There can be no denying that Anton Corbijn loves music. The Dutch photographer moved to England in the late 1970s to snap pictures of Joy Division, and his iconic photography will be forever associated with the British band. Corbijn soon found he could multitask, and turning to music videos must have been a natural step, as U2, Depeche Mode and Nirvana would surely testify. (Kurt Cobain eerily said after "Heart-Shaped Box" that if Corbijn didn't direct their next video, he'd never make another.)
Corbijn's entry into movies brought him full circle. Control tells the ill-fated story of Joy Division's late lead singer Ian Curtis, presented in stark but hauntingly beautiful black and white. It clearly caught George Clooney's eye; he appeared in last year's The American, which frames its stars — Clooney and the Italian backdrop — in stunning fashion. It couldn't have been too much of a coincidence that Clooney's character, a custom gunmaker, maintains the pretense of being a photographer.