27 year old Sam Riley was previously best known to music fans, if at all, as the singer in slightly rubbish Leeds garage rockers 10,000 Things, whose debut album received a withering one-star review in Q in 2005. Now he’s set to be hailed as an actor of singular talent, responsible for one of the most mesmerising portrayals of a troubled rock star ever committed to film.
Having seen a press preview of Control – the Ian Curtis biopic rewarded with a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival, and released in the UK on 5 October – Q can say with some confidence: believe the hype. It’s an extraordinary film, not least because it avoids all temptation to idealize its subject. Curtis is portrayed throughout as a deeply flawed, self-serving, often immature individual, who treats his wife (Debbie Curtis, played by Samantha Morton) and child with callous insensitivity.
Even Curtis’ suicide is handled with a startling absence of sentimentality. There’s no redemptive conclusion, no sense that the 23 year-old Joy Division frontman’s suffering was redeemed by his art. Instead, the final scene, after Curtis has been found hanged, is simply a lingering close-up of a chimney spewing black smoke into a slate-grey Macclesfield sky. Soundtracked by the stately death march of Atmosphere, it’s an image that hangs in the memory long after the credits have rolled.
Similarly, Curtis’ descent into mental horror is carefully modulated, portrayed not through wild displays of emotion, but rather as a gradual retreat into isolation and, ultimately, silence. In one incredible scene, Curtis is confronted on his infidelity. There’s no screaming row. Instead, Curtis simply bows his head and says nothing as Deborah slowly backs him into a corner. For a full minute, not a word is spoken – yet it’s an utterly compelling piece of dramatic acting.
There are other strong performances, notably from Toby Kebbell as gregarious Joy Division manager Rob Gretton, whose bluff, foul-mouthed humour provides the only moments of relief in this otherwise remorselessly bleak film (shot, as you’d expect from a film directed by Anton Corbijn, in stark black and white). James Anthony Pearson also does a fine turn as softly-spoken, baby-faced guitarist Bernard Sumner.
Ultimately, however, it’s not a film about Joy Division (although the live performances are recreated with remarkable realism, right down to the muffled, early-80s toilet-venue acoustics). Rather, it’s a desolate psychodrama about family, responsibility, entrapment, and, more than anything, the fear of losing control - in all senses of that word. It’s also a film that, come October, every serious music fan will want to see.
10:36 AM | 04/07/2007
Latest News
-
Q's Daily B-Sides #27
What almost rocked our world today: Aerosmith, Green Day, No Doubt, Evanescence and much more
-
Q Gig in full: Alphabeat
The Danes enchant the audience with Euro-pop as they preview The Spell
-
Elbow: Exclusive Interview
Nine years on from it's release we quiz Elbow about Asleep In The Back
-
Take That announce live Dvd premiere
1000 tickets up for grabs for fans to attend The Circus Live Dvd launch
-
Gary Lightbody's Band of The Week: Week 19
Gary's in love with the language and prose of Cincinnati based Why?
-
Moby to play intimate Q show
Q Readers to pick the songs at unique gig, apply for free tickets.
Advertisement
User Comments
Post A Comment
Post A Comment