British actor Sam Riley got the news that he had won the role of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis in the movie Control on January 8th, 2006 , the date of his birthday as well as that of David Bowie , a seminal influence on the real Riley and an artist whose songs are prominently featured in the early portion of the new film. But the real gift for Riley came later on, in the form of Alexandra Maria Lara , the German actress who plays Belgian part-time journalist Annik Honoré , one of the two women in Curtis ’ aborted life. The two actors fell in love on the set of Control and as a result, Riley now divides his time between his Leeds and her Berlin .
Shot in gorgeous black and white, Control very much recalls some of the films of Mike Leigh . Intriguingly, photographer-turned-first-time-director Anton Corbijn , while dazzled by Riley ’s physical resemblance to Curtis and reassured by his musical background ( Riley fronts the band 10,000 Things ), was also very nervous about pinning the whole film on an unknown. So he kept reminding himself during filming of Loach ’s 1969 Kes , another Northern England tortured soul portrait that earned David Bradley a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer .
(At this summer’s Edinburgh International Film Festival , Riley snagged the Best British Performance prize.) Corbijn is uniquely qualified to judge the merits of an actor seeking to portray Curtis . The band’s album “Unknown Pleasures” is what inspired him in 1979 to move from Holland to England , and within two weeks of doing so, he was shooting that famous photograph of Joy Division in which all but Curtis have their backs turned while standing in front of a tube station tunnel.
All the more remarkable when you consider that because of his poor English, Corbijn couldn’t understand a word Curtis was singing. He was empowered to cross the Channel by the mere weightiness of the delivery. It’s also strangely prophetic that Riley auditioned back in 2001 not for the part in 24-Hour Party People that he eventually played ( Mark E.
Smith ), but rather for that of Joy Division drummer Stephen Morris . Unlike many first-time directors, Corbijn has no shorts, commercials or critically lauded stage productions in his past. With no experience directing actors, he wisely chose to have Riley spend a week of one-on-one, get-to-know-her rehearsals with both Lara and co-star Samantha Morton , who portrays his young Macclesfield wife.
This makes Riley ’s performance all the more extraordinary. Sparked by Corbijn ’s pursuit of a “natural” mood on the set, he has the same kind of wow as Nikki Blonsky does in Hairspay . In terms of narrative similarities, the 2007 film that comes to mind is Sean Penn ’s Into the Wild .
The 24 -year-old real-life protagonist of that film, Christopher McCandless , met his maker in a very different way than did Control ’s 23 -year-old Curtis . But in both cases, these were journal-writing individuals who, despite the risks to themselves, felt compelled to embrace a trailblazing path.
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