Control

First of all, what the hell am I doing blogging at 03:40am when I've got work tomorrow morning?

And on the subject of mental anguish, Dave and I went to see Control - the film of the life of Ian Curtis - on Sunday afternoon. That screenshot on the left is pretty much how I feel right now.

As a Mancunian in exile, currently living in Birmingham, the film was a reminder that there is still a lot of Manchester within me. But the film also demonstrated to me that I'm very much of my time. It was absolutely brilliant hearing Joy Division again, leaving aside the over-played "Love will tear us apart". I always did love the echoing minor chords that characterised the indie / alternative guitar bands of the late 70s and (particularly 80s), but there are a small number of bands that really stand out. For my money, they include Joy Division and Magazine - both years ahead of their time. New Order was never going to live up to Joy Division; I think in retrospect that their sound was too thin to stand the test of time.

The film was wonderful. The cinema was packed on a Sunday afternoon, mostly with 40-something saddos like me and Dave. The performances were amazing. How the hell did Sam Riley get the voice and body language so close to the original Ian Curtis? And John Cooper Clark was breathtaking. The only character who didn't come over well was Tony Wilson. Tim at work says that the actor in question was basing the role on Steve Coogan as Tony Wilson in 24 hour Party People rather than on Tony Wilson himself, and the diluted secondary nature of the interpretation really showed.

I didn't realise until the end that it was co-produced by Deborah Curtis. I did a Google image search and she now looks incredibly conventional. She said in interview that she didn't really recover from the Ian Curtis years until she met her current partner who's never heard of him. As she said, when someone takes their own life, they are effectively having the last word. The residual anger must have been almost intolerable.

I found the film's ending to have an almost genius-like beauty. It showed smoke coming out of a crematorium chimney against a backdrop of Macclesfield hills, reminiscent of the chimneys of the holocaust, to which the name Joy Division was a deliberate reference.

It's now 04:15 and time to renew my attempt to get some sleep...