Control: 117 minutes. Rated: MA. Director: Anton Corbijn. Starring: Sam Riley, Samantha Morton, website
The figure of the 'troubled artist' — whose immense creativity and charisma are accompanied by a reckless, self-destructive lifestyle that ends in a premature demise — looms large on the pop cultural landscape.
From Jackson Pollack and Jim Morrison to River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain, the tragedy has played itself out so many times that it has become, at best, a cliché; at worst, a pattern to be emulated by those who deign to follow in their heroes' footsteps.
The stereotype is cemented when these figures' stories are transposed onto cinema screens. Ed Harris channelled Pollack for the eponymous film version. Val Kilmer immortalised Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors. And Cobain's final hours were re-imagined by filmmaker Gus Van Sant and his star, Michael Pitt, in Last Days.
But while such films make compelling viewing, offering insight into their subjects' complex personas and recreating their fate with emotional punch, the question remains whether there is anything to be gained by perpetuating the 'troubled artist' cliché.
At what point does tribute to the person's memory and achievements become a celebration of their self destruction? It's a fine line to tread.
In his feature directorial debut Control, internationally renowned photographer Anton Corbijn brings a sense of gentle lyricism and brooding understatement to the final years of Joy Division front man Ian Curtis' life.
Curtis (played with simmering intensity by Riley) married very young, and was on the brink of international superstardom when he committed suicide at the age of 23. Control portrays him as a troubled youth overwhelmed by the contrasting responsibilities of his music career and his domestic life.
Curtis' improperly medicated epilepsy adds to the burden, but ultimately it's an affair with a European journalist that proves to be his emotional and psychological undoing.
The fact the film draws upon the memoir of Deborah, Curtis' widow, and credits Manchester rock'n'roll guru Tony Wilson (who 'discovered' Joy Division) as a co-producer, lends it a sense of authenticity.
Unsurprisingly, given Control's source material, it is Deborah (Morton) who arises as the great victim of Curtis' self destruction — left to emerge alone, with their still infant daughter in her arms, from the mire of her husband's self-serving tragedy.
Which suggests that ultimately, the thing that prevents the 'troubled artist' biopic from too enthusiastically venerating its antihero is