How far can a movie go in emulating the real thing music-wise.

[Blazer]

I guess we all know the movies about rock stars and the like. Take for example "Ray" in which Jamie Foxx played a very convincing Ray Charles or "What's love got to do with it?" in which Angela Bassett does Tina Turner justice and more recently Joachim Phoenix who starred in "walk the line" as the great late Johnny Cash.

But in all those movies, the performances are mimed using the real music. But then there's the exception, the movie where the performances really are the real deal, where the actors learned not only how to play the musicians but also how to play like the musicians. The title of that movie?

"Control"
Which is a biopic on the late great Ian Curtis of Joy Division. Director Anton Corbijn insisted on real performances and drove the actors into learning how to play instruments and do it in exactly the same way as the real bandmembers did. So how did they do?

Well here's the real thing, Joy Division performing "Digital"


and here's the cast of "Control" performing "Digital"

[SKATE RAT]

Joaquim Phoenix learned to play guitar and both he and Reese Witherspoon both really sing in "I walk the line"
but that Joy Division is really good almost too close.kinda creepy.

[Nocturnal]

I thought that "Control" was a very good movie, but probably more of interest if you are a Joy Division fan (which I am). I also thought that the Killers did a good version of 'Shadowplay' (and I'm not a Killers fan).

[uwe]

Is the actor playing Peter Hook playing an SG RI bass?

[Blazer]

Is the actor playing Peter Hook playing an SG RI bass?

Yup, that's one thing that Corbijn did not get right. He gave the band brand new instruments instead of the copies they actually used to play. "Peter Hook" also played a genuine Rickenbacker 4001 instead of the Hondo copy Rick the real Hookie used to play.

[leftybass]

And of course "Ian Curtis" playing an Eastwood instead of a Vox.
I'm sure it was easier to get ahold of a Ric and a Gibson than it would be getting a Hondo Ric copy and whatever off-brand Gibson copy Hooky played before he got the Hondo.

[uwe]

Well, maybe that is then why it sounds better than the original!  Forgive me, Joy Division fans, but I prefer the last two albums of New Order to anything Joy Division or New 0rder for that matter did before ... I know that sounds to you like someone preferring Paul McCartney & The Wings to The Beatles. 

Didn't Hook play some non-descript Yamaha thing in the early days?

[SKATE RAT]

the Warsaw demo is the best thing they did.i love that version of "They walked in line"
hook played a Yamaha BB for most of New Order

[Blazer]

Didn't Hook play some non-descript Yamaha thing in the early days?

Eeeyup.


In fact he's still using that Bass as his main recording bass.

[uwe]

This epitomizes "shoe-gazing music", but it's a classic track.

[Barklessdog]

Well, maybe that is then why it sounds better than the original!  Forgive me, Joy Division fans, but I prefer the last two albums of New Order to anything Joy Division or New 0rder for that matter did before ... I know that sounds to you like someone preferring Paul McCartney & The Wings to The Beatles. 

Funny I agree, Ian did some horrible vocals that were hard to swallow sometimes, to me.

[leftybass]

Didn't Hook play some non-descript Yamaha thing in the early days?

In the early days of JD? Nope.