Shadow Play: The Making of Anton Corbijn

by Donal Murphy

In early September I blogged about a new film about Anton Corbijn.

Shadow Play has been doing the rounds of film festivals (not on general release) and I was lucky enough to see the film at the recent Cork Film Festival.

The festival has been going for over 50 years now, that’s some achievement for a city the size of Cork, and the fact that they show films that one would normally never get to see, is one of the reasons for its success.

I was enthralled with the film, I have always been fascinated by Anton’s work, not just for U2, but all the other bands he has worked with. There is a great cross section of people talking about Anton and the work he has done. Naturally, Bono gives a generous contribution, but there are other in dept contributions from Michael Stipe in particular(a photographer himself), Brandon Flowers, Kurt Cobain, Dave Gahan, New Order as well as Chris Martin, and some of Anton’s contemporaries. The film goes through Anton’s life from where he was born, right up to now.

Throughout the film we are taken through all the various stages of his film about Joy Division, which is called Control from writing, casting, screen tests, right up to shooting, editing and the Cannes premier. But this is all interspersed with interviews with the famous people he has photographed. There are interesting contributions from Helena Christensen and Control actress, Samantha Morton (who also starred in the “Electrical Storm” U2 video).

Bono has several contributions, but the best one is where he does a kind of retake on Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and goes through several photos taken by Anton of the band, himself and family from the early 1980s right up to now. He casts each photo aside, and makes some funny gestures at each one. One great line he says during the film, is when he told Anton years ago, that he wanted him to make him look tall and good looking. “So Anton replied, so you want to look like me!”

The main theme throughout this film, is taking that shot. How does Anton do it? It seems, he has the talent of putting people at their complete ease, and trusting him. It’s a lot easier said, than done.

(c) @U2/Murphy, 2009.