08 October 2006

24 Hour Party People

A few weeks after having seen A Cock and Bull Story by Michael Winterbottom with Steve Coogan, I've seen 24 Hour Party People by Michael Winterbottom with Steve Coogan. The two films are actually quite similar: both are documentary-style, both have Steve Coogan talk a lot in front of the camera, both feature a lot of tongue-in-cheek humour.
The subject of the film, however, is completely different. In 24 Hour Party People, Steve Coogan plays the role of journalist Tony Wilson, the founder of Factory Records, the man who signed Joy Division. The incredible thing is that he never became rich, even though, for instance, Blue Monday is the biggest selling 12-inch single of all time! The reason: Tony Wilson did what he did for art's sake, because he thought Ian Curtis was a genius, and Shaun Ryder (singer and songwriter of the Happy Mondays) a poet, and not because he was a greedy bastard like everybody else in the music industry.

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