Good day, good readers.
I can see for miles.
Last night I discovered a documentary about the band Joy Division on Hulu. In a recent post about the post-punk chronicle Totally Wired, I mentioned the films 24-Hour Party People and Control. Both movies cover the rise and fall of Joy Division and their troubled leader Ian Curtis. While both films have their virtues, it seems the strange tale of Joy Division is best met head on, and this exhaustive doc does the trick.
(Joy Division covers “Sister Ray” by The Velvet Underground)
With Joy Division, writer Jon Savage and director Grant Gee show how to do rockumentary the right way. Thorough but personal, affectionate yet lucid, Savage and Gee weave their subject into the very fabric of Manchester itself, claiming that the seminal post-punk band, Joy Division, were instrumental in the renaissance of an at-the-time spent industrial force.
Savage and Gee have done so much work with this documentary. There are numerous talking heads – including all the surviving band members, the now deceased Wilson, producer Martin Hannett, designer Peter Saville, photographer Anton Corbijn (who directed his own film about Ian Curtis and Joy Division with 2007’s Control), underground filmmaker Malcolm Whitehead, infamous agent provocateur Genesis P Orridge and, interestingly, Curtis’s girlfriend at the time Annik Honoré – as well as reel upon reel of archived footage
Ladies and gentlemen - Joy Division
Enjoy and leave a comment!
Stay Awake!
Joe Nolan <3
Joy Division affects me in a way that no other band can. It bums me out a little bit that so many of our peers don’t care about this band– writing them off, inaccurately, as nothing more than a quirky, proto-goth band that isn’t capable of being evocative the way a more straight-forward artist or band might. Pity; The song, ‘Atmosphere’, still manages to wring a tear from me at least once a year. I guess it doesn’t hurt that Joy Division changed my life when I was a teenager. But rather than see this as romanticizing the music and the time period, I see it as a lucky break that my unjaded heart was open to it the way only an underground culture-thirsty young person would. I don’t like that the gossamer layer (if I may use language befitting of the era in question) of the punk and post-punk scenes has given way to something intolerant of of a bit of drama .. as if drama and pretentiousness where one and the same .. when any artist knows there’s a fine divide between the two. A good friend – a huge American indie music fan – once referred, dismissively, to post-punk music as “angular”. While one could certainly see the surface rationale of this description, it completely challenged everything I had extracted from this music; This music allowed my imagination to soar and my heart to experience intensely personal emotional pangs. Still does.. when I let it in.
My first viewings of both 24-Hour Party People and Control were met with about as much anticipation as any of the most exciting moments in my life. Even just placing one of their anthemic songs in a movie adds an atmosphere (and credibility, my inner uber-fan admits) to a film that no other songs can.
Thanks for recognizing, Joe.
”I don’t like that the gossamer layer (if I may use language befitting of the era in question) of the punk and post-punk scenes has given way to something intolerant of of a bit of drama .. as if drama and pretentiousness where one and the same .. when any artist knows there’s a fine divide between the two.”
I love this comment. JD is moving because of that drama. Sometimes I think some people don’t want to be moved anymore?
For me, music, movies and writing that pushes that limit between earnest drama and wanker pretentiousness is always the most powerful. That’s what they used to call “taking risks”.
Thanks for the comment, Marc.
argh. hulu.
i bet this is a great film. but can’t see it from here.
international attention to an important part of manchester’s cultural history, and you have to be in the usa to watch it.
The film is also available on DVD. Are you in England?
[Picks up Baby Ruth bar] There it is. It’s no big deal. [Takes a bite of the Baby Ruth bar and grins]