Disorder: Joy division

Joy Division (2007) is the most recent of a group of feature and documentary films – including 24 Hour Party People (2002), Control (2007) and Shadowplayers (2007) – tied to the legacy of Manchester’s Factory Records and Ian Curtis and Joy Division. Actively promoted as a more authentic, emotionally deeper film than the Curtis biopic, Control, Grant Gee’s Joy Division documentary puts forward the idea that the cult band Joy Division was inextricably linked to the physical and social history of the city of Manchester. This article draws a line through the do-it-yourself ethos of punk (and post-punk) to the Situationist International (and the latter’s obsessions with psychogeography and drift) to provide a broad context for Gee’s film, and the emotional and graphical landscapes of the music of Joy Division.