24 Hour Party People
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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.
—Tony Wilson
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24 Hour Party People is a 2002 biographical British film telling the story of Tony Wilson, a local news reporter (played by Steve Coogan), who attends a pivotal gig by The Sex Pistols in the 1970s and, believing he is living in "one of the most important fucking times in human history", decides to start a record company called Factory Records and a club, The Hacienda.
The film follows Tony and Factory as money is lost, lead singers commit suicide, Record Producer Martin Hannett goes insane and try to kill Tony, the birth of "Madchester" music and rave culture, Happy Mondays sell their equipment and studio for crack and then attempt to hold their new album for ransom... You wouldn't get this kinda stuff in a film about EMI.
The film focuses largely on two of Factory's most popular artists, Joy Division (and their later reformation as New Order) and The Happy Mondays, although it also features A Certain Ratio and Durutti Column to a lesser extent.
Not to be confused with the trope Twenty-Four-Hour Party People (which is named after the Happy Mondays song that also gives this movie its name) about background extras who show up at parties for or thrown by a work's main characters.
- Actor Allusion: Taken almost to Recursive Reality levels. Steve Coogan, who played Tony Wilson, based his comedy character Alan Partridge partly on Tony Wilson, and there are notable similarities between how the characters are presented.
- Biopic
- Country Matters: Ian Curtis' first line in the movie is, "Wilson, you fucking cunt!" Later, Rob Gretton also calls him the C-word.
- Dead Artists Are Better: Of a sort; the movie focuses heavily on Joy Division for the first half, but after Ian Curtis' suicide (and the subsequent reforming of the band into New Order), it goes on to show New Order's subsequent massive success with "Blue Monday", the best selling 12-inch single of all time. The focus then shifts from New Order to the Happy Mondays, although this largely was because the Happy Mondays had the more entertaining meltdown.
- Deadpan Snarker: Rob Gretton, manager of Joy Division / New Order, is depicted as an incredibly snarky individual, especially towards Tony.
- Demoted to Extra: The other members of Joy Division that became New Order. New Order guitarist/keyboardist Gillian Gilbert gets it worse and only appears twice, briefly and in non-speaking parts.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Tony Wilson is dissatisfied with his career in TV journalism because he keeps getting assigned silly lifestyle pieces.
- A God Am I: Of a sort; while smoking a joint after the last gig at the Hacienda, Tony sees a vision of God... who just happens to look exactly like Tony Wilson. When Tony rejoins his mates and tells them this, they are less than impressed.
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Tony Wilson: It says so in The Bible, though, doesn't it? 'God made man in His own image'. |
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- The Ishmael: Tony points out in one of his discussions how details of his own life are being glossed over, and while taking time to explain this, he notes that the story isn't about him but the music and Manchester.
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Tony Wilson: I'm a minor character in my own story. |
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- No Animals Were Harmed: Tony Wilson goes out of his way in his narration to the audience to mention that no animals were harmed at the conclusion of a scene involving Shaun and Paul Ryder killing 3,000 pigeons with poisoned bread crumbs.
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Tony Wilson: ...although there are those who say they're pests, rats with wings. |
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- The Last DJ: Tony Wilson, for all his ego and faults, is portrayed as something like this; he refuses to sell out his beliefs and the other characters, so while they routinely mock him for other things, they nevertheless respect him because of this. It builds to a climax where, facing financial ruin, Factory Records is forced to sell their assets to the London-based London Records, but it's discovered that there isn't actually anything for them to sell:
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Tony Wilson: 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. |
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- In Real Life, Tony had declared that one of Factory Records' fundamental policies was that "All our bands are free to fuck off whenever they please."
- No Fourth Wall: Wilson is aware he's in a film of his life, and frequently comments on the events and puts them into context. It gets to the point where he stops the film to point out the various cameos in the movie, including the cameo from the real Tony Wilson
- Post Modernism: Most of the movie. Tony Wilson describes himself as "being postmodern before it's fashionable."
- Real Person Cameo: Tony Wilson himself, Mark E. Smith, Howard Devoto, Keith Allen, Vini Reilly, Paul Ryder...and those are just the cameos that have to do with the Manchester music scene.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Lampooned in-universe. Despite describing himself as "a minor character in my own life story", Tony Wilson's opinion of himself is portrayed as being very... healthy, and he is routinely mocked by the other characters for this.
- Unfortunate Implications: In-universe -- the band "Joy Division" is named after the euphemistic term for the prostitution and sexual slavery groups of Jewish women were forced to perform in Nazi concentration camps. This leads to accusations of fascism and white supremacist skinheads invading their gigs, which leads to the band spitting on them, which leads to further chaos. Later, after Ian Curtis' death, the band reveal to Tony Wilson that they've decided to change their name to "New Order" -- which, as Wilson points out, is possibly even more fascistic.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Yes, a lot of the events in the movie happened, but several are intentionally exaggerated to make the movie more entertaining. For instance, Martin Hannett never tried to shoot Tony[1]. In another scene, Tony's wife Lindsay has sex with Magazine singer Howard Devoto (after catching Tony cheating on her); the film Tony (and in the DVD commentary, the real Tony) states that the story never happened, and the real Howard Devoto makes a cameo in the scene as a janitor, only to break the fourth wall and tell the audience "I definitely don't remember this."
- Wisdom from the Gutter: Tony Wilson gets a pep talk from a bum on the street who claims to be the philosopher Boethius.
- ↑ Instead he shot a gun into a phone with Rob Gretton on the other line