Control (2007)

People are voting emotionally.

One of my all time favorites.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I started listening to Joy Division very recently and after liking a lot of their songs and doing a lot of reading about the band and Ian Curtis, I thought it would be a good idea to give this movie a watch, since the band had such a low life span and Ian Curtis was a very interesting character.The movie described Ian Curtis as "sad", "quiet", and an "outcast", and I'm sure in real life he was, but in the movie Curtis just acts like a regular guy, it isn't really until he gets on stage and starts performing when Sam Riley starts to transform himself into Curtis with his strange dancing and awkward eye movements. I don't necessarily think this is Sam Riley's fault, maybe the director should take the blame for that, it would've been really nice to see him act more like an outsider that had a hard time fitting in with the rest of the band and society. Another glaring issue I had was that I felt absolutely no sympathy for Ian Curtis during this movie, he marries his brothers girlfriend, has a child with her, and then cheats on her, and then starts to get angry with her for wanting a divorce because he's having an affair. If anything I felt more sympathy for Debbie than Ian, she's constantly making tea for him and taking care of their child but Ian just acts like a total jackass and has a bunch of seizures. I don't know if this was on purpose? I don't remember hearing that Ian Curtis was a jerk in real life but maybe he was? This combined with him not really acting like a sad outcast at all just makes the movie feel kind of phony to me.The length of the movie is perfect, I usually feel like a lot of movies I watch go on for a bit too long, but the length wasn't an issue at all for me-- What was an issue was how they structured the movie within the running time, they should've focused a lot more on how Ian Curtis joined the band, and them growing together, but there's barely any of that in the movie which is a shame because a lot of the time that's the most interesting part of a rock band.The main things that I enjoyed were the visuals, there were a lot of great shots that mix in perfectly with the black and white, also I love the fact that the movie is in black and white since almost every image of the band and Ian Curtis that you can find is in black and white. A lot of the acting was great but like I said earlier I think the main issue might've been directing and writing. Another thing I enjoyed were the live performances, mainly since this is really the only time in the movie where I felt like Sam Riley was acting like Ian Curtis, and they definitely did a good job of mirroring the few live performances of Joy Division that are on video.In conclusion I was a bit underwhelmed with the movie, if you're a fan of Joy Division you've probably already watched it, and if you're not a fan of Joy Division then there's not really any reason to watch it.

It's 1973 Macclesfield, England. Ian Curtis (Sam Riley) is a quiet enigmatic student. He marries Debbie Woodruff (Samantha Morton) in 1975. He works as an employment agent. On June 4, 1976, they attend a small Sex Pistols concert. Also in attendance are Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Terry Mason. Ian joins them as their lead singer. They call themselves Warsaw and eventually Joy Division.There is a sense of disconnection from this movie and a mystery about Ian Curtis. Sam Riley's performance, the long takes, and the black and white photography all make Ian an enigma. It's a slow burn but compelling. The tone is sad and respectful. It's very fitting of the band and its music.

Astonishingly well acted film, so much so that it seems unfair to single out any of the performances. Mr. Lawrence's camera sense is as sure and unobtrusive as his feel for acting. The movie just seems to happen, to grow out of the ground like a thorny plant, revealing the intricate intelligence of its design only in hindsight. As a JD fan, I thought it was done in a way that even non-JD fans could enjoy it. All of the actors playing the JD band members actually played their instruments and performed those songs... it wasn't just Reilly overdubbing vocals over original JD recordings! That is something that really impresses me about the skills of the actors chosen for the band. True, Curtis was a genius, but he was also human... I felt this film was grounded in reality without trying to evangelize/make a martyr out of Curtis.

Control is a rock biopic about Joy Division's frontman, Ian Curtis. It is filmed in brilliant black-and-white, with superb performances from Sam Riley and from the two-time Academy Award nominated actress, Samantha Morton. The photography was superb too, it set the right tone for the era, it was bleak and depressingly beautiful. The director Anton Corbijn has photographed Joy Division in his early years, so he's familiar with them and he definitely knows how to handle a film about Curtis. It was also based on the book "Touching from a Distance," written by Curtis' widow Deborah.Sam Riley who was relatively unknown in that year put on a brilliant act as Curtis, while Samantha Morton became the emotional center of the film, this is the first time I saw her, and I was really amazed with her performance and so I searched her films, and I found out that she's got a great list and she had been nominated twice for best supporting actress in the Academy Awards. She played the affectionate and loyal wife, Deborah.The film starts in the year 1973 in Macclesfield, England, "I've wanted to escape it my whole life," Curtis said. And it ends in 1980, the year when he escaped, by suicide. Curtis is gifted with poetry, and he's got some good taste for music and films. He became the vocalist for Joy Division in their short-run. At about the age of 20, he discovered that he is epileptic, it ruined his life, made him more depressed. His marriage is also falling apart, he can't accept he's a father now, he feels that his life won't go that far, and he started to have a secret relationship with another girl, Annik. His wife had found it out, I was very sad for Debbie because she was so loyal and always caring, and she's right about what she said, "I don't deserve this." Curtis is so complicated, it was always his melancholy that killed him, his band was rising into fame when he took off. His bandmates and friends tried to help, but he is unsalvageable. He doesn't want to be in the band anymore and he is pressured by his life and his disorder. No one can really decipher another person, and although there are times that I felt the same way as him, I can never really perfectly understand him. But maybe just because I'm no expert, but I feel him, at some point in his life and mine, we felt the same.The actors played some of Joy Division's songs, the film is filled with their live performances that again showed Sam Riley's terrific performance. The members of the band were played by James Anthony Pearson, Harry Treadaway, and one of my favorite actors, Joe Anderson. Toby Kebbel played the band manager, Rob Gretton.I discovered Joy Division when I was searching "Most Depressing Albums" in the internet, I saw "Unknown Pleasures" and "Closer" in one of the list I stumbled with. I downloaded "Closer" and listened to it, then searched for the band, I was surprised that they've had only two albums, and I found out that their vocalist died at a very young age, and that caught my attention because I was interested with depression and suicide, then I found out that there is a film about him, and that is how I discovered this film. I really loved their song "Love Will Tear Us Apart."By the way, the last film that Ian Curtis saw was Stroszek, a film that belonged to my list of greatest films.