"The music is the star, and I am just a minor player in my own life story"
- Tony Wilson, as played by Steve Coogan

Let me say this up front: This movie is really something special.

The movie starts with one of the most wonderful and unusual scenes I can remember from recent films.

We see what looks like actual newsreel or documentary footage from 1976 as a British reporter is getting ready to try hang gliding. At first he seems extra stuffy (probably just a mirage created by his upper class British accent) and it is funny as you can sense his fear as he states that normally you get three weeks of training before trying this. He reports that his television station doesn’t have the budget for that, so instead they are just launching him off. We see shots of him flying (to Vagner’s “Ride of the Valkries”), and his elation and fear seem real, and his delivery of what happens to him is quite funny. Especially after he crashes for the third time.

Then the movie achieves an early mark of greatness by having the character talk to the camera. At first we think he is talking to the cameraman filming his flight, but then because he starts talking about the movie we have just started to watch, we realize that he is talking to us in the audience. He states that what we have just seen did actually happen, although it isn’t real. He then states that even though it was just a news story, it also works on a symbolic level. “Just think of Icarus” he advises, “and if you don’t get the reference than it doesn’t really matter, but you probably should be reading a lot more.”. The credits now start to play.

I still didn’t really know what this film was about, but I was ready for almost anything at this point.

The lead actor speaking to us is supposed to be Tony Wilson, a real person who is still alive today. He is played by Steve Coogan, who is an English comedian, but not well known here (yet!). I saw him recently on the Conan O’Brien show, and he seemed to be capable of doing amazing impressions, but it was clear after watching this film that I can expect to see some really great performances from him as well.

He has the best British voice and delivery I’ve seen since I saw David Thewlis’ masterpiece of a performance in “Naked” over eight years ago. Watch for his droll delivery when he is trying to explain to his wife that her act of revenge for catching him with a hooker isn’t even because her’s involved full penetration. When trying to convince someone that he just witnessed history with the first appearance of the Sex Pistols, the person argues that how can it be history if there were only 42 people there? Without missing a beat he replies back, well how many people were at the Last Supper. (The answer is just 12, although later he is corrected since it is 13 if you count Jesus.)

He talks to the camera a few other times in the film, often times for humor. At one point his character interrupts dialogue to state that the gentleman we just saw was the ‘real’ person that he is playing. Then he shows stills from earlier in the film of other ‘real’ people in the film. One character he singles out and says that unfortunately his scene was cut, “but I’m sure it will be on the DVD edition.”. I’m already tempted to preorder the DVD just to see how that scene plays in that medium.

Another humorous breaking of the audience barrier takes place after we see a large number of pigeons, given bread crumbs stuffed with rat poison, dropping from the sky. He tells us that this is a true event, but one of course recreated for the film. He makes it clear that in reality, no pigeons were killed for the making of this film. But then he quickly adds “even though a lot of people consider them to be pests.” And then he trails off with “like rats with wings.”. How can I not admire a film that tries something so risky, and yet not only is it very funny, but it really works without taking away from the film watching experience even while it is reminding us that we are watching a movie.

Sometimes his talking to the camera even makes the story more concise. During the restaging of the first public appearance of the Sex Pistols, he is one of the 42 people in the audience. At first with what seems like just a voice over he describes how historical it was, and how most people in the audience were to later make history as well. Then we see that it is he talking directly to the camera and not a mere voiceover. He goes around the room naming who each person is, and what their punk group would eventually be. One person jumping up and down he describes as Johnny the Postman, because he merely works as a postman.

An unusual voiceover scene takes place just after he visits a woman in bed, with some children around her. Later in a car he turns to us and explains that he should’ve told us earlier that he had a second wife, and some children, but unlike Hamlet, he isn’t really the star of his own story. The music is the star, and he is just a bit player, even though it all revolves around him.

In this sense, he may be right, although I was more interested in his character than I ever was with the music.

Have I ever really listened to the music from this time period? Not really. Do I care about this particular time and place in history? I do after seeing this movie. I’ve always described the most successful A&E Biographies as the ones that make you interested in someone that you wouldn’t think you would care to know anything about. This movie is a really good example of how to do something like this right.

Tony Wilson seems to be part university professor, aged punk rocker, and circus ringmaster, all wrapped up in one. He seems to have a good eye for what may not be popular, so much as revolutionary. And this is what he would rather be at the forefront of. Even when he knows a singer is poor, he still approves of them because they are provocative.

If we are to believe what we see, he claims several times that he went to Cambridge and doesn’t deserve to be doing stories about midgets hosing down Elephants or hosting the British equivalent of Wheel of Fortune. Yet, since he is constantly reminding us that he is losing money right and left, perhaps it makes sense that he still has his day job, even in 2002. (Is it really true that New Order's huge hit single "Blue Monday" was so elaborately packaged that Factory lost money on each copy sold?)

One of his wives says about Wilson that he doesn’t care what people are saying about him, just as long as they are talking about him. Part of his University professor type of appeal is that throughout the entire film he loves to quote quotes. One that is very telling, and probably true with this story: “When having to choose between the legend and reality, always print the legend.”

What we see is a man who really loved the music, although more specifically he loved the fact that this was a new type of music and he helped to make history. He didn’t really have any money, and at the end when he is offered a golden parachute of sorts, he has to explain that he has nothing of value to ‘sell out’ with, since there were no real contracts ever signed.

“Factory Records is not actually a company. We are an experiment in human nature. You're laboring under the misapprehension that we actually have a deal with our bands. That we have any kind of a contract, at all, and I'm afraid we, don't…”

That scene actually takes place towards the very end of the film. Well before this, we get a scene where he describes the second act of his life starting to take place. For his life’s second act, we see him describe how he was there for the birth of the rave culture. I have never heard it explained as well as this film does here. First off, in a brilliant, yet underrated special effect, he is somehow superimposed in normal time in a large band of ravers moving in slow motion. He isn’t just in front of them, but within the crowd working his way up to the front. But what he says is that at some point the audience started to applaud the Disc Jockeys, instead of the bands or the songs. He calls it the “beautification of the beat”.

What he also describes is that the problem with these raves is that they aren’t fueled by alcohol sales at the bar, but by Ecstasy, which although they discussed selling it themselves, never did, and thus never profited from the large crowds. His club lost money each week, but the losses were fortunately made up for by the large sales of his band’s albums, especially New Order.

Many of the TV interviews involve odd things like a duck herding sheep. The movie is filmed with some other really odd surreal moments. In one scene a UFO seems to deposit a band singer on a Manchester street. Why, I’m not sure at all. Towards the end we actually get God speaking to Wilson. Actually God tells him what he did right, what he did wrong, and gives him some career advice involving a “best of” album for one of his bands. At this point in the film it doesn’t even seem odd that God looks just like Wilson and then just afterwards there is a slight philosophical discussion regarding why God looks just like him, and how if anyone else spoke with God he would probably look just like those people too. Strange, strange film. But certainly quite wonderful!

The movie was actually filmed on digital video. It feels like it was filmed fast and loose. Some scenes may have been improvised, and some are clearly staged and planned to a tee. The editing has a sort of montage feel to it where I’m certain we see a few scenes completely out of synch to when they are supposed to be happening. This too isn’t necessarily a bad thing when it is done in a movie that seems to be about things that are ahead of their time.

My biggest complaint about the film was that it has completely unreadable credits in both the beginning and ending of the film. It looks like neon spray paint and it is flickering too fast to read. The film is set up almost like chapters, with similar very odd unreadable credits to signal each new ‘chapter’ throughout the film.

I don’t know if the real Tony Wilson is really like this movie character in reality. But if he is, I am certain I would enjoy meeting him. He must be very charismatic. He is also certainly very intelligent, even if not a good businessman, and someone who needs to either achieve greatness or be a part of history. This movie makes me feel like he probably succeeded at this. Although it is not flawless, this film worked for me on many levels, and I cannot recommend it enough to anyone who enjoys seeing films that more than just a little bit "different".

Note: On my own web page, I only gave the movie 4½ stars.



Recommended:
Yes