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I meant to write about this weeks ago and got sidetracked; hopefully I won’t misremember it too badly because I thought it was tremendous.
It’s not a depressing or a gloomy film. It’s a painful film. I’ll fess up to holding back tears over the end credits. I expected to feel sympathy for Debbie, and I did. I think I was most impressed by the fact that, as brb says, without making excuses for him or presenting him as the tortured artist the film managed to make me feel a great deal of sympathy for Curtis as well. For everybody affected by his isolation and sense of being simultaneously trapped and pulled apart really, because inevitably it had consequences for them as well, they were also not in a position to control the situation. There’s a moment where the film shows the couple in bed where Curtis just seems so distraught that you feel horrible for both of them, and that seemed like such a convincing snapshot of the entirely un-iconic event of Curtis coming to terms with the loss of his own desire and the situation that he, and they, were trapped in, and quite a singular piece of filmmaking in that it was brave enough to show male impotence and male weakness exactly where we’d expect a rock star to be shown at their most iconic. I was so impressed with the way the film balanced showing Curtis using his control over others to hurt them and in turn it being his inability to exert control over the forces in his life, the friction as he attempted to, being the thing that damaged him and kept him in a situation where he couldn’t help but be causing other people pain.
I also didn’t really view it as an intellectual film. The issues most prominent in the film are ones that I think most people would find highly resonant. I think the high point of the film for me was around the mid-point when you see Curtis struggling to balance all the different pressures (family, relationships, work, aspiration, health) and inevitably failing, and the way in which the increasingly proficient Joy Division releases (I think the actors performed the majority of the songs, getting better as the film went along?) were inter-cut as though they were feeding off the energies in Curtis’ life.
I think the film, though it’s primarily about the relationships in Curtis’ life and secondarily about the music he helped to produce, did a good job of both using that music in the film (the selection and performance of the songs seemed, to me, incredibly successful in both highlighting one of the possible mappings one could use between the lyrical content and the events in his life and acting as a reminder that Joy Division didn’t produce morose Northern dirges, that their strength was in the actively painful and angry qualities of their music, they way it would take the authoritative and dynamic energies present as if to drive them inwards on the performer as much as the listener) and it certainly got me thinking about my individual relationship listening to Joy Division’s songs. I probably started listening to them when I came to university when I guess I was about 18, and because the film reminds you at several points just how young Curtis was it occurred to me as I was leaving the cinema that I’m actually older than he was when he died, that I’m moving away from that period of my life where everything was so intensely experienced and at times overwhelming, into one that Curtis will obviously never experience, which just seemed so strange really.
And I think that’s relevant because Curtis’ life was overwhelmed by these problems and too keenly felt emotions at a stage in his life that most people can, I think, I relate to in a similar way. Corbijn said something similar:
Sitting at home, looking at my contact sheets from the early ’80’s, I started to feel that period again: how the wind felt when you were waiting for the bus, the despair of having no money, and the ritual of buying a record and playing it… I have come full-circle in a way and finished that part of my life now, the part that was dominated by the desires and emotions I felt in my teenage years.
And again, I can relate to that, though quite obviously differently to Corbijn looking back twenty-odd years; I think again that’s because of the way the film uses the everyday, the recognisable to create empathy with the characters and make an understanding of their situation possible. Going out on a bit more of a limb but I wondered if perhaps the choice to shoot in black and white was also an attempt to reflect the more stark way of perceiving the world that Curtis might have had: there might be different degrees of shading but that ultimately everything is one thing or another, black and white, good and bad, you can try for a while but ultimately everything must resolve itself into one thing or another. You love someone or you don’t, ultimately you have to be with one person or another. The fact that that’s evidently not true, that life is more complex than that, doesn’t mean that sometimes it feels that way. But I guess I’m speculating now.
I wasn’t sure the black and white cinematography and lighting were always successful, though it’s one of the things I’d be interested in other people’s views on; haven’t quite worked out why it worked or didn’t work for me in the places where it felt odd. There was an early scene when Curtis and Debbie were out in the countryside which just felt strange in black and white, but it happened throughout the film as well, the too perfect lighting and the lapses into silence made some scenes feel overly artificial when the film would have benefited from highlighting their mundanity. The occasional sound of traffic might have helped some scenes not feel like they were being staged as part of an earnest character drama. But in other places it seemed perfectly suited to the material, as above, the sharpness and the clarity of the picture seemed to reinforce the sense that this was a world where feelings were deeply held, I don’t think the film often settles for just a general malaise, it’s kept tense and uncomfortable throughout. And there are iconic moments, though for me I think they appeared as quite unexpected ones. There’s a scene early on when the band are setting out on tour and you see Curtis and the landscape behind him, and I don’t quite know what it was but it seemed to perfectly if maybe only subjectively capture that sense of what it must have been like and the experience of being there, going on a journey with friends but also the wider connections and feelings of seeing it the way Curtis might have. And it’s a beautiful shot, but in other ways it’s of a very ordinary and uneventful scene, only that the focus and cinematography charge it with a special force. There are moments of “iconic, visual beauty”, but I think often they’re used to highlight the beauty in everyday life and postures, and more generally I was impressed with how much emphasis is placed on Curtis not as an artist or intellectual but just as a young man, in a certain period, with certain sensibilities and aspirations but not as someone special or elevated or somehow inaccessible.
Sam Riley is uncannily similar to Curtis at times, though unfortunately also slightly reminiscent of Kris Marshall I thought. The performances overall though were excellent, and Marshall’s replication of Curtis’ movements was suitably disturbing and uncomfortable. There are moments of unexpected humour as well, e.g. “in my fuckoff pocket”, and the John Cooper Clarke cameo was pretty good too. I guess my biggest peeve was really nothing to do with the film, it was walking out afterwards and seeing “The Coolest British Movie of 2007” plastered all over the poster, The Independent maybe predictably rather missing the point about how uncool the characters and their relationships are, about the tension throughout the film between the iconic and stylish and the responsibilities and pressure of everyday life. Anyway, sorry, it was annoyingly distracting. Definitely the most affecting, considered film I’ve seen this year. |
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