The Void on celluloid...

Control, the movie about Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, who took his life in 1979, came out last year, and guess which lazy blogger is only getting around to writing about it now?

As befits a film with photographer/video-tician Anton Corbijn at the helm, Control looks fantastic, especially the "live" footage. Musically it's something of a (pleasant) surprise too. The actors actually play their instruments reasonably well, and while they're no Joy Division, they come as close as you could ever get to evoking the spirit of the band in performance. Some of it is based closely on clips of the original band, playing live and on TV, and a lot of work obviously went into these very impressive sequences. And yes, it is in black and white, like many of Corbijn's great rock photos were back in the day.

Control is based on Touching From A Distance, Deborah Curtis' memoir of life with her late husband. The book itself was guileless and honest, and the movie has something of that tone. Unlike the book, though, Corbijn also draws on others' memories of the Joy Division years, so the portrayal of all that boys-on-the-road stuff, as well as Ian Curtis' affair with Belgian journalist Annik Honoré, is a bit better fleshed out.

It's interesting to compare this with the first half of 24 Hour Party People, which treated of the rise of Joy Division and Curtis' untimely suicide with less depth but great economy, and a certain amount of black humour. Control for its part tends to focus on romance and relationships. It reminds me more than a little of Walk The Line, which was more love-story-told-with-real-characters-and-based-loosely-on-real-events than straightforward biopic, but quite effective for all that.

This movie is clearly aimed at a younger audience, the sort of people who buy records by modern bands who've been namechecking Joy Division and Curtis as an influence. And why not? Control tells the tale with exactly the right balance of sympathy and objectivity, humour and honesty.

I really didn't expect to like this, but it was well worth watching. Like I say, it's a seriously good-looking film, with enough substance to justify all the pretty pictures. And if it gets a new generation into the music of Joy Division, then I for one will be very happy indeed.

I was not so happy about Once, directed by former Frames bass guitarist John Carney, which is only just out (though I managed to get hold of a preview copy last year). It features Frames lead singer Glenn Hansard (who first appeared on cinema screens as Outspan in The Commitments) and Czech songstress Markéta Irglova in a sort of musical romantic tale set on the streets of Dublin's fair city. I expected to like it - I've seen it several times now, and really tried to like it, but I'm sorry, it just left a bad taste.

I'm not a big fan of the Frames' music, though I do admire them for the fact that they've survived as a band despite all the begrudgery and sheer malice they've had to endure in their native land. The kind of spite that would be more properly levelled at, say, that other Dublin band, the one whose name consists of a letter followed by a number...

Anyhoo, Hansard plays a street busker and Irglova a flower-girl (awww) who also turns out to be a pianist. They bond over her broken vacuum cleaner, which he mends (that's his day job, y'see). Then they get to know each other and help each other out musically. And, well, that's about it.

Maybe I'm being too hard on this movie, but what is all the fuss about? Do Seppoes think they have, like, totally cute accents and stuff?

It's not that Once doesn't have some good qualities - Hansard and Irglova are both fine musicians, and though not 'proper' actors, they have a pretty good onscreen chemistry. Their friendship develops believably. The music isn't my cup of tea, but it's worked well into the movie. Director Carney clearly knows his stuff. The ending may be a bit of a cop-out but at least it's not standard boy-gets-girl schmaltz. It's just that I couldn't find anything in this that actually added up to, you know, A Movie.

Joy Division were a band whose music was associated with despair and alienation but actually had its own cathartic, uplifting power. And some of that came through in Control. Whereas Once, for all its celebration of the joys of music and the virtues of friendship and (tentative) romance, just leaves an empty feeling. As though one had just been watching an adaptation of Notting Hill for raggle-taggle groupies.

It's Number One, It's...

Paul Weller wearing an apron. John Peel complimenting the singer of Kajagoogoo on his "nice hat". John Lydon handing some kid in the audience a violin. Iron Maiden getting to play live when everyone else had to mime. Mark. E. Smith guesting with the Inspiral Carpets-uh and reading the lyrics-uh off a sheet of paper. The Clash, conspicuous by their absence. Judy Tzuke's lead guitarist and his extremely NSFW guitar, festooned with erotic art. Ian Anderson in possession of an unlicensed flute, with intent to cause grevious bodily harm. Hot Gossip (i.e. Sarah Brightman keeping her mouth shut). Chas, Dave and an entire orchestra wearing Doc Martens. Pan's People. (Pan's People? God I'm old.) The Sensational Alex Harvey Band doing "Boston Tea Party". The Rezillos. The Orb playing chess. Finbar Furey with his finger in his ear and his eyes clenched shut singing Sweet Sixteen. St. Winifred's School Choir. Kate Bush. Terry and Arfur doing What Are We Gonna Get For Christmas (For 'Er Indoors). Whole Lotta Love by Alexis Korner's CCS (via Zeppelin). Foster and Allen in green lamé leprechaun suits doing A Bunch Of Thyme (Their manager - this is true - tried to pass them off as "New Romantics"). Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs. Keef shaking his head like a Beatle and cracking the rest of the Stones up doing I Wanna Be Your Man. Legs and Co. (Mmmm. Legs and Co.) Tubeway Army spending an entire summer at the top. Bob Geldof playing a candelabra on "Rat Trap" (union wouldn't let him use a sax, y'see). Morrissey swinging flowers around the place. Madness doing The Prince. Tammy Wynette with the KLF and that improbably pneumatic dancer (the cameraman definitely liked her; most cleavage close-ups ever). Mike Skinner of The Streets being indiscreet about a particular female pop-singer. The Timelords and That Police Car. Mud doing Tiger Feet. The Faces kicking footballs around while John Peel "played" mandolin. Yellow Peril by Phil Lynott.

As of tomorrow, Top Of The Pops will be no more. I actually watched it not too long ago. Was it good? Was it bad? That doesn't matter, it was Top of the Pops, wasn't it?

So much to answer for...

I finally saw 24 Hour Party People last night. It was good fun and I especially enjoyed seeing Steve Coogan playing the part of Tony Wilson (he also plays the part of God, but Tony Wilson doesn't need quite so much makeup). If you didn't know better, you'd swear Coogan had made Tony Wilson up himself. A lot of myth and legend abounds about the growth of Manchester's alternative music scene, but if this movie had a message, it would probably be something like "truth really is stranger than fiction".

Needless to say, a lot of history was necessarily telescoped in order to fit into a movie, and a few tweaks given to the corpus of truth, but the story of Manchester's music scene from the seventies to the early nineties is told well and with flair. Plus, a few real Manc musos turn up in the course of the movie - Mark E Smith, Howard Devoto, Vini Reilly and Paul Ryder among others.

Much is made of the importance of Joy Division in the early days, and that band would have made for a movie in itself, but the great A Certain Ratio are fobbed off with a few jokes about scout uniforms and fake tans. It's a pity, because ACR had a lot to do with galvanising Manchester's early dance scene. They blurred genre (and racial) distinctions, mixing up garage punk, funk, and Latin music long before Talking Heads cashed in on a very similar strategy. If not for A Certain Ratio, Manchester music may well have remained in its industrial ghetto (and there probably wouldn't have been a Remain in Light, come to think of it). You could even go so far as to say there wouldn't have been a Happy Mondays without them.

Tony (or, if you will, Anthony) Wilson has been variously described as a charlatan, a genius, a mug, a poseur, a visionary, a bumbling dilletante, a Machiavellian manipulator, a postmodernist before postmodernism became cool, and a pretentious git - the Malcolm McLaren of Manchester. Coogan's portrayal manages to get all of this in to great comic effect, as well as hinting at greater complexity in the man's personality - he quotes Boethius and Yeats, goes out with Miss UK, and wishes the rest of the world would wake the fuck up.

Anyway, what I liked most about the movie was the way it refused to mythologise or sentimentalise. What happened happened, for better or worse. The people involved are historical figures now, but they were still ordinary folk prone to the usual foibles, and all the warts are on show here along with the wonders. There's a healthy irreverence at the heart of the movie, as well as plenty of dry Mancunian wit.

And would you believe, not a single mention of The Smiths or even The Stone Roses. Or even Ed Banger and the Nosebleeds. Because they weren't on Factory records, you see.

And when is the Durutti Column going to get that much needed revival?