The Observer - Natalie Curtis on "Control" 30 September 2007

A divided joy: seeing my father on film

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/sep/30/popandrock.joydivision

The new film about Joy Division singer Ian Curtis has been widely acclaimed. His daughter Natalie can see some flaws - but can't fault the music


On a sunny day in August I finally got to see the finished version of Anton Corbijn's Control, a film about the life of Ian Curtis, my father and lead singer of the band Joy Division.

Ian committed suicide in 1980 at the age of 23, when I had just turned one. I was involved with the project at various stages of production (the film was based on a book written by my mother and Ian's wife, Deborah, and the two of us visited the set several times) but I had no idea what to expect. For obvious reasons it was strange to watch. In addition to the weirdness of seeing my family made fiction, I found myself distracted by my own memories; not just of things I have been told about my father and events, but of my time on set. In view of such a surreal experience I am perhaps not the best person to write about Control, and what follows is not a review.

It's hard for me to comment on Sam Riley's performance as my father. Watching the character of Ian is different to watching the other characters in the film, as I only ever see Ian on screen, and I only know his voice through recordings. It is very odd for me to hear everyone say how much Sam looks like Ian. Sure, he's got the hair and clothes, but I look like Ian, and Sam looks nothing like me! Sam's voice sounds great in the film, but it is not the voice of my father and it makes me feel awkward people saying that Sam sounds 'just like him'.

I must say that I do really rate Sam's epileptic fits. Of course I have never seen footage of my father having a seizure, but what is shown in the film is convincing enough to make for uncomfortable viewing. It would have been easy to get the epilepsy stuff wrong, but it is handled with sensitivity.

I like that the film does show a human side to the band and, in particular, the way the roadies take care of Ian. I felt real empathy for Rob Gretton, the band's manager, too, as played by the excellent Toby Kebbell. The character of Rob provides Control's humour, so you feel it more when Rob is placed in a difficult position. Samantha Morton, as Deborah, is also very powerful - there are scenes that may have been dreary if not for her passion.

My main criticism of the film is that it doesn't go far enough to convey my father's mental health problems: his depression and mood swings are simply not addressed. Given the fervour to discover why he killed himself, this is something of an oversight. Yet the fun stuff, the laughs and japes are also absent. The scenes featuring Annik, Ian's Belgian girlfriend, are inadequate, because they don't show how important such companionship would have been for this lonely, ill man. Annik wasn't excluded from Joy Division in the way my mother was, but she wasn't exactly welcomed either, and that male world of the band on tour is barely touched on.

In recent years much has been made of the notion that Ian's biggest problem was the women in his life, when in fact his inability to deal with his relationships, not to mention everything else, was a symptom of his depressive illness. Sadly, the film does little to show this, or how these two women were more aware than anyone of how ill Ian actually was and how hard they tried to help him.

Deborah and Annik are lucky as they are at least played by talented actors. Ultimately the character portrayed with the least satisfaction is the city of Manchester. I don't mean specific locations, but the look of the film in general. Where are the dark, empty streets, the Manchester of the Seventies, evoked by the lyrics and music of Joy Division? I don't expect the film to be a history lesson but its glossiness is disappointing. How can an audience understand Joy Division without understanding its environment?

Many Mancunians were suspicious from the start: what do Hollywood producers and a Dutchman (who moved to the UK because of Joy Division, but chose to live in London) know about this city of ours? It could be worse - thanks to Salford screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh and the input of all those close to Ian, this story of Macclesfield, Salford and Manchester has not been totally hijacked by outsiders.

Whatever my mixed feelings about this film, it holds some powerful pleasures for me: the live performances. Not only do the band look great, their hair and clothes spot on, but they sound like the real thing too. They learned to play their instruments and the songs in the space of a week, and I can't help but be in awe of them for that.

Perhaps I've made the film sound terrible when it isn't. After all, this is personal for me: I feel protective of my father, that boy who is younger than me. I have to remember that it's not a documentary, it's just a story - even if it is a different story to the one I've grown up hearing from those who were there at the time. However the film is received, those songs remind me that the most important thing is and always will be the music.