“I think maybe he wasn’t quite narcissistic enough to be a rock star.” That’s what E said, as we watched Control, the bio pic about Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division. The “maybe” is what makes the slowly accreting film worth watching. Unlike a lot of the things I’ve been interested in lately–novels about the Rolling Stones, I’m Not There, Bob Dylan’s own Chronicle—Control doesn’t presume any access to the private creative process that leads to art or, in this case, the private destructive process that leads to suicide. Maybe it’s the business of art to always make such leaps and to fail to do so is to not pick up the only gauntlet that matters. Yet, to me, the film felt properly humble. E’s comment was sparked by one of the possibilities the film suggests: that Curtis was just aware enough of what an asshole he was being. Curtis's epilepsy certainly had something to do with his despair. But the movie also allows for the possibility that forces that can’t be known at a quarter century remove–or ever filmed, under any circumstances– congealed in Curtis's death. Its humility here feels like a virtue, because that tentativeness allows for its apparent accuracy and mystery.
Readers who don't know better might get the impression that everything I say is thoughtful and incisive.
Posted by: Ellen | July 20, 2008 at 04:55 PM
Readers who know better know that most of it is. I'm just saying.
Posted by: K | July 20, 2008 at 05:45 PM