ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I know you had been thinking about making a film for some years, but I heard that initially you turned down the offer of Control because you didn't want to do a music film.
ANTON CORBIJN: My worry was that it would be labeled a rock film. In England I'm already labeled a rock photographer, which is a little insulting, because I'm not a rock photographer at all. It's so easy for people to stick a label on you, and then that taints everything you touch. I wanted to be taken seriously as a film director, so I didn't think this was the right thing for me to start on. Then I had a change of heart a couple of months later. I felt that this subject matter was sufficiently important and significant to me to warrant me making a film about it. It was an era for me where the influences are so strong that they still drive me. I thought the movie would be a good way to deal with that period and then maybe put an end to it and move on. I also felt that it could be much more of a love story than just a music story. People will say it's the Joy Division movie, but it really isn't. It touches on Joy Division quite a bit, because it became part of Ian's life, but the film is very focused on Ian.
Was it hard to make the leap from photography to shooting a film?
I wanted people to go for the story first of all, and then once they were into the story hopefully they would see how beautifully it was filmed. I didn't want it to be purely advertising beauty shots. The composition comes naturally to me. But what I had to work on was the actors. That was a totally new thing to me. I was very nervous about that of course, especially working with someone like Samantha Morton who is such an acclaimed actor. It was nerve-wracking going to rehearsals, but you learn after you jump into the deep end, and somehow find a rock to hold onto. It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life...actually, it is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life [laughs)]. But it's also the most rewarding.
You're very much associated with Joy Division, who burned brightly and then burnt out with Ian's death, but you're also associated strongly with U2, who are one of the most enduring bands of the last 25 years. Any similarities between the two?
I think U2 always had a sense of purpose, whereas I feel Joy Division found the sound they wanted very early on. They both come from the same punk influences that inspired a lot of people back then to start something, even if they couldn't play. Joy Division couldn't play when they started. I know Bono is a great fan of Joy Division, and he met Ian Curtis, and he was very supportive of me doing the film.
Do you remember the first time you photographed U2?
Yeah, sure. I didn't like their music much. I listened to it for the first time on the plane on the way to New Orleans to photograph them. They'd just released October. They were going to be playing on a boat in the Mississippi, and I thought, ''Okay, I'll stay for just a few songs and then I'll leave.'' But when I got there the boat took off. I didn't realize it was actually going to go out on the water. So I couldn't leave. But we got on very well and now, of course, I love their music. The same with Depeche Mode. They'd been asking me since 1981 to work with them, but I didn't want to work with these poppy bands. And then in 1986 I relented and did a video with them, only because it was going to be filmed in America, and I'd never filmed in America before. But then things grew with them from there. It's interesting how it works. You couldn't plan it.
NEXT PAGE: ''Film is better, but everyone thinks it's hipper to use digital and everyone thinks you're an artist. It's like cameras in mobile phones. We're submerging ourselves in useless imagery.''
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