24 Hour Party People

It's my belief that history is a wheel. "Inconsistency is my very essence" -says the wheel- "Rise up on my spokes if you like, but don't complain when you are cast back down into the depths. Good times pass away, but then so do the bad. Mutability is our tragedy, but it is also our hope. The worst of times, like the best, are always passing away".

-Boethius

And before I begin, this is a quote from the movie, not me. I would never begin to portray myself so learned as to quote philosophy in my opening passages. Not that its a bad thing, but it would be phony of me.

But I like it. It gives me a certain sense of hope and adventure and perspective when I hear these words. It also underlines the theme of the movie, which is about the conception of Factory records in Manchester, England in the late 70's. It then follows it through the 80's all the way to 1992 where it all goes to shit. And whats very smart about the movie is that we see the whole thing was actually going to shit since the beginning, its just our characters, who are based on real people, just dont realize it.

But thats okay, because anything goes in this movie: breaches in the fourth wall, riding back and forth on the timeline, stock footage mixed with scripted footage. There are also inclusions of the real people in cameo appearances, and sometimes our narrator Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan) will call them out and talk about them. In one scene in particular he points himself out, the real Tony Wilson, and talks at length about him/himself.

This movie is almost formless in this sense. Its a driving narrative, but it also feels like a documentary of sorts the way it so dutifully fills us in on the details of each scene. Like lets reenact history to commentate on it. But not all of it is truth; a lot of it is reenacted legends and rumors. But this is the best part of the movie because it blends fact and fiction so well.

In one scene Tony gets a blowjob from a hooker and his then wife catches him, so she goes and shags the Buzzcock's Howard Devoto in the men's room. This of course never happened according to the real Howard Devoto, who pops into the scene as a Janitor. The voice over tells us a quote, "when given the chance to print the truth or the legend, print the legend."

The method of the movie is to do cool little things like this, explain itself and move on. Its incredibly dense, and the more you research the whole madchester scene, the bands that came out of it, the drugs the more you will get out of your viewing.

What is also interesting is the non filmic quality of the photography. I have no info on whether it was shot digitally, but it has this hyper literal feeling. Not like video, but a much colder feeling. Think Spinal Tap. This of course allows you no real escapist feeling when watching them. It also helps with the Documentarian approach to it.

This movie depends solely on the talent of its actors and their ability to dissapear into their work. Of all the people that it hinges on the main engine that drives this movie is Coogan, who plays Tony Wilson, one of the founders of Factory records our main character and narrator.

This movie also works because the fact that the director Michael Winterbottom dissapeared into the work. I cant tell you what an inspiration to see a director do this. While I like plenty of auteurist movies (Jackie Brown, Boogie Nights, Taxi Driver, Hot Fuzz, etc...), I am still of the school of thought that you have done your job right if people think you have done nothing at all. And after many viewings of this movie, I still have a very hard time picking out the nuts and bolts.

Its clever, informative, engaging, entertaining, sad, funny, intrigueing, odd, long, intelligent, madcap, and nostalgic. The best part is that it is true is so many ways that the truth could never be. That is also not mine, it belongs to the real Tony Wilson.