Control R

Control
116K ratings
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Format:  DVD
item number:  35XRS
on most orders of $75+
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DVD Details

  • Rated: R
  • Run Time: 2 hours, 2 minutes
  • Video: Color
  • Encoding: Region 1 (USA & Canada)
  • Released: June 3, 2008
  • Originally Released: 2007
  • Label: Weinstein

Performers, Cast and Crew:

Starring &
Performer:
Directed by
Screenwriting by
Composition by
Subject: &
Produced by , &
Director of Photography:

Entertainment Reviews:

Certified Fresh88%

TOMATOMETER
Total Count: 113

Upright89%

AUDIENCE SCORE
User Ratings: 48,453
CONTROL keeps you riveted...Samantha Morton again shows why she's one of her generation's best actors...
Los Angeles Times
Oct 19, 2007
Control does justice to Curtis' legacy but fails to make any further grasps for significance. Full Review
Paste Magazine
Jul 31, 2008
4 stars out of 5 -- CONTROL is a trenchant, intelligent exercise in stripping away the many myths surrounding both Curtis and the music world generally.
Uncut
Nov 1, 2007
Rating: 4/4 -- Sam Riley, a newcomer to the big screen who portrays Curtis with eerie accuracy, has the stringy, underfed looks of a schoolboy in the midst of a sudden growth spurt. Full Review
Sydney Morning Herald
Nov 3, 2007
Sam Riley is fascinating as Curtis, a hypersensitive young man hobbled by his incurable disease, and Samantha Morton is poignant as his put-upon wife. Full Review
Chicago Reader
Dec 3, 2007
CONTROL goes past the clichés of punk rock-god gloom to offer a snapshot of alienation that's shockingly humane. -- Grade: B+
Entertainment Weekly
Oct 12, 2007
4 stars out of 5 -- Playing live, the cast vividly recreate the band's jarring guitar sound....CONTROL is up there with PERFORMANCE and LAST DAYS.
Empire
Nov 1, 2007

Product Description:

Based on the memoir TOUCHING FROM A DISTANCE by Deborah Curtis, Anton Corbijn's CONTROL is as near perfect a filmic telling of the story of Joy Division and Ian Curtis as any fan could hope for. It's also a beautifully rendered piece of cinema about the crippling effects of love and regret, and the salvation we seek in art. Born out of England's post-Sex Pistols punk explosion, Joy Division played a dark, minimalist version of the nascent sound, and became cult heroes thanks in part to their brilliant yet disturbed frontman Ian Curtis (played by an eerily perfect Sam Riley). Corbijn does a wonderful job recreating the Manchester band's music and live show, cutting straight to the essence of Joy Division's unique appeal. Credit must also be given to the three actors who portray the rest of Joy Division. Playing all the instruments themselves, they perfectly capture the band's powerfully stoic presence, one that translates both live and on record into the sonic equivalent of an existential crisis.

CONTROL, however, is ultimately about Curtis's tumultuous marriage with his wife, Deborah (Samantha Morton), and the way that Joy Division became an aesthetic manifestation of his pain--one that was both physical (Curtis was an epileptic) and emotional. Corbijn evokes Curtis's hurt and isolation with both honesty and subtlety: a photographer originally, he frames each shot to look like a stark black-and-white photo from an album the audience was never meant to see, making Curtis's pain palpable and his eventual suicide that much more tragic. The overtones to the later suicide of Kurt Cobain are hard to avoid, but where Cobain's suicide has always been discussed in terms of the pressure he felt as a rock star, Curtis's, as rendered by Corbijn, is a pain anyone could potentially be forced to suffer through.

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Product Info

  • UPC: 796019810258
  • Shipping Weight: 0.25/lbs (approx)
  • International Shipping: 1 item

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