I just got back from watching Anton Corbijn’s film Control in the theater. The film is about Ian Curtis, the singer for Joy Division who committed suicide when he was 23. I must admit I wasn’t familiar with Corbign’s work, other than knowing he was the photographer behind U2’s Joshua Tree album cover along with various other iconic images (like Bowie’s picture for his stage role in The Elephant Man). Looking him up now it’s suddenly clear I’ve actually seen a lot of his work, as he’s done music videos for Echo & the Bunnymen, Depeche Mode, Front 242, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Johnny Cash, Metallica, Nirvana, and many more. Corbijn personally knew Curtis and bases his film on the memoir by Deborah Curtis, the singer’s wife (she also worked on the film as producer). Her role in the film is played by Samantha Morton, a riveting actress who was twice-nominated for Academy Awards – first for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in Sweet and Lowdown (1999) and then Best Actress in a Leading Role for In America (2002)

I grew up listening to a lot of bands that hailed from the Manchester scene; Joy Division, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, New Order, The Smiths (and later Morrissey), Simply Red, The Fall, The Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses, The Verve, Badly Drawn Boy, and surely others that don’t come to mind at the moment. No surprise, then, that I should have greatly enjoyed Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People (2002). Not so coincidentally, that film provided a feature film debut for a young actor by the name of Sam Riley who, in Control, captivates in the lead role as Ian Curtis. I have to admit that I originally watched Control for four reasons: 1) Black-and-white celluloid! 2) 2.35:1 widescreen composition, 3) the music, and 4) Samantha Morton.

I first saw Morton in Under the Skin (1997), about a woman gripped by tragedy whose personality undergoes a slow disintegration. She made a big impression with the critics (James Berardinelli starts his review of the film by saying “There are times when a performance can carry an entire motion picture…”), and I’d next see her in Sweet and Lowdown and Jesus’ Son (both 1999). But her big year was definitely 2002, when she worked on four projects: Morvern Callar, In America, a TV voice-over on Max and Ruby, and Minority Report (!). Morton’s one of those actresses that can actually pull off roles that require her to play a much younger person, and she’s great in Control. But Riley is the one here to be commended for an exceptional performance that brings Curtis’ stage antics, womanizing, brooding, and epileptic fits to the forefront in a way that is both commanding and yet humbly humanizing.

Corbijn’s direction is also due for praise. He was clearly the right man for the job. His work is economical, graceful, careful in its compositions, and his choices for the soundtrack never overpower the image but rather help build up emotional power in a way that always feels organic. Also: the choice for black-and-white cinematography (kudos here to Martin Ruhe) was bold and perfect. And the casting is top-notch. Toby Kebbell’s performance, as band manager Rob Gretton, can’t help but remind one of Steve Coogan – but manages to nail it both ways; being serious as a heart-attack one moment and then hitting the comedic high note the next. The rest of the cast is also rock-solid. No-one falters.

The mood set by Control is so intense that, later on in the film, when Ian Curtis mentions watching Apocalypse Now, the effect is jarring. This viewer was so immersed in the moody world of shadows and stark contrasts created by Corijn that it was hard to reconcile this being the same universe that would screen Coppola’s color-crazy visions full of flares, fireworks, and explosions. But, yes, somehow it’s 1979…