Control

So the day before we left New York, both my wife and I got a cold . Its odd how sometimes symptoms are different even though we both must have the same cold. Anyway I'm getting off track. When we arrived home I also had a back log of books and movies from the library to watch.

Today I came home from work early and after we watched the last episode of the third season of "Weeds", my wife took a nap and I watched the biopic,"Control" about Ian Curtis. It was in black and white and I didn't notice until the end of the film. I thought it was a good movie, told the same story I have read and seen about a young artist who struggles with his life. If you don't know anything about the band it would be a great way to expose yourself to it.

I was 12 years old when Ian Curtis died. I wouldn't become in touch with his band's music until many years after his death. Being exposed to the band that formed after his death, New Order before I listened to Joy Division, I have always felt like a voyeur listening to Joy Division. Fans of the band held the singer on a pedestal, like other fallen heroes, his bass-baritone voice the soundtrack to many a disconnected teens bedroom. I can even remember the first time I heard of him someone wearing a Sisters Of Mercy t-shirt told me that New Order could never live up to the legacy of their former singer, with a look of disdain on his face. I made peace with myself after listening to "Unknown Pleasures" enough times to call myself a fan. In a way it the song, "She's Lost Control" may have played a part in the music I would write years later. The production on that record was amazing. It was part of the reason for me watching this film.

The band had a short life and a huge legacy. The movie captures the look of the photos of that time, but having been part of a musical movement in history I know that's all movies can really do. They can't answer the unanswered questions, they can't reproduce the action, only the reaction to the narrative created by the film makers.

Control does a good job of creating the narrative. I thought the end spent a little too much time trying to answer the question that can't be answered, but other than that it was a good movie.