Two new films explore the inner workings of post-punk legends Joy Division

THERE IS A revelation early in Joy Division, a new documentary about the eponymous English postpunks, when drummer Stephen Morris explains that if punk meant saying “f*ck you,” then his band was saying “I’m f*cked.” For all of the analysis and scrutiny the U.K. punk scene has received in the decades since its demise, this is one of the more poignant, personal observations. 'e band had formed in depressing, postindustrial Manchester—()* miles northwest of first-wave punk’s epicenter, London—after witnessing an inspiring, though sparsely attended, Sex Pistols gig. Where the Pistols were upset at their government and English society, Joy Division were upset with their situation.

Two new films are examining how this band of four young Britons rose above their circumstances to create music that invigorated everything from indie rock to death metal in the decades to follow. Joy Division features new interviews with the band’s surviving original members and contemporaries such as members of the Buzzcocks and 'robbing Gristle. Control, on the other hand (both, the Weinstein Group), is a biopic on frontman Ian Curtis’s tragic life, directed by famed Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn. 'e latter stunningly shows the band’s trials as they occurred, while the former adds insight through hindsight. What both films show, though, is that Joy Division were a group of young adults making sense of their increasingly absurd situation.

In (+,,, guitarist Bernard Albrecht and bassist Peter Hook recruited Curtis and Morris to form the Stiff Kittens, later changing their name to Warsaw. 'ey played rudimentary punk and expressed the same distresses as that time’s other famous Mancunian punks—the Buzzcocks, the Fall, Slaughter and the Dogs. Both films emphasize dreary Manchester—Albrecht (now going as Bernard Sumner) laments in the doc about never seeing a tree until age nine—and there’s no doubt their upbringing informed their morose tunes. After changing their name to Joy Division (a Nazi reference, though the band weren’t fascists) and teaming with a number of forward-thinking music-industry types, most notably producer Martin Hannett, the group created a tight, emotionally detached atmosphere for their (+,+ debut, Unknown Pleasures, which emphasized Hook’s throbbing bass and Curtis’s post-hope lyrics.

As depicted in Control, Curtis married at age (+ and supported his pregnant wife by helping find jobs for Manchester’s disadvantaged and mentally ill. After witnessing one client, a young girl, suffer a seizure in front of him, he was alarmed to learn not soon after that she had died. 'is inspired the song “She’s Lost Control,” but it also foreshadowed how Curtis’s bandmates, all in their early .*s, wouldn’t be able to handle his epilepsy, which set in shortly thereafter.

Control tragically illustrates how Curtis descends into his own problems during his final years and how his band carries on, hoping he’ll get better. His pressures mount after Curtis engages in an extramarital affair with a Belgian journalist. Confusion became his inspiration. Joy Division titled their final LP Closer, meaning proximity. But in the documentary, cover designer Peter Saville notes ironically that the title could be read aloud with a soft “s”—“closer,” meaning conclusion, and the deeper tragedy of putting a tomb on the cover. "#-year-old Curtis hanged himself on May $%, $&%', exactly two months before the album’s release. Half of his band, his mistress and Factory Records founder Tony Wilson did not attend his funeral. Months later, the rest of Joy Division would go on to form New Order.

Where these films excel is in telling Joy Division’s story from the inside. To date, the only other theatrical take on the band was director Michael Winterbottom’s "''" Tony Wilson biopic, !" Hour Party People.

Although it gave insight into the Manchester musical community, it was all from Wilson’s perspective. (Plus, the actor portraying Curtis was #', and looked it, when the film came out.)

Of the two new releases, Control gives a mostly unbiased account of Curtis’s life, filmed in black and white.

Samantha Morton, who portrays Curtis widow Deborah, gets top billing in the film, underscoring that this is the story of how Ian affected others as much as an exploration into why he ultimately committed suicide.

Although it is based on Touching From a Distance, a biography of Curtis written by Deborah, it also shows Ian’s love and conflicted feelings for Annik Honoré, his lover.

(e band’s greatest hit, “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” wasn’t just a pun on the Captain and Tennille’s $&)* No.

$, “Love Will Keep Us Together,” but a pseudo-breakup letter intended equally for his wife and adulteress.

(e most telling scene in Control is when, late in the movie, Ian (Sam Riley) tells Honoré (Alexandra Maria Lara), “It all feels wrong.” He’s not explicit what “it” is, and in doing so, makes one think about everything with which he, his lovers and his bandmates are coping.

(ese were adults still overcoming hardships from childhood. (eir environment, coupled with their young age, stunted how they could deal with real-world problems like mental illness and adultery.

Curtis’s internal battle was that of love versus accountability. In Joy Division, Morris recalls a time when Curtis phoned him to say he was moving to Holland to open a bookshop, but changed his mind when he remembered they had a gig on Saturday. Curtis could never separate himself from his responsibility.

His expectations for himself as a husband and frontman forced him to uphold this mysterious façade when he was trying to figure out his own confusion privately.

While his band was full of optimism and naiveté, Ian was full of pessimism and naiveté. (e pressures were too much for him. (e band knew nothing but to carry on.

In !" Hour Party People, the Wilson character says repeatedly that only $" people witnessed Christ’s Last Supper, comparing that with the spottily attended Sex Pistols show that inspired Joy Division. (e idea is that the fewer the people who witness something amazing, the more legendary it will be is still relevant to both of these films. Although they never played the United States, countless bands cite them as inspiration. And New Order achieved far more success than Joy Division could have expected. What Control and Joy Division prove together is that despite all his confusion, Ian Curtis and his bandmates may have been f*cked, but their music, to everyone else who’s f*cked, remains a worthy escape.