FRANCE: Movie on Joy Division singer Ian Curtis earns standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival

Record ID: 763498

  • Title: FRANCE: Movie on Joy Division singer Ian Curtis earns standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival
  • Date: 24th May 2007
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF SAM RILEY IN INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (English) BRITISH ACTOR SAM RILEY WHO PLAYS IAN CURTIS, SAYING "I knew that it was going to be very important that I got as close as possible to mimicking him on stage because there are some very enthusiastic dedicated Joy Division fans out there who would probably put a contract out on me if I didn't get it pretty close."
  • Embargoed: 8th June 2007 13:00
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  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Reuters ID: LVAAPPZVOEP0GAJ6Z26PJBTVJJCP
  • Story Text: 'Control', being shown at Cannes out of competition, drew applause from critics when it was screened. The film, shot entirely in black and white depicts the life and suicide of British band Joy Division's singer Ian Curtis. A film about the life and suicide of British band Joy Division's singer Ian Curtis was screened out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival to critical acclaim.
    'Control' was filmed by well-known Dutch rock photographer Anton Corbijn and has newcomer Sam Riley in the lead role.
    Riley who is himself a singer and had acting training as a teenager said, he was nervous about playing the role: "I knew that it was going to be very important that I got as close as possible to mimicking him on stage because there are some very enthusiastic Joy Division fans out there who would probably put a contract out on me if I didn't get it pretty close."
    The film is set in the 1970's Macclesfield, North-East England. Like most teenagers, Ian Curtis looked to find distraction from small-town urban life. For cheap thrills, with a friend, he helped look after old-aged pensioners and at the same time took samples of all their prescription drugs. Broke, he fuelled his main passion in life, music. MC5, The Doors, Velvet Underground, Roxy Music and David Bowie were amongst his favourite. Despite not playing an instrument, he had an inner determination to make music his life.
    At 19 , he married local girl Deborah Woodruff.
    At a Sex Pistols concert, Ian met Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook. It's a meeting that sowed the seed to the forming of a band called Warsaw. Ian became the band's singer and song writer. After playing a series of gigs, mainly in Manchester, Warsaw changed their name to Joy Division; due to a name clash with another band.
    Although married, Ian embarked on an extra-marital affair with young Belgian journalist Annik Honore.
    Being unable to deal with his emotional push and pull and the growing demands of the band, Ian becomes ill and the strain manifests itself on Ian suffering a series of fits.
    Things become so unbearable in the end that he hangs himself in his home in Macclesfield on May 18, 1980.
    The remaining members of Joy Division decided to continue with their music under new name New Order.
    New Order's drummer Stephen Morris watched the movie in Cannes and said it felt weird seeing his life played out in front of him: "Somehow last night watching it for the second time with a load of people was like seeing your youth laid bare in front of an audience , it was like being dissected on a slab."
    Morris also added that to this day he was left with questions and a sense of anger and incomprehension as to why Curtis decided to end his own life.
    "I suppose it was a shock but it didn't register as a shock , it was just anger, anger that he could be so stupid. he tried to kill himself before and I just thought well ok you've got it out of your system, it's fine , let's just get on with it ..but it was shock, anger all those things."
    For Riley, his acting debut as Ian Curtis was also due to his physical resemblance to the singer although there is also someone else that people compare him with:
    "People usually say I look like Pete Doherty instead, never Ian Curtis, ...which isn't particularly flattering is it, big moon-faced Heroin addict, but never mind."
    The film is based on a book by Curtis' wife Debbie and is part of a series of music films playing at Cannes. Director Corbijn will also meet a group of old acquaintances when U2 come into town tomorrow for their documentary. Corbijn photographed the band for 22 years and also published the first photos of Joy Division when he met them in London in the 70s. For Corbijn, this was a personal movie of a chapter in his life he is very fond of, and a young man he truly admires:
    "The power of ian Curtis was in his poetry and on stage all this inner stuff came out so that's why he changed and that's why there was a difference between the normal guy and Ian Curtis."
    Curtis was only 23 when he killed himself.
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