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‘People were panicking over whether I could do the Ian Curtis dance’: how we made Control

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

‘The first time we played She’s Lost Control they had around 150 Joy Division fans there. I ran to my trailer and vomited. One guy said to me: “You had better be good!”’

Sam Riley, played Ian Curtis

After leaving the National Youth Theatre, I spent a year trying to be an actor then decided I wanted to be a rock star instead. I did that for three years with my band, 10,000 Things, but with moderate to zero success. We played in a pub called the Primrose in Leeds and, because of my appearance, they billed us as “Ian Curtis fronts the Rolling Stones”. I didn’t even know who Ian was. We got dropped by our record label and I ended up in a retail warehouse folding clothes and working in a bar.

I rang my old agent and said that I would do absolutely anything. Control had nothing to do with a deep love of the music of Joy Division – it was pure chance that they were looking for an “Ian” the week I rang. For the casting, I told work I was going to the dentist, but there were three auditions and I kept having to go back. My teeth never looked any better though.

‘We’ve been together ever since’ … Sam Riley and Alexandra Maria Lara.
‘We’ve been together ever since’ … Sam Riley and Alexandra Maria Lara. Photograph: Momentum Pictures/Allstar

My life was a mess in Leeds. I wasn’t in good shape. But I got the job on my 26th birthday and the movie saved me: just by coming to the set, having a purpose, being relied upon, being Ian. Samantha Morton, who played Ian’s wife Debbie, was incredible and led rehearsals. In one scene, she improvised and talked me into a corner. I burst into tears at the end of it. I thought, “Wow! This is acting.” I fell in love with Alexandra Maria Lara, who played the journalist Annik, and we’ve been together ever since, living in Berlin.

I think Anton Corbijn, the director, ended up remortgaging his house because when people heard his lead was some pub rock singer from Leeds, everyone wanted to run. I knew how much he was risking and didn’t want to make any mistakes. Before we started shooting, he asked me to do “the Ian Curtis dance” for him again. Some people were panicking over whether I would do it right.

The concert scenes were insane. In all my previous gigs, I had never had anyone in the audience look at me like that. The first time we were going to play She’s Lost Control, they had around 150 Joy Division fans as the crowd. I ran to my trailer and vomited. As I came out, a guy in his 50s said: “I saw Ian about 10 times. You had better be fuckin’ good!”

Ian was a torn personality: a young, married father and a rock star being pulled towards America and glory, dealing with epilepsy and the side effects of medication. He was just a boy. I wonder if that’s what I was like: confident on stage, insecure in life. Maybe that’s why Anton hired me.

During rehearsals, we went to see New Order play. That was strange. Backstage, all the actors playing band members sought out their corresponding musician – and I obviously couldn’t.

Anton Corbijn, director

‘I didn’t believe I was capable of it’ … Anton Corbijn.
‘I didn’t believe I was capable of it’ … Anton Corbijn. Photograph: Stephan Vanfleteren

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New on DVD: The Night Porter

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

By Graham Fuller | the Arts Desk

The Night Porter depicts the consuming sadomasochistic love affair of an SS officer, Max (Dirk Bogarde), and the Catholic woman, Lucia (Charlotte Rampling), whom he both tortures and protects when she is a teenage concentration camp inmate, and who becomes his partner in a protracted liebestod when they meet by chance in Vienna 12 years after the war’s end. Think of it as the anti-Casablanca.

in 1957, Max is the eponymous hotel employee, ashamed of appearing in daylight, and Lucia is the decorous wife of a famous American conductor. They are drawn together again by mutual desire and guilt, but she is emotionally stronger now than he is, and serene in the notion that their story can only end one way.

Their love may have begun with a monstrous male gaze – posing as a white-coated camp doctor, Max filmed Lucia in close-up as she shuffled with other naked female prisoners toward “the showers” – but by the end it manifests purity and tenderness. That doesn’t mitigate Lucia having warmed to her role as Max’s rescued Nazi slut or Max having smirkingly gifted her, Salome-like, the head of her camp bully during the notorious cabaret sequence. Yet director Liliana Cavani does hint at joint redemption in their final act.

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Derry Girls creator says movie is “definitely something we’re talking about” and reveals first details of Season 3

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

Derry GirlsDuring a recent interview, Lisa McGee chatted about Derry Girls Season 3 and the potential of a film being made. Expect a few more guest stars too

After that uplifting and sweet ending to Season 2, which culminated in Bill Clinton’s visit – we’ll always love James saying “I’m a Derry girl” at the end and a voice in the background saying “you’re a fucking prick, that’s what you are!” – fans have been eagerly awaiting what’s in store for Season 3.

Well, relax because the gang are coming back and during a recent interview, the show’s writer/creator Lisa McGee teased a few details about what’s in store.

“They’re still eejits and they still get into a lot of trouble, but they’re certainly going to grow up a little bit,” McGee told Red Carpet News.

“There’s definitely a very personal journey that they go on, as well as a political one. It’s an exciting time for them because they’re just on the cusp of adulthood,” said McGee.

While we’re supremely confident that Ma Mary, Granda Joe, Sister Michael, Aunt Sarah, Da Gerry and everyone’s favourite boring bastard, Uncle Colm, are all returning for Season 3, one of the main joys of Derry Girls is the wealth of supporting characters and guest stars.

Thankfully, Season 3 is going to be brimming with new faces and characters too.

“There’s lots of new guest characters, as always. In every episode, we have a new big guest star come in. That’s really exciting, writing those (roles). That has been good craic, looking forward to shooting all of that,” said McGee.

During a previous interview with JOE, McGee said that she does have a very specific event that she’d love to depict in the show, the Good Friday Agreement.

“Obviously, the political timeline is a bit tricky and I’d need to do a lot of sitting down and thinking about how to work the plot out,” McGee told us.

“I’d love to get the story up to the Good Friday Agreement but that’s tricky. You know, we’ve ended Season 2 with Clinton’s speech in Derry that took place in ’95. It’s a bit of a way off but I just need to work all that out. I’d definitely want to cover the Good Friday Agreement . It was the biggest moment in my lifetime and it was huge for Northern Ireland. It would be a shame not to try and tell that story,” she said.

We know that Season 3 is definitely coming, but the talk of a Derry Girls movie is showing no signs of going away. It appears, in fact, that talks about a movie have already started.

“That’s definitely something we’re talking about and something I’d like to explore. It’s just if the story is right. So, it’s about me figuring all that out… at some point!” said McGee.

Source: Derry Girls creator says movie is “definitely something we’re talking about” and reveals first details of Season 3 | JOE is the voice of Irish people at home and abroad

Dark star: The final days of Ian Curtis by his Joy Division bandmates

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

Married at 19, the brightest star of the post-punk scene at 22, dead at 23. The life of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis is the stuff of rock mythology – and a much talked-about new film. Here, his former band-mates talk exclusively to Jon Savage about their troubled singer’s last days

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Saturday 27 October 1979. I’m up in the gods of the Ardwick Apollo, a huge 1930s cinema situated in the middle of slum clearance. The Buzzcocks’ manager Richard Boon is fiddling with the tripod of a primitive Beta video camera as he attempts to get the stage area into focus. His primary purpose is to film his group, who are headlining tonight, but he inadvertently ends up capturing a piece of history.

Framed within the cinema’s huge proscenium arch, Joy Division walk out and launch into “Dead Souls”. The peculiarity of this song is that it has a long, rolling introduction that allows the group to orient themselves in their environment for the night. Like many of the venues on this 24-date national tour, the Apollo is larger than the clubs that have been the group’s environment to date. But they are not intimidated. They inhabit the space.

Then he begins to sing: “Someone take these dreams away/ That point me to another day”. The lyric to “Dead Souls” is an unsettling evocation of psychic possession and the presence of past lives. The chorus is an anguished chant: “They keep calling me”. From today’s materialistic cultural perspective, this might excite derision, but like many others in that hall, I’m totally gripped. Continue reading →

The fears of a ‘Downton’ super fan, and the dangers of exhuming pop culture memories – The Boston Globe

~ Michael Stevenson ~ Leave a comment

Christopher Muther loves all things “Downton.” Could the movie version of a favorite show mess it all up?

We have a hard time letting go of things we love.

Be it a treasured trinket, an old love letter, or maybe a dead pet’s ashes in a shoebox under the bed — although hopefully not that. But when it comes to television characters, we really can’t let go.

When they’re not getting rebooted on the small screen, à la “Will & Grace,” “Roseanne,” or “Gilmore Girls,” they’re turning up at the cinema. This is when we hold our breath. Legacy and love are at stake.

Was it a good idea to make a second “Sex and the City” movie, even with the added bonus of Liza Minnelli singing “Single Ladies”? Absolutely not. Did the actors from “Star Trek,” plus William Shatner’s toupee, need to come back to save the whales 20 years after the original series debuted? Nope. Did we need an “Entourage” movie? That’s a hard no. We didn’t need “Entourage” in any form.

I invested myself deeply in 52 episodes of the upstairs-downstairs drama of an English family trying to hang on to a monolithic castle and its evaporating aristocratic lifestyle. The series was a gift that we delicately and eagerly opened layer after layer, year after year, until we were emotionally satisfied and grateful with what series creator Julian Fellowes and international treasure Maggie Smith had bequeathed us.

I was terrified to find out whether the “Downton” movie would be the gift that kept on giving, or whether I would need to hang on to the emotional receipt and ask for my cherished memories back. I love all things “Downton,” and I didn’t want those memories sullied.

Guess who cried with joy when Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens) proposed to Lady Mary Crawley (Michelle Dockery)? This guy, that’s who. Who dropped his Doritos with quaking hands and a quivering lip when Lady Edith Crawley (Laura Carmichael) was left at the altar? Yes, that was me as well. I’ve traveled to the locations in England where the show was filmed, and I have come up with excuses to interview the actors and the show’s costume designer. The technical term for this type of behavior is shameless.

The news of a “Downton Abbey” movie stirred equal parts terror and elation in my chitterlings. Everyone appeared destined to live happily ever after when the series wrapped. I did not want to see Mr. Bates (Brendan Coyle) tossed back in prison or listen to patriarch Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) sputter more outdated guff when Mary and Tom Branson (Allen Leech) attempt to save the estate.

“Please!” I thought. “Leave them be.” If we’ve learned anything from years of television and movies, it’s that exhuming the dead can only lead to zombies, or, even worse, an “Entourage” movie.

Even with my deep trepidation, there was no question that I would see the movie. I managed to squeeze myself into an early screening (again, shameless), and bit my lip as John Lunn’s now-iconic “Downton” theme began.

Here’s the good news about the movie. The legacy remains intact. Even better, Paul Giamatti does not make a guest appearance. With few exceptions, there is nothing too damning or outrageous that happens to our beloved characters. I’m not going to reveal those exceptions because I operate under a strict no-spoilers policy. The film is primarily a self-contained caper surrounding a visit from King George V and Queen Mary. But that visit is a thin excuse to launch the action, both among the Crawleys and the servants.

Truth be told, I could have sat for two hours and watched Smith’s Violet Crawley volley pointed witticisms while wagging her chin at Isobel Crawley (Penelope Wilton), who is now known as Lady Merton. The chemistry between the two actresses is as dynamic as it was during the series.

The movie feels like one of the cherished Christmas episodes, but longer. It’s a tidy package with a few character development tendrils unfurling with the promise of new stories, new romance, and new changes.

But wait. Does this mean a second “Downton” movie is on the horizon?

Fellowes, “Downton” producer Gareth Neame, and three actors from the show/movie were at the screening I attended. After the movie there was a Q & A session where the question of a sequel was asked. Fellowes shrugged and grinned, Neame said it would depend on how this movie did at the box office, and Phyllis Logan (Mrs. Hughes) and Lesley Nicol (Mrs. Patmore) both strongly indicated that they were onboard for a second film.

Immediately, I began to fret again about my “Downton” family and said a silent prayer. “Please, no matter how many of these movies you make, just let Edith be happy and keep the Dowager Countess alive as long as possible.”

Source: The fears of a ‘Downton’ super fan, and the dangers of exhuming pop culture memories – The Boston Globe