Riley, as Ian Curtis. He's shows every side of Curtis, from loving and talented to haunted and lonely. There are so few young male actors who succeed as coming across as anything other than the pretty boy, but Riley shows real depth. His performance is heartbreaking. He even re-recorded the songs with the rest of the actors playing his band mates, although you almost can't tell it is not Joy Division. (New Order, formed from the remnants of Joy Division, oversaw the music on the film.) There can sometimes be a tendency to mythologize in biopics, but here Corbijn made no attempt to smooth over the rough spots in Curtis' short, rocky life. Most movies about musicians sweep infidelity under the rug, or pay it only lip service -- just a minor distraction on the path to lionizing their subject. Here it is front and center. In that sense, the scope of the picture is much broader than a snapshot of one person at a particular time -- this could be any relationship that starts off as loving equals, but becomes radically unbalanced as one achieves success and the other is left behind. The story is based on a book by Deborah Curtis, Ian's widow, and she's also a producer, but Corbijn said he only agreed to take on the film if everyone agreed that he would have total control over the story. Debbie is relatively blameless, but at times she seems like an anchor weighing down a creative genius. As fans, we all want a piece of Ian Curtis, but so does she, and the more she gets him, the less we do. The film never addresses this directly, but it is one of the strands in what feels like a web of tension spun by Corbijn. Ultimately, Ian Curtis withdraws not only from his wife and his lover, but from the audience itself, as he refuses to take the stage at one of his shows, provoking a riot. It is an apt metaphor – everyone gets addicted to him, and without him they lose control. Curtis can an asshole on the surface, but at his core he wants to please those that love him. In the end, his tragic flaw is that he is unable to wreck another life to save his own.
