Control
In 1980, Ian Curtis, 23, the lead singer of Joy Division, took his own life.
His suicide cast a dark shadow over the band, sealing their image as prophets of postpunk doom.
Anton Corbijn’s Curtis biopic, Control, both mythologizes and undercuts the image of Curtis as the depressive bard of the Manchester music scene.
Sam Riley, who looks like Curtis, is good in the concert sequences, flinging his arms around in the singer’s trademark martial strut.
He addressed his condition of epileptic fits in “She’s Lost Control,” one of Joy Division’s most powerful arresting songs.
Shot in austere black-and-white, Control is, among other things, about the tension that Curtis felt between need for a normal home life and the temptations of rock stardom, a conflict that ultimately tore him apart–and cost him his life.
