Customer Reviews

Joy Division (The Miriam Collection)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Tremendous documentary. Interviews with Annik Honore (finally!), Tony Wilson (and not someone playing Tony Wilson), and all of the surviving band members (Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris, & Peter Hook) plus Buzzcock Pete Shelley and Buzzcocks manager Richard Boon, plus music journalist and Joy Division biographer Paul Morley, plus album designer Peter Saville ... this is really a goldmine for Joy Division fans. Truly, an overwhelming amount of detailed information here. Even if you think you've heard it all, stories become more than just talk when told by someone who was actually there. Plus loads of vintage footage of the band performing in various venues. More than I knew existed.

Interestingly enough the documentary starts off with a quote, that I found to be quite compelling:

To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world--and at the same time that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.

--Marshall Berman, All That is Solid Melts Into Air

This will give you some indication that this is not your typical rock documentary that recounts the rise and fall of yet another generic rock band. This is a rock documentary that is completley different from any that you have seen before, and that is fitting given the subject matter. Manchester, we learn, was in many ways the first modern city. And Joy Division, in many ways was creatively inspired (if that is the right word) by the fact that they lived in a purely utilitarian city designed to maximize economic efficiency. (Bernard Sumner mentions, almost in passing, that he never saw a tree until he was nine.) If Control was primarily a story about a marriage, then Grant Gee's "Joy Division" is about a place and a time: Manchester in the late seventies. This sounds ambitious, and it is, but Gee succeeds brilliantly in giving us an idea of where those mysterious Joy Division sounds & visions were coming from. This is a documentary that attempts to contextualize a band that dared to be culturally significant, and does so in a culturally significant way.

Manchester is both cerebrally & viscerally unique and this is a documentary that strikes to the core of how Joy Division processed the environment that became so much a part of their music. One might almost say that this is a documentary with two subjects: Joy Division & Manchester. Grant Gee certainly has a point of view here, and many of those interviewed here seem to share the belief that there is a "psychogeographic" (at least two of them use that very word) link between the time and the place it was made & the Joy Division sound. This is maybe not a surprising observation to make for it seems obvious that we are all, to a certain extent, products of our environment, but rarely has this oft thought axiom been so well expressed, and few, I suspect, have explored it more thoroughly than Ian Curtis.

This documentary is, in short, everything that Control was not.

It is full of substantial insight.

The most insightful and revealing and moving interview is the Annik Honore interview. She is a very delicate, very sensitive creature, and also one with a very refined sensibility. When she discusses Ian's stage presence and how he transformed into another kind of person onstage it is haunting and one feels that she among all that knew him, knew & understood him best.

The surviving Joy Division, now New Order, band members are surprisingly upbeat. Each of them breaks into laughter very easily when discussing the past. Apparently, the band shied away from playing Joy Division songs until recently.

One particularly memorable moment is when Sumner plays a tape of Ian Curtis answering questions under hypnosis. Sumner asks him to remember a time before he was born and then asks him what he is doing. Ian responds that he is reading books about the law. This is a hauntingly Kafkaesque moment.

Even though producer Martin Hannett (who produced both the Buzzcocks & Joy Division) died many years ago (1991, I believe), he is present here in spirit as each of the band members remembers Hannett's highly unorthodox studio practices; his "zen" method of production as one band member puts it. Hook has been quoted as saying that Hannett is responsible for the Joy Division sound, but he seems to retract that here as he insists that although Hannett made many adjustments to the sound, he didn't write the songs. I think an entire documentary could well be dedicated to Hannett. Music journalist Paul Morley, in his book on Joy Division, states that Hannett is the kind of guy that could have heard the sound of the moon passing round the earth.

Manager, and co-founder of Factory records and the Hacienda, Rob Gretton (who died in 1999) is also remembered. On several occasions Grant Gee silently pans the many pages of Gretton's notebooks full of phone numbers, carefully calculated expenditures, events and plans, some of which came to pass, and some of which did not.

Also memorable: An always lively Tony Wilson discussing a night that he was to give a lecture, and after listening to the previous speaker (Richard Florida) go on about creative communities, deciding to talk about death.

I recently saw Control & was disappointed that so much of the film was spent on the marriage (which makes sense as it was based on Deborah Curtis' biography). But this documentary tells the story that Control did not tell. In fact Deborah does not even appear in this documentary. (Deborah is represented only by a few written quotes.) While Control was Ian & Deborah's story (as Deborah saw it), this documentary is about the whole group & Manchester & music.

Extras: DVD includes the entirety of the Joy Division performance of "Transmission" on the SO IT GOES show. Plus loads of interview extras that take as much time to watch as the actual film, including discussions of everything from WWII (Morris calls it "the first big spin") to synthesizers (Sumners built the first one the band used).

If Control was the populist Joy Division project, this documentary is the thinking mans Joy Division project.

Highly recommended for purchase because there is so much here that bears repeated viewing.

From beginning to end, this was an illuminating look at the phenomenon that was Joy Division. I was motivated to watch this after viewing the film Control, and this is definitely a companion piece to it. However, I was also very much reminded of New Order Story - the documentary about the band that rose from Joy Division's ashes. The Joy Division beginnings are mentioned in NOS, but are for the most part glossed over. That film covered the Who and What of JD before continuing on; this documentary talks about the Why, and in great depth.

The other members of Joy Division were famously quiet on the topic of Ian Curtis for many years; it's wonderful to hear them open up and talk about it. It was also enlightening to FINALLY hear from Annik Honore'. She's been kind of a biographical footnote for years, and is mentioned only in passing in Deborah Curtis's biography of Ian. Finally we can put a face to the name and hear her side of Ian's story.

If you're at all interested in Ian and the band, you'd be foolish NOT to see this.

As a fan of Joy Division, you know how it's been. You wait, hope and pray for anything you haven't heard, read or seen before. A rare, live version of Shadowplay on an import CD that might send tingles up your spine. Just like the first time. Or a piece of new information in a hard to find book that might shed more light on the mystery that is Joy Division. We want to know more, we want to know why, we want to know everything.

Now we can rest. Joy Division (The Miriam Collection) (2007) is the elixir we've been seeking for a lifetime. No more second rate documentaries thrown together, offering nothing. Here are the older men; New Order opening up as never before. Anton Corbijn recounting why he moved to Manchester. Annik Honore coming forward after a quarter century with a perspective only she could have. And Genesis P-Orridge.

Many people forget or aren't aware that Throbbing Gristle, the most influential band industrial music has ever known, were huge fans of Joy Division. While their musical styles are different, both offer heavy soundtracks of a grim, bleak and hopeless late 1970's England. Genesis got to know Ian towards the end of his days and offers great insight into the man well beyond the myth. Yes, Genesis does look more and more like Liza Minelli every day and that can have a disturbing effect on viewers. Yet after seeing the factory heavy landscape of Manchester and England some 30 years ago, I'm frankly surprised that anyone survived. So, grab another tube of lipstick, Genesis, and have fun.

Sometimes, penetrating the mythology and legend of a enigmatic band can be a disappointment. After learning what you longed to learn, the esotericism is gone and little remains. That is not the case here. Joy Division was far more than the sum of its parts. Beyond the suicide, the profoundly dark music and powerful artwork was a band that transcended time and means as much today as ever. In spite of the God awful Goth label that gets attached to them, they have proven that they were a tough band in a tough time, clawing at the walls and expressing better than most what it felt like to be screwed.

This is the sound of disillusionment. For every kid or adult who has ever felt something is wrong and can't put their finger on it. Alienation, anger, intellect and the poetry of hopelessness. To this day, as shown in this film, Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner still don't think Unknown Pleasures is a good album. Not because it's a sub par record but because it's so weighted with darkness. And it is. For the suicidal, Unknown Pleasures and Closer could act at gateways to the grave. New Order spoke about how they didn't know what the lyrics to Closer were during the recording. Maybe they didn't want to know, or, as someone said, maybe they thought it was just harmless art. In retrospect, those very lyrics were bullets in a gun. Closer is so drenched in sorrow that possibly the only way it could be made was through a certain youthful ignorance. It is touching to see New Order talk about that time regretfully, being so young and naive. It's no wonder that it took so long for them to talk about those dark days.

But talk they did and we as fans are better off for it. This documentary was an absolute pleasure and deepened my love for Joy Division. Like their music, this film makes you feel. If by the end you don't experience the cold chill of a dreadful finality, you're not really alive. While Joy Division may sound like an auditory funeral at times, there is a paradoxical sense of survival. Against all odds, without reason or desire, we must go on. We must go on...

First off I'd like to say that I was a strong critic of the 2007 Anton Corbijn movie "Control" because it put Ian Curtis into an awfully banal template where he became just another distraught singer and Joy Division just another band when in reality nothing could be further from the truth.

As an avid fan of Joy Division, I recommend "Control" to absolutely no one despite its 'official' status as the Joy Division flick because it wildly diminishes the incredible depth of Joy Division's music and who I believe Curtis really was. Instead, I recommend this documentary not as a substitute to understanding Joy Division but as an introduction; what I'm sure "Control" had longed to be. While an hour and a half is hardly enough time to grasp anything, especially a band like Joy Division, this film does justice to the band and details Joy Division's origin, Curtis' personality, illness and struggle and why to this day the band's sound remains contemporary and influential in a historically specific, thoughtful manner.

Perhaps the best thing about this documentary is its comprehensiveness and how it doesn't condescend to the audience (like "Control" seemed to do) about the subtle yet brutal and tragic story of Joy Division. It's worth mentioning that Tony Wilson appears in this documentary (right before he died, sadly), as does Paul Morley, Peter Saville, the remaining members of the band (Barney, Morris and a seemingly very self-important Hooky) and Annik Honoré, the woman Curtis had an affair with who has, until this documentary, avoided all contact regarding the band.

It's this latter figure who I believe makes this documentary precious as Annik's appearance and comments concerning Joy Division, particularly Curtis, are arresting and enough to make this a must-have for fans. Her words are, as are to be expected, precise, insightful and dear. Annik's love for Ian is just as apparent as the pain of his absence, and hearing her talk instills a great longing for Curtis that fans who also loved the man and his words will no doubt identify with.

Overall, this is a very good, comprehensive and tragic documentary because it underlines not just how great Joy Division were and how they were cut short but also how much of a tortured, brilliant and romantic soul Curtis was. With the remaining members growing old and those affiliated with the band continuing to pass on, I believe that this may be the first, last and best documentary the world may be afforded about the great band Joy Division.

Much better than the dramatized movie Control, Joy Division is a good documentary of the phenomenon that was Joy Division. I was excited at seeing that there were so many extras on the DVD, but most of them turned out to be snippets of interviews, only a few of which were interesting (and one or two were brilliant). Still, anything on JD is appreciated. Deborah Curtis, Ian's widow, does not appear, and one wonders why she was not involved. Annik Honore appears quite often as the Yoko to Ian's Lennon. And boy, have the other members of the group gotten older! Time has its way with us all, but Ian Curtis remains forever young and bold.

Between "24 Hour Party People," Anton Corbijn's feature "Control," and Grant Gee's documentary "Joy Division," I think Gee's docu is the best. "24 Hour" sets the stage, delineating the context of Madchester in the early 80s and Tony Wilson's patronage as the Medici of the Northwest, discovering Joy Division/New Order. It's the most fun.

Grant Gee's "Joy Division" is informative and rich, with a lot more to give than the very limited feature "Control." The documentary focuses on outstanding faces, in crisp black and white, filtered through Final Cut Pro - it's a tasty, original and restrained blend of a music video and straight-up talking head interviews. As each new speaker is introduced, Gee brings up his or her face in soft focus behind their name-title. As the name fades from the screen and they begin to talk, the face snaps into focus.

The personalities are priceless - the surviving members of the band are honest and bare-faced, not "rockstar" at all, never mind that as the ultra-hip New Order they had the best-selling 12" single in history with "Blue Monday." They're fabulous to watch and listen to. The historic footage of Ian Curtis shows us his sculpted white-marble features, the full mouth of Michelangelo's David, punctuated by icy blue eyes - someone in the film says his eyes were "translucent." One in a million, that face.

Annik Honore, Ian Curtis's Belgian girlfriend, is articulate and open, glamorous and ethereally beautiful. If she broke up his marriage, one of the catalysts of Curtis's final breakdown, it's easy to understand her pull on him. Curtis's wife Deborah does not appear on screen, though her writing does.

Producer Martin Harnett, caricatured in "24 Hour Party People" by Andy Serkis (the voice of Gollum in "Lord of the Rings") as a nasty, portly drunk, is slender and wiry in the historic footage, very on. He was a co-developer of the AMS digital delay box, which he used for Joy Division's distinctive drum sound. It's not just the funky off-beats that the drummer employed - it's that instant spatial reverb SOUND that's such a sharp turn away from Punk. That's the real Harnett, not the cartoon version.

Peter Saville, Factory Records' graphic designer, looks more like a glamorous British actor than anyone has the right to, and has the resonant voice as well - his contribution was to put a brand-new graphical Modern look on what became Post Punk - a new direction just as the music took a new turn, evolving with Joy Division through New Order.

Saville's girlfriend at the time was Martha Ladly, the lanky blonde Canadian who was one of the two Marthas in Toronto's Martha and the Muffins. After leaving the Muffins and moving to England, she sang backup for the Associates on their masterpiece "Sulk" album. She appears in the Associates videos of the time, too, a foot taller than all the wee Scotsmen. It's her painting that Saville put on New Order's "1981 - Factus 8 - 1982" EP. Ladly was in charge of Peter Gabriel's groundbreaking Internet music efforts in the 1990s. Ian Curtis - New Order - Tony Wilson - Peter Saville - Martha Ladly: these people are gods.

Though I bought the DVD for the documentary, but am ecstatic about the 75 minutes of additional interviews. Not filler or superfluous information, but tidbits that any fan would want to hear about. I'm guessing these extra bits were left out to keep the "main" documentary concise and have an overall narrative.

I smiled along with Hooky as he recounts playing Transmission to "three Goth kids" amongst a generally hostile crowd at a dance club.

The movie "Control" was good but not full of the stuff i wanted to know about this band. This Documentary was far better!. Even the style of the doc. is true to Joy Divisions creativity! I learned all I needed to know about the band and then some. the interviews are fantastic! and its full of just the right amount of their great music.

I really enjoyed this documentary on Joy Division. A lot of the so-called rock documentaries that are out there are basically a bunch of little known rock critics and "industry insiders" who had nothing to do with the band.

Having everyone in the Joy Division inner-circle (Save for Deborah Curtis and their Manager, Rob Gretton) was really excellent and it was great hearing them speak from the heart.

I recommend this to any fan of Joy Division, post-punk music, Ian Curtis, New Order, or just the curious.

Joy Division gives any viewer insight to not just the band from Warsaw through New Order but the members themselves. Grant Gee uses a great amount of live footage, photos, and interviews to give an indepth view and information of Joy Division and the overall Manchester music scene of the time including Paul Morley, Martin Hannett and Factory Records. Highly recommended to any fan of Joy Division, if you like this be sure to see Control by Anton Corbijn.