Like few others in rock history, Tony Wilson was a genuine impresario. He possessed a personality so charismatic and larger than life that, without him, his show?the legendary and influential Factory Records?could not have gone on. Thanks to Michael Winterbottom’s new film 24 Hour Party People, Tony Wilson comes fully out of the shadows of Factory’s great bands to take his place next to Bill Graham in the pantheon of rock’s great promoters.
A television host in grim, post-industrial late-’70s Manchester, Wilson is given to flaunting his Cambridge education to those who couldn’t care less, as well as spewing words like “postmodern” and claptrap about situationism?not exactly admirable traits. From the moment he sees the Sex Pistols in Manchester, he is convinced that he is on the cusp of a great historic moment, and he can’t shut up about it. Throughout, British comedian Steve Coogan plays Wilson with a sort of smarmy, uniquely British wit drenched in intellectualism, and the script gives him plenty of comic opportunities to flash it. It is Coogan’s remarkable read of Wilson’s inflated personality which makes 24 Hour Party People something more than a standard biopic. Coogan makes Wilson likeable enough to make it perfectly plausible that he founded and maintained one of the most influential record labels in rock history.
The film’s title, taken from a Happy Mondays song, implies the documenting of a scene, or at least a group of people. But if the movie is about the legendary ‘80s “Madchester” scene, where’s the Smiths or the Charlatans? If it’s a history of Factory Records, why does New Order, responsible for a great deal of the label’s sales, basically drop out of the film’s second half? So that leaves the Tony Wilson story?but it’s not exactly that either. At one point, Coogan turns to the camera and reveals that during the film’s events, he has fathered two children, divorced and is now sleeping with Miss U.K.?not a particularly thorough character sketch. So instead 24 Hour Party People tries to channel a historical moment through the eyes of its protagonist, without quite nailing down either. But that’s fine?this is not a history text or a biography, it’s a movie?and a rather entertaining one at that.
From that seminal moment at the Sex Pistols show, Wilson hypes, cajoles and bankrupts his way into rock history. He meets a young Ian Curtis, whose first words to him are decidedly uncomplimentary, hooks his band, Joy Division, up with legendary producer Martin Hannett (Andy Serkis) and releases their first record. After Curtis’ suicide, Joy Division morphs into New Order, and Wilson soon takes his next chance on a cavernous nightclub, the Ha?ienda, which becomes the locus of the Madchester scene. Unfortunately his artistic and cultural savvy seems to be continuously overshadowed by his financial ineptitude, and the Ha?ienda is soon closed and Factory Records defunct.
As the story is told, familiar names dart in and out of the film, sometimes leaving a vivid impression, sometimes not. Sean Harris gives a fascinating performance as the enigmatic-and-doomed Curtis. Jerking arrhythmically onstage (much like David Byrne would a few years later), Harris plays Curtis with such a forlorn air, his tragic suicide prior to the band’s debut U.S. tour comes almost as an anticlimax. Meanwhile, Wilson clashes with producer Hannett and abusive, strung-out Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder (Danny Cunningham). Even graphic designer Peter Saville (Enzo Cilenti), almost entirely responsible for Factory’s reputation for cutting-edge design, shows up, delivering the flyers for the first Factory club night late.
The familiar places are recreated just as vividly as the faces. Winterbottom captures nicely the industrial rot of late ‘70s Manchester, which would become the overarching aesthetic of Factory and their bands. Later in the film, his reconstruction of the Ha?ienda is duly impressive (the real deal was torn down to make way for condos just as filming began).
But Winterbottom makes a few mistakes: His choice of integrating live footage with the dramatization is bizarre and distracting, considering that tons of real-life characters are dramatized. Was the budget so tight that he couldn’t dress up four skinny white guys as the Sex Pistols? Further, the film’s overly busy art direction betrays a lack of sense for Saville’s aesthetic of sleek minimalism. But he nicely captures a relatively interesting moment in history, and just as importantly, captures that moment’s most important character.
Those able to recite every last Factory catalog number certainly have reason enough to see 24 Hour Party People. The greater question is whether the film is comprehensible to the rest of us. Certainly the Mancunian brogues don’t help. But all told, 24 Hour Party People tells the dramatic story of a remarkable man, not unlike Gandhi or Lawrence of Arabia. And to Tony Wilson, those grandiose historical comparisons might seem perfectly appropriate.
