14:01min Ian Curtis (Sam Riley) watches the Sex Pistols in Manchester. “I think everyone who was at that gig formed a band,” reckons Steve Walsh, whose group, Manicured Noise, used to rehearse in the same building as Joy Division. “This lot, the Buzzcocks, A Certain Ratio, Simply Red, the Smiths – even the Happy Mondays.”

18:23min Peter Hook, the bassist, breaks wind repeatedly and no one blinks an eye. “Hooky was dead proud of the way he was represented in the film and that’s exactly what it’s like being in a band – grubby and smelly,” says John Robb, whose band, the Membranes, also played the Manchester circuit in the late 1970s.

26:35min The band play live. “They sound just like the original band,” observes Paul Tickell, who wrote for Melody Maker and NME at the time. “That’s because the actors are really playing their instruments,” explains John.

34min Curtis is working in the dole office and it seems that everyone he counsels is in some way mentally or physically challenged. “What is it with all these disabled people?” asks Ben. “They’re in Macclesfield!” chuckles John.

34:50min Joy Division are travelling to London by car. “The cinematography and framing are excellent,” says Steve. “Yet it was filmed in colour and transferred to black and white,” says Ben.

51:23min Curtis meets the Belgian magazine journalist Annik Honoré (Alexandra Maria Lara) after a London gig, and they start an affair. “I saw Joy Division at the Moonlight in April 1980,” recalls Paul. “After the set Curtis jumped into the audience, grabbed hold of Annik and ran out the front door.”

68:48min After his wife Debbie (Samantha Morton) discovers his infidelity, Curtis breaks down. “He was devastated that he was cheating on his wife but couldn’t help himself,” Steve says.

72:57min “I used to think he was on speed,” says Paul as we see Curtis doing his twitching on-stage dance. “But then I discovered that he never took drugs apart from his medication.” Steve adds: “The real oddballs don’t need drugs. And Curtis was truly odd – he voted Conservative and loved Thatcher.”

79:33min Curtis is talking about Manchester City. “He was a mad City fan,” says John. “It’s hard to imagine a footie fan writing poetry today.”

95min The Curtis family sits around the dinner table. “Anton Corbijn [the director] was influenced by all those great films of the 1960s like Saturday Night Sunday Morning,” Ben says. “That’s why a lot of people in the north didn’t like this film,” John adds. “They thought it revisited all those clichés.”

100:30min Curtis is watching TV. “That’s Werner Herzog’s, Stroszek,” says. “It’s based on Franz Kafka’s Amerika, and Kafka, like Curtis, never wanted to go to America.”

VERDICT

All were impressed by the film. “I can’t stand most biopics but this is truly believable. It really captures the era, the details are spot-on and Sam Riley has got Curtis down to a T,” said Paul. “It’s simply the best rock’n’roll film ever made,” concluded John.

Control is out to buy and rent on DVD on Feb 11; Steve Walsh is on myspace.com/manicurednoise; John Robb’s book Punk Rock – an Oral History is published by Ebury Books; Paul Tickell’s film, Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry, is available to buy on DVD. Interview by Chris Sullivan

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