Movie Marathon: Self-Destructive Young Men

Once in a while, I'll watch two films back to back that were coincidentally related in some way. This weekend I saw Control and Into the Wild. Both films were about real people. Control was about Ian Curtis. Into the Wild was about Christopher McCandless. Both characters died in their early 20s, more or less as a result of their own actions.

Specifically, Ian Curtis died of suicide. For those of you who don't know, he was the singer of the band Joy Division who hung himself on the eve of the band's first North American tour. I'm a fan of the Joy Division's music, so it was fascinating for me to see their performances recreated on film. The actors that played his band mates were actual musicians too. Therefore, a performance scene consisted of the actual actors playing the music, and that added a certain amount of authenticity to the film.

Control did a very good job of showing all the pressures that plague Ian Curtis which included his marriage, his affair, his epilepsy, his job and his band's rising success. It also showed how ill-equipped he was to handle them without condemning or excusing his final action. It was very specific to Ian Curtis's life and that too made it very authentic. As a testament to the film's strength, I was so emotionally invested that I found the scenes that preceded his suicide uncomfortably unwatchable.

Into the Wild's strength also came from it's specificity. Christopher McCandless was an accomplished college graduate from a wealthy family who shed all his personal identification and possessions, wandered America, lived off his own wits and the kindness of strangers until he was compelled to escape civilization and live in the Alaskan wilderness until he died of starvation. The film provided reasons (his dysfunctional family life) for why he chose to do this, without excusing his actions. Like the previous film, Into the Wild presented his background, his actions and his consequences as something specific to his life. There were times when I thought he was a complete idiot for doing what he did. At other times, I felt that his chosen lifestyle was a wise and happy one. I think this was a testament to the non-judgmental way in which the film presented him.

Like Control, I found the film very personal. The difference though was that Control felt more claustrophobic, since Curtis perceived himself as trapped. Into the Wild felt more epic, both because to the many locations McCandless traveled to and freedom his lifestyle afforded him.

So if you haven't guessed.... well... I recommend both movies: movies about young men who made bad decisions based on a combination of inexperience and mental instability. Neither film shied away from presenting the full complexity and difficulty of their subject matter, and both films successfully turned such dark material into an enjoyable cinematic experience.

Final Grades:
Control B+ (a little tough to watch near the end.)
Into the Wild A+ (complex, epic, and cinematic.)





mp3: Joy Division's "Transmission" performed by the cast of Control

mp3: "Hard Sun" (Indio cover) performed by Eddie Vedder and Corin Tucker from the Into the Wild Soundtrack