I don't know, but I like that picture
Technical Information
Country: United Kingdom/USA Year: 2006 Language: English Runtime: 93 minutes Format: Colour/HDCAM Rating: 14A
Cast & Crew
Production Company: Hudson Productions Ltd./ Borwn Owl Films Ltd. Producer: Tom Astor, Tom Atencio, Jacqui Edenbrow Cinematographer: Grant Gee Editor: Jerry Chater Sound: Rashad Omar With: Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, Peter Saville, Tony Wilson
Film Description and Director Biography
The documentary Joy Division is a perfect complement to Control, the beautifully realized fictionalized account of the life and times of Ian Curtis and his band, which also screens in this year’s Festival. Joy Division superbly details the backgrounds of the group and its members, as well as the cultural context from which they emerged. There are interviews with most of the key figures: the three surviving band members, Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris and Peter Hook; the amazing Tony Wilson, who founded Factory Records and who passed away in August of this year; Martin Hannett, their brilliant producer; and Annik Honoré, Curtis’s Belgian lover. The only figure who does not appear on camera is Curtis’s wife, Deborah; instead, quotes from her biography appear as text onscreen, assuring us of her presence.
Joy Division grew out of a very specific context: the depressed urban landscape of Manchester, still trying to recover from its halcyon days as a centre of nineteenth-century manufacturing, and the punk movement’s rebellion against the direction rock was taking in the seventies. Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols served as inspiration, tapping into the anger, despair and alienation of a generation of English youth. They spawned a bevy of wannabe bands, one of the most significant of which was Joy Division. The group’s lead singer, Curtis, was a bundle of contradictions. By day, he worked in the civil service as an Assistant Disablement Resettlement Officer; by night, he poured his angst into poetic lyrics for a band that essentially wanted to play loud and create havoc. Ironically, no one really listened to the pleas for help embedded in his songs – until it was too late. Curtis took his own life in 1980 at the impossibly young age of twenty-three.
Told through the words of those who were there, Joy Division follows the early days of the band and their first forays into gigs and recordings. But this is also the story of a city and its struggle to revive itself. By returning to the sites and landmarks that defined Joy Division’s history, director Grant Gee shows how much Manchester has changed in the past thirty years. Everyone fondly remembers the past, but Curtis’s shadow casts a sobering pall over the Joy Division project. Brilliant and mercurial, this urban poet captured a moment and immortalized himself in the process.
Piers Handling
Grant Gee was born in Plymouth, England, and studied at Oxford University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has directed several shorts, including Found Sound (97), 400 Anarchists (02) and Mr. Fred Zentner’s Cinema Bookshop Was Here (05). His documentaries about musical groups Radiohead and Gorillaz – Meeting People Is Easy (98) and Demon Days: Live at the Manchester Opera House (05), respectively – received Grammy nominations for best long-form video. Joy Division (07) is his latest film.
