Anton Corbijn makes patient, carefully framed films about musicians and isolated men. We value the attention he gives his actors, especially in Control, though he sometimes keeps a scene running after it has done its work.
Fi1m perspective
In Control (2007), Sam Riley makes Ian Curtis worth watching between concerts as well as during them. Corbijn lets the domestic scenes take up space, without treating the next song as compensation for sitting through them. We were moved by the live performances because Riley makes Curtis’s onstage appeal understandable without making ordinary life look any easier. This is the Corbijn we recommend: interested enough in a person to wait, and good enough with an actor to make waiting worthwhile.
His background in music photography and videos helps explain the static compositions, muted palettes and restrained camera movement. Control was his feature debut, in black and white, after a long period working in stills and promos. His recurring collaborators include cinematographer Martin Ruhe and editor Andrew Hulme. Yet the care over the image would count for little in Control without Riley and Morton, whose scenes away from the stage have their own dry humour.
The next phase took that patience into character-driven thrillers: The American (2010), starring George Clooney, and A Most Wanted Man (2014), adapted from John le Carré. The isolated figures remained, with less reliance on movement to keep us watching than the genre usually expects. Life (2015), about photographer Dennis Stock and James Dean, returned to the business of making images of an artist. These are sensible subjects for a director interested in watching people closely, although a preference for stillness can make a thriller feel stalled.
Those habits need checking, even in a film we admire as much as Control. Some domestic scenes continue after we have understood the trouble, and a firmer cut would have helped. The reservation matters because his willingness to attend to ordinary life is also what makes the film moving; there is no benefit in keeping a scene simply because it is quiet. Start with Control, provided spending a substantial part of a music film away from the stage sounds agreeable.
Biography
Anton Corbijn is a Dutch photographer and film director. Born on 20 May 1955 in Strijen, he began his career as a photographer and later directed music videos.
His feature directorial debut was Control (2007), a biographical film about Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, which he also produced. He has since directed The American (2010), A Most Wanted Man (2014), Life (2015) and the documentary Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) (2023).
Corbijn directed A Talent for Murder (2026). He has handled principal promotion and sleeve photography for Depeche Mode and U2 over several decades.
