Film About Joy Division Lead Singer is Effective Rock Biopic
by John Branston
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- Joy Division's Ian Curtis in 1979
When the Replacements were drunkenly stumbling toward indie-rock immortality in the mid-1980s, lead singer Paul Westerberg was still living and writing songs for his band's major-label debut in his parents' basement.
Why aren't these revealing economic realities ever shown in movies about artists? Maybe most moviegoers can't stomach the sight of poverty; maybe they like their cult heroes to emerge from the head of Zeus fully formed, rich and famous.
Director Anton Corbijn's new film Control, about the life of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, is a bracing success in part because it stares long and hard into what writer Michael Azerrad called "the yawning gap between critical acclaim and financial reward."
Read the rest of Addison Engelking's Flyer review here.
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