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I know that it's an old cliché, but if you had told me 25-odd years ago when I was discussing the just-reported death of Ian Curtis with some poker-playing buddies (I played the game for fun, then) that in 2007 there would be a movie about Ian Curtis's life, I would not have believed you.
Indeed, even in the wake of 24-Hour Party People and a BBC documentary The Factory Story, you would have thought it unlikely that there would be much of a market for a film biography of an epileptic lead singer of a band that made little more than a marginal impact on mainstream pop sensibility before Curtis committed suicide.
But, well, such are the ways of the world. The first clues appeared a couple of years ago when a number of bands seemed to be harking back to Joy Division -- Interpol and The Editors to name but two (although it's only the second Editors album that seems closer to the Joy Division legacy, the first is far more reminiscent of The Sound, and I doubt that we will be seeing a biopic of Martin Borland). Clearly the cult of JD, Factory, The Hacienda and Tony Wilson are set to live on for some time.
I suspect that part of the reason is that, once you have seen that oft-shown clip of Curtis appearing on So It Goes (or whatever the Wilson vehicle was at the time) then you never forget it. In the land that is TV, you only need a single electrifying performance to go down in history.
Control probably won't be that great a movie, but that won't matter so much. Early deaths have always been a good career move in popular beat combos. On the plus side, look at how much money Curtis saved by not being around to subsidize The Hacienda.
Indeed, even in the wake of 24-Hour Party People and a BBC documentary The Factory Story, you would have thought it unlikely that there would be much of a market for a film biography of an epileptic lead singer of a band that made little more than a marginal impact on mainstream pop sensibility before Curtis committed suicide.
But, well, such are the ways of the world. The first clues appeared a couple of years ago when a number of bands seemed to be harking back to Joy Division -- Interpol and The Editors to name but two (although it's only the second Editors album that seems closer to the Joy Division legacy, the first is far more reminiscent of The Sound, and I doubt that we will be seeing a biopic of Martin Borland). Clearly the cult of JD, Factory, The Hacienda and Tony Wilson are set to live on for some time.
I suspect that part of the reason is that, once you have seen that oft-shown clip of Curtis appearing on So It Goes (or whatever the Wilson vehicle was at the time) then you never forget it. In the land that is TV, you only need a single electrifying performance to go down in history.
Control probably won't be that great a movie, but that won't matter so much. Early deaths have always been a good career move in popular beat combos. On the plus side, look at how much money Curtis saved by not being around to subsidize The Hacienda.
