It is now nearly a week since I saw the Ian Curtis/Joy Division biopic "Control" and it is still very much with me. It's rare these days for a feature film to get under my skin but "Control" is the winner by far in terms of my recent cinema jaunts. Probably the one thing that really stayed with me was a quote which is relayed as a voice-over moment (most probably extracted from letters written by Curtis to his Belgian lover Annik Honores - made accessible to the filmmaker by Annik). This is now a bit of a paraphrase but it was Curtis basically expressing that nobody had any idea how draining it was for him every time he went out on stage and performed. That it took something huge out of him that couldn't be replaced.
In the emotional deluge aftermath after seeing the film, I found myself swimming around all Ian Curtis' emotional aspects and the obvious catagories of his depressive personality mixed in with all the circumstances of his life (wife - lover - child) as well as his incredibly debilitating epileptic condition. But for me the thing that kept coming up was this comment re his performances and the drain/strain they caused him. It took me a few days to work out that Ian Curtis was something other-worldy compared to the many and varied singer song-writers of our recent modern rock history. Sure there are and were some intense and passionate stars out there from Neil Young to Iggy to Lou to Dylan blah blah blllaaah. But what I realised about Ian Curtis was that here was this pained depressive guy who wrote incredibly potent and personal poetry/lyrics, slotted them into this unique timeless aggressive yet majesterial new band called Joy Division, got up on stage and purged every word straight from this deep dark inner world and the result was something way beyond a "passionate performance"... I believe it was an emotional purge and an unrelenting unstoppable expulsion of his inner life. He was compelled to release it but at the same time it completely sapped and drained him....and I guess ultimately, it killed him. Well, HE killed him. "Control" is a powerful movie. I truly recommend it.
Some Super 8 footage of Joy Division shot my Malcolm Whitehead:
Check out Ian Curtis' daughter's myspace site: http://www.myspace.com/16apr79
She has great links to some articles she's published re her emotional reaction to the film.
Her name is Natalie Curtis and she's a photographer.
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