What’s new is that Corbijn is also concerned with Curtis’ home life. Those familiar with Winterbottom’s earlier film will recognise much here: Curtis demanding the attention of Tony Wilson in a pub the signing of the band’s record contract in blood their appearance on Granada TV skinheads invading a gig Curtis’ epilepsy his suicide. He’s quiet, brooding, passive, unless he’s on stage, when Riley nails his possessed, jolty act.

In contrast, Sam Riley’s Curtis is a different animal. We’ve seen Curtis played before as an unlikeable, spikey presence by Sean Harris in ‘24 Hour Party People’. Suicide and the lives of artists are two of the toughest subjects for cinema to grapple with, and ‘Control’ squares up bravely to both.

The film’s real energy and excitement are in the live scenes, which are unfussy, extended and electric. There are plenty of shots of Curtis walking down the street or smoking a fag or looking out of windows. Watching the film, one is left with a sense of Ian Curtis as the subject for an intense photographic study as much as a figure ripe for probing drama. The photographer Anton Corbijn has now added ‘Control’ to the throng, and his contribution – a black and white study of the life and death of Ian Curtis – is more sombre and grounded and less playful than the comic spins we’ve come to expect. From ‘24 Hour Party People’ to the recent coverage of Wilson’s death to a new documentary on the box only the other week, this tale of bands, big egos and bad business sense has an appeal way beyond its roots. There’s already been so much said, written and broadcast about Joy Division and the Factory Records story that you could be forgiven for not having the patience to wade through yet another chapter in the story of Tony Wilson and the rest of the gobby cast that strode the Manchester stage of the ’70s and ’80s.

Mind control ian curtis