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Appropriately, it has been ten years since I discovered Joy Division. Having read an appealing article about them in a newspaper, I took the risk and, during a school trip abroad, forked out whatever amount of francs in the Louvre’s music store for a copy of Unknown Pleasures, with its enigmatic yet enticing cover. Popping the CD in my player, I was suddenly immersed in a world never experienced before. Within the first few seconds of ’Disorder’, its steady but muted beat, robotic yet somehow human, the strange bass tune and spiky guitars, combined with dark and profound vocals, I knew Joy Division were something special. Most people know them by their song Love Will Tear Us Apart, which was abused in a Heinekan ad a few years ago. But the band were much more, an almost literary lyricism combined with a sound that felt entirely unique. It was a sound that lasted only briefly, for the lead singer, Ian Curtis, committed suicide at the age of 23.

Joy Division have been depicted twice in cinema already. Firstly, in 2002’s 24-Hour Party People, which was a playful biopic of pretentious broadcaster and music label owner Tony Wilson. Then, last saw a film about Curtis, called Control, which received much critical acclaim. And now, we see a seemingly definitive documentary on the band being released (briefly in UK cinemas, and then on DVD in the US in June), also called Joy Division.

Directed by Grant Gee, who has directed several music videos, as well as the Radiohead documentary Meeting People is Easy, the documentary conducts intimate interviews with most of the keys players in the band’s history. Band members, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook, and Stephen Morris are all present. You’d think that after so many years of the band’s legacy, the remaining members would be tired of retelling the same stories. Yet there’s still times when the sadness breaks through. Hook, who always tries to be the tough bloke, admits regret at not going to the funeral house to say goodbye to Curtis. Even drummer Morris, who has been chirpy in every single interview, looks uncomfortable when describing his ambivalent reaction upon hearing about Curtis’s suicide, a reaction of sadness and anger. Other notables such as Tony Wilson appear (although Wilson was notorious for being a bit eccentric, which the documentary doesn’t really acknowledge), manager Rob Gretton is represented by his notebooks, and sadly producer Martin Hannett is no longer around.

The documentary also succeeds in shedding the mythological image of Curtis as some sort of tortured romantic literary figure. The band recount tales of the fun they had on tour, and that Curtis was a relatively fun person, until he was diagnosed with epilepsy which progressive got worse. This former side of Ian isn’t shown in Control, which was one of my main problems with the film. The other, is that Control tried to emphasise that it was Curtis’s relationship problems that caused his suicide, but I feel that his epilepsy played a bigger part- the life he wanted to lead was making his illness worse and worse. You can’t get more tragic than that. And this documentary again tries to focus on the latter, but essentially portrays the situation as one giant mess for a man of Curtis’s age and sensitive demeanour. And finally, Control gave little or no time to the great Martin Hannett, whose distinct production style made Joy Division’s music so iconic. In Joy Division, however, cover artist Peter Saville confesses that very belief, and it’s without doubt a valid one (his portrayal in 24-Hour Party People as a sort of music fascist is both hilarious and quite accurate).

The biggest “score”, the element that makes this documentary special, is the interview conducted with Annik Honore, Curtis’s lover, the element of his rock n roll life outside of his marriage. I could be wrong, but I think this is one of the first times she has spoken about her relationship, and even to this day she appears troubled about what happened.

However, the flipside is that Curtis’s wife, Deborah, is not present in the film, which is a big let-down. She is represented on occasion by written passages from what I imagine is her book on her husband, ‘Touching from a Distance’. Still, her absence is evident, and it would have been good to contrast the band’s image of him with hers, as well as her feelings towards Honore. I would have also liked to have seen Curtis’s daughter, Natalie, who is now in her late 20’s, be interviewed about her feelings towards the man and the music. But both Natalie and Deborah were involved in the film Control instead (the only time I’ve read her words was here).

Gee’s style is both interesting and irritating. Recognising that talking-head documentaries can become very slow, there’s plenty of stylistic devices, superimposing, fast cutting to photos, images, video clips, etc. At times his multimedia mindset can grate (such as having a “Things that are no longer there” series of labelled photos or clips), but mostly it lifts the pace.

Gee also makes the very valid point that place is very much a part of artistic creation. Manchester in the 1970’s was a very grim place. The band mention how green just wasn’t part of the landscape. And the music and lyrics of Joy Division certainly reflect this. But one commentator in the documentary goes even further, describing how the band managed to internalise this landscape, imposing it onto the individual, creating a sort of barren greyness on the soul, making the music both part of something external and internal. It’s one of the best descriptions of music I’ve heard in a documentary. However, Gee goes too far in associating the band with the city. While Joy Division were influenced by Manchester, Gee seems to say Manchester is somehow relating to Joy Division. The film ends with images of Manchester’s modern urban renewal, and I still fail to see how that relates to Joy Division’s music.

There are a few other flaws with the documentary. There isn’t enough on how the music and words were created. Hook just mumbles that he played high as he couldn’t hear low bass notes, and that he didn’t listen to the music. But perhaps that’s all there was to it. I would have also liked more on the legacy of the band. A few comments by critics isn’t enough. Joy Division are like the Velvet Underground, in that they may not be the most popular band, but they are one of the most influential. Artists as diverse as The Cure, Nirvana, Moby, Interpol, and the Killers, are all influenced by them. And when a young U2 were trying to make their name, Bono saw Joy Division perform and claimed that Curtis was the greatest lead singer alive.

And then there’s the man himself. I was expecting a lot more of Curtis’s words to feature in the documentary. The book Torn Apart published letters to Honore, for example. And there must have been some press (The CD collection of Peel Session has an interview with Curtis and Morris, for example). The best the documentary can muster up in terms of exclusive content is a recording of when Sumner hypnotised Curtis shortly before his suicide, but the recording feels almost superfluous.

Overall, Joy Division is a satisfying attempt at understand the band. It has plenty of rare video footage (including the Sex Pistols gig that inspired Sumner and Hook to start a band), and is a balanced portrayal of Ian Curtis. It doesn’t cover everything, but perhaps it’s not possible to do so. It will certainly be interesting to see if the DVD has the kind of extra material to do so. But for anyone interested in the music, this documentary stands as the best on the band so far.

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