Starring Steve Coogan, Paddy Considine, and Shirley Henderson.
A portrait of the artist as giver. In the late ‘70s, real-life classically-trained journalist Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan) whores himself as a host for cheesy talk shows, info-tainment, and the UK version of “Wheel of Fortune.” Why? So he can fund his real calling – promoting and producing records for early punk, new wave, and rave bands.
Beneath all the drugs, glamour, and frenetic camera work, Wilson comes across as a genuine martyr for art: he believes song rights should belong to the artists and, in a grander sense, art belongs to the people, not to record companies. And he blows every last cent to that end. He never makes contracts and loves Manchester. In the late ‘80s, when the dream is over, he tells the crowd at his soon-to-be-defunct nightclub to raid the recording studio, take all the equipment they want, and go forth in peace to make great music.
Wilson also does enough scummy things – drugs, hookers, infidelity, a $30,000 table – to keep “24 Hour Party People” from being a hagiography. In his self-important, yet apologetic and rubber-faced way, Steve Coogan is fast becoming one of my favorite actors; the way he dances at the first Sex Pistols concert, or tells a hooker “would you mind if I fondled your breast while you do that?” is priceless.
“24 Hour Party People” shares a slight overlap with the music history of “Velvet Goldmine” (punk is a rebellion against glam), but “24 Hour Party People” probably hits me more because its central band is Joy Division / New Order. And maybe that band’s Bernard Sumner comes across as saintly, but if you like New Order as much as I do you won’t mind.
The script is by Frank Cottrell Boyce, writer of “Millions” (about the boy who finds a fortune and wants to give it away) and a former contributor for the UK magazine “Living Marxism.” He cites Tony Wilson and St. Francis of Assisi as his hero’s and calls his personal philosophy “reckless generosity.” His Marxist-cum-Catholic paradigm is expressed in stories about saints, redistribution of wealth, and love of community.
Director Michael Winterbottom (“Code 46,” “Tristram Shandy,” “In This World,” “Road to Guantanamo,” “A Mighty Heart”) uses frantic editing, shaky DV, strobe lights, and a generally rushed pace to capture the heady days of inspiration, quick riches, and quicker dissipation. Unless Wilson is cheerfully addressing the camera, characters enter with as little fanfare as an Altman movie and remain largely unnamed (unless it’s “Rob” or “Don”) as they go about their work and fight. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Michael Mann was influenced by Winterbottom’s visual style in making “Collateral” and “Miami Vice.” For his politics, diversity, and handheld stuff, Winterbottom is something of a hero to younger, left-leaning critics. I’m usually impressed with how his films are livelier than their stuffy, theoretical summaries make them out to be.
“24 Hour Party People” also emphasizes how music is not made in a vacuum, how industrial centers on the downslide tend to create music that’s hard and loud. It shares this ambiance with, of all things, the “Wayne’s World” movie, another movie set in an economically depressed and dirty steel town where people like their music loud.
Finished Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Copyright © 2007 Friday & Saturday Night
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(9/10)
