I got Control

I fucking loved this fucking movie and that stupid cow who left the 7.15 show last night at the Village East Cinema blathering into his phone about it being just another band biopic that did not, to his satisfaction, explain the lyrics adequately, well, I suppose it's punishment enough he has to live with himself.

Maybe it all just made perfect sense to me because I lived through it and shared Ian Curtis' reactions--to the suburbs, to music, to pop culture. I never knew how tortured he was by the conflicting desire to be a part of the culture he grew up in and the art world he was so intrinsically a part of. No wonder I loved that music when I was 17. My self destruction just took another form.

Then there was the performance. I could not believe how totally Sam Riley BECAME Ian Curtis. At times I felt like I was right at the seedy venue with them, watching Joy Division perform, though of course I never saw them. I did, however, live for years with an oversized poster of them, looming over my desk in my apartment in Pittsburgh. I used to stare at it, sometimes wondering what made him do it, other times wondering why more of us did not. I also did not realize he was just 23 when he hung himself.

The theater itself contributed--theater one. An old stage, loge boxes and proscenium still intact. Giant screen, and plenty of curiosities to keep me feeling right at home.

Naturally, there's something. Samantha Morton, much as I love her, was a weird choice for the wife. And the last 15 minutes dragged--I did not realize it was going to be two hours long so the huge hot tea I drank did not help matters there. All in all though, this portrait of an artist, the way that Curtis transformed his experience into art, was inspiring. Precisely because my self-destruction did go a different way. Because I still have a chance, not to make a mark or change the current of history, but to just be present. To feel transfixed. To love being exactly where I am.