1/3/2023 0 Comments Control ian curtisThe solemn tone of the video’s black and white photography suggests the dirgelike pull of the song, and permits the almost Bergmanesque frankness of the symbolism. When, in his powders-and-pills collage of a Manchester valentine 24 Hour Party People, Michael Winterbottom wanted to memorialize Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, he inserted the video for the band’s “Atmosphere,” made in 1988, eight years after Curtis’s suicide at age 23. And, I––yeah, like so many others––felt I could relate. All I knew was that his alienation seemed impossibly close and more earnest than any music I had ever heard. I feel fortunate to have experienced the urgency, foreboding and perfection of this album… having never seen the name “Ian Curtis” outside of the liners. The film isn’t about Ian, it is told through Tony’s point of view so of course his death is not explored because Tony is a narcissistic asshole who only cares about himself.Īnd finally, I would wager the film probably exposed 1000s more people to Joy Division who went on to learn a lot about the band than would have otherwise, and people who walked away from it thinking that Ian was just some cunt would never have engaged with him in the first place.I will say this: Unknown Pleasures was the second CD I owned, having been improbably drawn in by only the bandname and cover. The fact that you whine about how the movie treats Ian’s death just shows your fanboy goggles have made it so you haven’t actually engaged with the film. It’s like saying the movie Anastasia doesn’t provide an accurate portrait of Czar Nicholas 1, when it never even tries to nor would anyone expect it to as it is made for children. And not only that, the movie could not be clearer or more direct in its claims of artistic liberties and of its unreliable narrator. You’re judging the movie for something it has no aspirations to, the movie has no responsibility to provide a fair or rounded picture of anyone. It is not a documentary nor is it a biography, it is a film written from a point of view of a fictional character based on Tony Wilson.
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