| Created 007.11.16; Updated 2007.11.16 |
This article originally appeared in Hollywood Today.
 |
The Clash's Unwritten and Joy Division's Control HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 10/18/07 —Joe Strummer is most remembered as the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and lead singer of the British punk rock band The Clash. Ian Curtis is remembered as the vocalist and lyricist of Joy Division, a band he helped form in 1977 in Manchester, England, that pioneered the post-punk sound. Two engaging films, Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten and Control, immortalize the lives of each of these two singers in very different ways…one a documentary…the other a drama biopic. More... |
Joe Strummer was born in Ankara, Turkey on August 21, 1952, and was moved to Cairo, Mexico City, and Bonn because his father was a British foreign-service diplomat. At the age of 9, Strummer and his older brother David, 10, entered public school in Surrey and thereafter would see their parents once a year. The bullying and isolation of this environment instilled a deep determination in Joe Strummer to resist authority. His brother would later kill himself. Joe entered art school. The Future is Unwritten makes clear the counter-culture connection and political Animal Farm message of The Clash.
Strummer was eventually destroyed by the realization that he had become the very thing he mocked and intended his music to oppose: the self-indulgent rock star. His drinking and drug use clouded his judgement and that his world did revolve around him made him the very type of authority figure he despised. The ultimate betrayal was seeing on the news "Rock the Casbah" painted on the side of an American bomb intended for Iraq. The song had been inspired by the ban of rock music in Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini. Drummer Topper Headon wrote most of the song as he waited at the studio for the rest of the band, which had become habitually late because of mutual hostility. By the time "Rock the Casbah" was a hit, Headon had been fired and did not appear in the music video of his own song. Strummer's next album failed and a dispirited Strummer dropped out of sight for ten years before returning to sing with The Mescaleros.
The Ian Curtis biopic Control is based on his wife Deborah Curtis' book Touching from a Distance. Married while still teenagers, Curtis and Deborah had one child, Natalie. On stage, Curtis had an engagingly quiet and awkward demeanor. He had a unique dancing style reminiscent of the epileptic seizures he experienced, sometimes on stage. Whether he was dancing or having a seizure was unclear until he had to be helped off stage. Ian suffered from depression and ultimately killed himself. Control explores the train wreck of being a young married father and then a rock star who takes as lover the Belgian journalist Annik Honoré.
Both movies are as good a film as you can have about self-indulgent rock stars who don't know how to love themselves and trash the lives of those who do. Sam Riley, lead singer of band 10000 Things, gives an outstanding performance as Curtis. Although excellent films, you may not want your kids to go to either of these because of the pro-tobacco message. Sam Riley smokes in virtually every scene in Control, and The Future is Unwritten ends with Joe Strummer suggesting that all art is created by smokers. The ultimate irony, in two movies already filled with irony, is they glamorize as rebellious a lifestyle self-servingly promoted by corporate America.
Joe Stummer: The Future is Unwritten
Running Time: 2 hrs. 5 min.
Release Date: November 2nd, 2007 (limited)
Distributor: IFC Films
Control
Running Time: 2 hrs. 1 min.
Release Date: October 10th, 2007 (limited)
MPAA Rating: R for language and brief sexuality.
Distributor: The Weinstein Company