From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

24 Hour Party People
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Michael Winterbottom
Produced by	Andrew Eaton
Written by	Frank Cottrell Boyce
Starring	Steve Coogan Paddy Considine Danny Cunningham Shirley Henderson Lennie James Sean Harris Peter Kay Conrad Murray
Cinematography	Robby Müller
Editing by	Trevor Waite
Studio	Channel Four Films The Film Consortium
Distributed by	Pathé (UK) United Artists (USA)
Release date(s)	United Kingdom: 5 April 2002 United States: 9 August 2002
Running time	117 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

24 Hour Party People is a 2002 British film about Manchester's popular music community from 1976 to 1992, and specifically about Factory Records. It was written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and directed by Michael Winterbottom. The film was entered into the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.^[1]

It begins with the punk rock era, and moves through the 1980s into the "Madchester" scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The main character is Tony Wilson, a news reporter for Granada Television and the head of Factory Records (played by Steve Coogan), and the narrative largely follows his career, while also covering the major Factory artists, especially Joy Division and New Order, A Certain Ratio, The Durutti Column, and the Happy Mondays.

The film is a dramatisation based on a combination of real events, rumours, urban legends, and the imaginations of the scriptwriter - as the film makes clear. In one scene featuring Howard Devoto (played by Martin Hancock) having sex with Wilson's first wife, the real Devoto, an extra in the scene, turns to the camera and says "I definitely don't remember this happening". The fourth wall is frequently broken, with Wilson (who also acts as the narrator) frequently commenting on events as they occur directly to camera, at one point declaring that he's "being postmodern, before it's fashionable". The actors are often intercut with real contemporary concert footage, including the Sex Pistols gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall.

Plot

The story opens in the late 1970s in the Pennines, where Tony Wilson, reporting for Granada Television embarks on a hang gliding adventure, despite not having any training. After crashing several times and receiving a "rather unfortunate" injury to his coccyx, he walks away, then turns to the camera, breaking the fourth wall, saying the scene was symbolic of what is to come on many levels. "I don't want to say too much, don't want to spoil it. I'll just say one word: 'Icarus'. If you get it, great. If you don't, that's fine too. But you should probably read more."

Wilson is dissatisfied with his job as a television news reporter, finding stories like the hang-gliding stunt unfulfilling, telling his producer, Charles, "I'm a serious fucking journalist ... I went to Cambridge." Wilson then attends a concert in June 1976 at Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall by the Sex Pistols (the Buzzcocks were also to perform but weren't ready). Despite only being attended by 42 people, Wilson cites the concert as a great historical event that would inspire attendees to "go out and perform wondrous deeds".

For his part, Wilson, the host of a music show, So It Goes, decides to move beyond just putting bands on television and get into promoting concerts. With some friends, actor Alan Erasmus and Rob Gretton, Wilson starts a weekly series of punk rock shows at a Manchester club. It is during the opening night, and a performance by a band Gretton manages called Joy Division, that Wilson is caught by his wife, Lindsay, getting fellatio from a woman in the back of the club owner Don Tonay's "nosh van". She then retaliates by having sexual intercourse in a toilet cubicle with the Buzzcocks' Howard Devoto, and is caught by Tony. The real Devoto, portraying a janitor cleaning the bathroom sink, then turns to the camera and says "I definitely don't remember this happening."

Wilson continues in the music business, and with his friends, starts Factory Records, signing Joy Division, led by erratic, brooding lead singer Ian Curtis, as the first band. Showing his dedication, Wilson prepares a record contract for the band, written in his own blood, giving the artists full control over their music. Irascible producer Martin Hannett is hired to record Joy Division, and though he is difficult to work with – he orders Joy Division drummer Stephen Morris, to dismantle his drum kit and reassemble it on the roof of the studio – the results are the work of genius, and soon Joy Division have a hit record.

The success is short-lived, however, when, just before Joy Division is to tour the United States, Curtis commits suicide by hanging himself. The news is broken to Wilson as he is preparing to do a news report about a Chester town crier, and the distraught Wilson asks the crier to report on Curtis' death. Joy Division beat the odds and survive the death of their lead singer, going on to rename themselves New Order, and record the hit song "Blue Monday".

Factory Records continues with the building of its nightclub, The Haçienda. The Haçienda shown in the film was not the real club, but a replica built in a Manchester factory space; the original club was closed in 1997 and demolished in 2002, replaced by luxury apartments. The exterior of the building is used in some scenes.^[2] Another hit band, the Happy Mondays, are signed, and the beginning of the ecstasy-fuelled rave culture is witnessed.

Despite all the success, Factory Records is losing vast amounts of money, both on The Haçienda and on recording its bands. In one scene, Erasmus points out that the label is actually losing 5 pence for every copy of the 12-inch single for "Blue Monday" that is sold because the intricately designed packaging by Peter Saville costs more than what the records are being sold for. Saville is additionally portrayed for having a reputation for missing deadlines, turning in posters and tickets for club dates after the events have already occurred. The Factory partners try to save the label by selling it to London Records, but when it is revealed that Factory does not hold valid contracts with any of its artists, the deal falls through.

Other troubles include the drug use by the Happy Mondays' Shaun Ryder, who holds the master tapes for the band's troubled fourth studio album hostage until Wilson gives him some money. When the master tape is played, it turns out that Ryder, despite being hailed by Wilson as "the greatest poet since Yeats", was unable to write any lyrics, so all the tracks to the album, expensively recorded in Barbados, are instrumentals.

Hannett has also become unpredictable, attempting at one time to shoot Wilson with a pistol. He has a falling out with Factory Records over finances, and spirals into decline due to alcohol and drug abuse and weight gain, and dies aged 42. Meanwhile, various aspects of Wilson's life are glossed over, and Wilson takes a moment to acknowledge this, quickly skimming over his divorce from his first wife, Lindsay, his second marriage and children, and his relationship with beauty queen Yvette Livesey. His own drug problems and professional difficulties are also glossed over. "I'm a minor character in my own story," Wilson explains, saying that the stories about the music, as well as Manchester itself, are more important.

Cast

Soundtrack

24 Hour Party People
Soundtrack by various artists
Released	9 April 2002 20 August 2002
Recorded	1976—2002
Genre	Punk rock Post-punk Madchester Electronica
Label	FFRR (UK) WEA (US)
Producer	Pete Tong
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Metacritic (86/100) link NME (8/10) link Pitchfork Media (7/10) link PopMatters (no rating) link Rolling Stone link Yahoo! Music (no rating) link
Alternate cover
US album cover

The soundtrack to 24 Hour Party People features songs by artists closely associated with Factory Records who were depicted in the film. These include Happy Mondays, Joy Division (later to become New Order) and The Durutti Column. Manchester band the Buzzcocks are featured, as are The Clash. The album begins with "Anarchy in the U.K." by the Sex Pistols, the band credited in the film with inspiring Factory Records co-founder Tony Wilson to devote himself to promoting music.

New tracks recorded for the album include Joy Division's "New Dawn Fades", from a concert performance by New Order with Moby and Billy Corgan.

Track list

1. "Anarchy in the U.K." (Sex Pistols) – 3:33
2. "24 Hour Party People (Jon Carter Mix)" (Happy Mondays) – 4:30
3. "Transmission" (Joy Division) – 3:36
4. "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)?" (Buzzcocks) – 2:42
5. "Janie Jones" (The Clash) – 2:06
6. "New Dawn Fades" (Moby and Billy Corgan with New Order) – 4:52
7. "Atmosphere" (Joy Division) – 4:09
8. "Otis" (The Durutti Column) – 4:16
9. "Voodoo Ray" (A Guy Called Gerald) – 2:43
10. "Temptation" (New Order) – 5:44
11. "Loose Fit" (Happy Mondays) – 4:17
12. "Pacific State" (808 State) – 3:53
13. "Blue Monday" (New Order) – 7:30
14. "Move Your Body" (Marshall Jefferson) – 5:15
15. "She's Lost Control" (Joy Division) – 4:44
16. "Hallelujah (Club Mix)" (Happy Mondays) – 5:40
17. "Here To Stay" (New Order) – 4:58
18. "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (Joy Division) – 3:24

Other songs in film

Several songs appear in the film but are not on the soundtrack album, including:

• "No Fun", performed by the Sex Pistols (archival video footage)
• "Money's Too Tight to Mention", performed by Simply Red (archival video footage)
• "Make Up to Break Up", performed by Siouxsie and the Banshees (archival video footage)
• "The Passenger", performed by Iggy Pop (archival video footage)
• "In The City", performed by The Jam (archival video footage)
• "No More Heroes", performed by The Stranglers (archival video footage)
• "Wimoweh", performed by Karl Denver (archival video footage)
• "Lazyitis", performed by Happy Mondays (archival video footage)
• "Whoopin' the Blues", performed by Sonny Terry (from the film Stroszek, during Ian Curtis suicide scene)
• "World in Motion", performed by New Order
• "Jacqueline", performed by The Durutti Column
• "Digital", performed by Joy Division
• "Flight", performed by A Certain Ratio
• "Skipscada", performed by A Certain Ratio
• "Tart Tart", performed by Happy Mondays
• "Wrote for Luck", performed by Happy Mondays
• "Kinky Afro", performed by Happy Mondays
• "Sunshine and Love", performed by Happy Mondays
• "Satan", performed by Orbital
• "Go", performed by Moby
• "Louie Louie", performed by Factory All-Stars
• "King of the Beats", performed by Mantronix

See also

• So It Goes (TV series)
• Control (2007 film)

References

External links

• Official site
• 24 Hour Party People at the Internet Movie Database
• 24 Hour Party People at Allmovie
• 24 Hour Party People at Rotten Tomatoes
• 24 Hour Party People at Metacritic
• 24 Hour Party People at the Movie Review Query Engine
• Unofficial site at Joy Division Central

Cinema of the United Kingdom Films A–Z · Actors · Directors · Cinematographers · Production designers · Editors · Producers · Score composers · Screenwriters · UK DVD Chart Films by year Pre 1920 · 1920s · 1930s · 1940 · 1941 · 1942 · 1943 · 1944 · 1945 · 1946 · 1947 · 1948 · 1949 · 1950 · 1951 · 1952 · 1953 · 1954 · 1955 · 1956 · 1957 · 1958 · 1959 · 1960 · 1961 · 1962 · 1963 · 1964 · 1965 · 1966 · 1967 · 1968 · 1969 · 1970 · 1971 · 1972 · 1973 · 1974 · 1975 · 1976 · 1977 · 1978 · 1979 · 1980 · 1981 · 1982 · 1983 · 1984 · 1985 · 1986 · 1987 · 1988 · 1989 · 1990 · 1991 · 1992 · 1993 · 1994 · 1995 · 1996 · 1997 · 1998 · 1999 · 2000 · 2001 · 2002 · 2003 · 2004 · 2005 · 2006 · 2007 · 2008 · 2009

From Wikiquote

24 Hour Party People is a 2002 film that provides a fictionalised depiction of the real-life music and club scene in Manchester during the 1980s and 1990s, in particular following the life and exploits of Tony Wilson, the head of Factory Records, and his relationship with the bands Joy Division (later New Order) and The Happy Mondays.

Tony Wilson

• [First address to camera; after his hang-gliding news report] You're going to see a lot more of that sort of thing in the picture. I don't want to say too much, don't want to spoil it. I'll just say one word: 'Icarus'. If you get it, great. If you don't, that's fine too. But you should probably read more.
• I'm being postmodern, before it was fashionable.
• [At a gig at the Hacienda] And tonight something equally epoch-making is taking place. See? They're applauding the DJ. Not the music, not the musician, not the creator, but the medium. This is it. The birth of rave culture. The beatification of the beat. The dance age. This is the moment when even the white man starts dancing. Welcome to Manchester.
• I'm a minor character in my own story.
• This scene didn't actually make it to the final cut. I'm sure it'll be on the DVD.
• [About the music scene surrounding the Hacienda] It was like being on a fantastic fairground ride, centrifugal forces throwing us wider and wider. But it's all right, because there's this brilliant machine at the center that's going to bring us back down to earth. That was Manchester. That is the Hacienda. Now imagine the machine breaks. For a while, it's even better, because you're really flying. but then, you fall, because nobody beats gravity.
• Most of all, I love Manchester. The crumbling warehouses, the railway arches, the cheap abundant drugs. That's what did it in the end. Not the money, not the music, not even the guns. That is my heroic flaw: my excess of civic pride.
• Factory Records are not actually a company. We are an experiment in human nature. You're labouring under the misapprehension that we actually have a deal with, er, with our, our bands. That we have any kind of a contract, er, at all, and I'm afraid we, er, we don't because that's, er, that's the sum total of the paperwork to do with Factory Records, deal with, er, their various bands.
• I have protected myself from ever having to sell out by having nothing to sell out.
• [To Martin Hannett] You can't threaten me, Martin. You're a big man, but you're out of shape. Although you could sit on me.
• Energy, energy? Energy is, is, it's nothing more than a lot of new age hokum masquerading as spirituality.
• [About the Happy Mondays] Every band needs it's own special chemistry. And Bez was a very good chemist.
• [After a stoned Martin Hannett tries to set fire to him] I am not a lump of hash. I'm in charge of Factory Records. I think.
• Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the latest craze sweeping the Pennines. I've got to be honest with you... right now I'd rather be SWEEPING the Pennines.
• [after Shaun Ryder fires a gun in his general direction] You want to be careful with that, Shaun. You could take somebody's eye out.
• Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.
• [Whilst hosting 'Wheel of Fortune'] Welcome to the Wheel of Fortune. There it is, the wheel that throughout the centuries has been used as a symbol for the vicissitudes of life. Boethius himself in his great work 'The Consolation of Philosophy' compares history to a great wheel, hoisting us up, then dropping us down again. "Inconsistency is my very essence" -says the wheel- "Raise yourself up on my spokes if you wish, but don't complain when you plunge back down" Now spin the wheel.
• [When caught receiving an act of oral sex from a prostitute by his wife Lindsay] It's not what it looks like, love!
• [After Lindsay storms off when catching him with the prostitute; to Lindsay] I love you! [To the prostitute] Don't stop.
• [When catching Lindsay having sex with another man out of spite] I just got a blowjob. That's full penetration.

Martin Hannett

• [On Joy Division's drumming] There was nothing wrong with the drumming as such. It's just people have been playing like that for the past 20,000 years and quite frankly I'm fucking bored with it.
• [On learning how much came out of the music budget to build the Hacienda] Well, this is goodbye. I mean, we obviously have nothing in common. I'm a genius, you're all fucking wankers. You'll never see me again. You don't deserve to see me again.

Others

• Bez: Can I offer anybody like the best drug experience they ever had?
• God: It's a pity you didn't sign the Smiths, but you were right about Mick Hucknall. His music's rubbish, and he's a ginger.
• God: Tony, you did a good job. Basically you are right: Shaun is the greatest poet since Yeats.
• The Real Howard Devoto: [On his alleged affair with Tony Wilson's wife Lindsay] I definitely don't remember this happening.
• John the Postman: [singing "Louie, Louie" drunkenly] Pogo like a bastard!
• Boethius: 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".
• Roger Ames [reading Factory Records contract, written in Tony Wilson's blood]: The artists own all their work. The label owns nothing. Our bands have the freedom ... to fuck off.

Dialogue

Tony Wilson: Can I buy you half a lager?

Rob Gretton: You can buy me a pint.

Tony Wilson: Martin, what are you doing?

Martin Hannett: Recording silence

Tony Wilson: You're recording silence?

Martin Hannett: No, I'm recording Tony fucking Wilson!

Tony Wilson: What's wrong with London Records?

Rob Gretton: The name, for a start.

Rob Gretton: You've dropped a bollock, haven't you?

Tony Wilson: Yes, I've dropped a bollock. I've dropped a big massive hairy bollock.

[On learning about Tony's 'contract' with his bands]

Roger Ames: Tony, you're fucking mad.

Tony Wilson: Well, that is a point of view.

[Tony Wilson has just had a vision of God - who looked exactly like Tony Wilson]

Tony Wilson: It's says so in the Bible, though, doesn't it? 'God made man in His own image'.

Rob Gretton: Yeah - but not a specific man.

Tony Wilson: You know, I think Shaun Ryder is on a par with W.B. Yeats as a poet.

Yvette: Really?

Tony Wilson: Absolutely.

Yvette: Well, that is amazing, because everybody else thinks he's a fucking idiot.

Rob Gretton: You know your trouble, Tony? You don't know what you are. You see, I fucking know what you are, but you don't know what you are.

Tony Wilson: My curiosity's got the better of me, Rob, tell me, what am I?

Rob Gretton: You're a cunt.

Tony Wilson: Well, that was something I *did* know, you see, I actually did know that.

Tony Wilson: This morning I was doing a story about an elephant being washed by a midget.

Charles: He's a dwarf.

Tony Wilson: It doesn't matter!

Charles: Well, it matters to him.

Ryan Letts: There's not calling you the new George Epstein you know.

Tony Wilson: Brian Epstein.

Ryan Letts: George Epstein, Beatles' manager.

Tony Wilson: That's Brian Epstein, dickhead.

Ryan Letts: George Epstein.

Tony Wilson: It's fucking Brian Epstein.

Ryan Letts: Brian Martin.

Tony Wilson: It's not Brian, it's George Martin.

Ryan Letts: Brian Martin, the producer ...

Tony Wilson: You're just fucking wrong!

Tony Wilson: You know broccoli?

Alan Erasmus: Broccoli the vegetable?

Tony Wilson: It's a little known fact that it was invented by Cubby Broccoli, the producer of the James Bond films.

Taglines

• [From film poster:] Share the Ecstasy.
• The unbelievably true story of one man, one movement, the music and madness that was Manchester.
• [Over images of Ian Curtis, Shaun Ryder and Tony Wilson respectively:] Genius. Poet. Twat.

Cast

• Steve Coogan - Tony Wilson
• Lennie James - Alan Erasmus
• Shirley Henderson - Lindsay Wilson
• Paddy Considine - Rob Gretton
• Andy Serkis - Martin Hannett
• Martin Hancock - Howard DeVoto
• Chris Coghill - Bez
• Mark Windows - Johnny Rotten
• John Simm - Bernard Sumner
• Dave Gorman - John
• Ralf Little - Peter Hook
• Danny Cunningham - Shaun Ryder
• Paul Popplewell - Paul Ryder
• John Thomson - Charles
• Rob Brydon - Ryan Letts

External links

Wikipedia has an article about:

24 Hour Party People

• 24 Hour Party People quotes at the Internet Movie Database
• 24 Hour Party People at Rotten Tomatoes