Some men are just names, list items, other line in an anonymous phone whose inevitable fate is to feed the fire of the roast on a Sunday morning. But there are names that are men. And more: they are memory, ghosts covering everything with its shadow, countless music as an echo in a cathedral to the left chest. Among many who fit into that detail, there is one that may not have over the other advertising device, at least not in Argentina, but the mere mention conjures the figure of the poet maudit in times of rock. Ian Curtis is also the singer of Joy Division (mythical band from the scene after the explosion and fall of punk in England), a legend built on the maxim "live fast, die young", which has left so many heroes in history art. If Joy Division was able to build a sound that was a step beyond the punk scene in which it was formed, was partly by the influence of the dark universe that Curtis brought to the band and so many contemporary bands descent and took his post. And with good reason: Curtis is a very powerful exponent of his time. The son of a family case worker in the city of Manchester, the industrial center for excellence in the UK, that in the 70's was in a deep crisis and watered the streets of unemployment, Curtis was part of a devastated society yet chose an Iron Lady to lead the destiny of the Kingdom. Married at age 19 and father at 22, in parallel with their dreams of a poet and rocker Curtis worked precisely at an unemployment office, attending to those wretches who invaded their city. In addition to poverty, in those public agencies discovered epilepsy, while attending a young unemployed who suffered a violent attack against him. Shortly after the disease began to manifest itself Curtis. And although he did not need an excuse, the troubled boy finished opening the door to her own spiral into a hell of fear and guilt.
suffices to find a live video of Joy Division on YouTube, to understand why these young people captivated Curtis terminally ill who are no longer the rage was not revolting of Punk, which slowly was fading after traumatic suicide of Sid Vicious in a cheap hotel in New York. High, snow-white and crystal eyes, wild dancing, waving their bones almost confused her dance with one of his repeated seizures, which sometimes also caught in the middle of a concert, the young Ian more than singing recited each song with a voice so deep and hypnotic, and elegantly tune. Tormented by an early marriage, parenthood lived with pain, a disease that gradually turned him into a living puppet without a puppeteer, Ian Curtis left of hope. The poetry that are beyond their letters attest to this view of the world as alien and distant place.
On May 18, 1980, after watching a Werner Herzog movie and listen to an album of Iggy Pop, Ian Curtis chose to resolve their differences the same with life. In an age where rock stars are bits of glossy paper attached to a cardboard sky (where are bound to fall sooner rather than later, because the glue is getting lower quality), talking about Ian Curtis is talking about a history of strange and soulful ghosts. Ghosts have more meat than those living without noticing that the ship goes.
The lives of Ian Curtis: Music, Books & Movies
Albums Music is a language foreign to the word and maybe that's why, for circumvention, potentia-simo. Beyond Curtis's poetry, songs Joy Division, in its darkness (" Atmosphere "), Frenzy (" Transmission ") and introspection (" She's lost control "), it no longer reflects captivating world that somehow, if they are a good listener, whispering into the ear of a target audience that had embraced and many artists before Curtis will hang from the ceiling of the kitchen, while listening to an album of Iggy Pop-the big stupid rock lucid. Two discs ( Unknown Pleasures and Closer , or three if you count Substance formidable anthology, published some years later) come to know that he would meet Ian Curtis fate of artists consumed by passion and a tremendous look of innocence and the world, that space perceived as hostile to which each person is released at birth. If Curtis decided to end his trip prematurely, there are his records to confirm the reasons 30 years later.
Movies In his biographical obsession, the film usually combines the elegiac with the marketing and all the cinematic visions of the figure of Ian Curtis is no exception to this duality. From there, it can be said that he and Joy Division were lucky. An important role they played in the film 24 Hour Party People , Britain's Michael Winterbottom, recreating the scene of Manchester in the mid 70 to 90. Equally rich is the documentary Joy Division, Grant Gee, which traces the history of the band. But the most intense of these portraits is the one with Anton Corbjin in Control. Famous for his work as a photographer, Corbjin used as the basis for his film the book Touching Distance A , Deborah Woodruffe, Curtis's widow, wrote after the singer's death. Shot in black and white contrast, and supported in mimesis with which the actor Sam Riley took over the character, Control retraces the nearly four years since before Curtis was a Joy Division until his suicide in a way almost documentary. Needless to say (but how to avoid it), the soundtrack is perfect.
Book
Not hidden poetry that overflowed Curtis of Joy Division songs is the last thing one discovers them and maybe the language is the main obstacle. A curious editorial as Black Box in 2008 a book released impeccable. is Ian Curtis / Joy Division , where after a cover that mimics the cover art of the anthology Substance , a group of five poets rioplatenses shines with reversals, rewrites before translation: Mariano Dupont, Andi Nachón, Walter Cassara, Violet and Robert Echevarren rescue Percia Castilian for the lyrics of some songs more famous. Verses can be read as: "Behold your life reading scars" ("one Exercise") or "A cry for help, a hint of anesthesia, the sound of broken homes. / We used to meet there "(" Colony "). From its pages, Curtis returned to want "to this day / no longer life and never / I'll show / your true age, happens" ("No love lost ). Interestingly, the text of the most successful song of the band is not among the chosen who since the singer's headstone Guess who reminds him to go out there, that love always tears apart (again).
Article originally published in the supplement Culture Argentine Time.
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