Rock music has been Anton Corbijn's bread and butter. He has photographed legends ranging from Bob Dylan to Beck, won acclaim for directing music videos like Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box" and Depeche Mode's "Devotional," and published tomes featuring moody portraits of U2 and R.E.M.

So when given the chance to make a film about the frontman of the British post-punk band Joy Division, Mr. Corbijn felt appropriately credentialed.

With "Control," a boys-life biopic on lead singer Ian Curtis, the debut director took some risks: He hired a relative unknown in Sam Riley to play the lead, shot in black and white, and portrayed a stark plotline that avoided Hollywood moralizing. When money was short, Mr. Corbijn shelled out his own.

It appears to have paid off. "Control" (out in limited release Oct. 26) won three awards at the Cannes Film Festival -- one for best European film -- and is being hailed by critics as a heart-wrenching drama. Based on the book "Touching From a Distance" by Mr. Curtis's wife Deborah, the film documents Mr. Curtis's last few years before he hanged himself at age 23.

Mr. Curtis led a complicated life: He developed epilepsy around the time he married Deborah, juggled a full-time civil-service job while trying to launch the band, and had an affair with a Belgian fan. (After Mr. Curtis hanged himself in 1980, Joy Division reinvented itself as the popular 1980s group New Order.)

The story has personal appeal for Mr. Corbijn. The 52-year-old first met Mr. Curtis in 1980 when he moved to England from his native Netherlands largely because of Joy Division. He says he was drawn to the environment that inspired the band's melancholy first album, and was determined to meet them. Within weeks of moving, he snapped a famous picture of Ian Curtis walking into the subway.

Mr. Corbijn spoke with The Wall Street Journal Online's Emily Meehan as he waited for a plane at London's Heathrow Airport. Some questions and answers were edited for clarity. When you first moved to London and met Mr. Curtis, you didn't have much money, nor an established photography practice. Was it difficult to revisit that time and place when making the movie?

Mr. Corbijn: That's the reason I made the film. There was a period in 2004 when I felt very close again to those years when music means everything to you and you don't have a lot of money and it just becomes all important &hellip; and that's why you see the encouragement at the beginning of the film when [Mr. Riley's character, Ian Curtis] comes home with that record under his arm. That was how I lived -- the record meant everything to you, that's your connection to the world in a way. So when I started to realize how important it has been in my life and how important Joy Division has been in my life -- because I moved to England, and in hindsight it was a very, very great thing to do for me because my photography really took off here -- that's why I felt I could do the movie. I felt that I could do the movie the way somebody else maybe could not do the movie. All the other scripts I've read over the years, I never felt that I was going to make a film that was going to be better than somebody that had some filmmaking experience. I'm a novice at this, and it really compensated for some lack of skills maybe, my emotional connection to the story. "Control" is a very sad movie, as you document Ian Curtis and his evident alienation from so many people -- even his own baby. Is there any other reaction you hope the audience will have to this story?

Mr. Corbijn: I think, I hope, that they also see that something very beautiful can grow out of very mundane circumstances. It's a real story, so I'm not sure if there is a real moral to it &hellip; I think it's a very touching love story. But that was compounded because of his epilepsy, and I think that's the core of everything: The side effects of these drugs are a real issue; they made him feel very vulnerable and very depressed.

See scenes from "Control" You've worked in still photography, music videos and now film. Was it difficult for you to go into making a film? And how fluid is it to adapt to these various genres?

Mr. Corbijn: All these things are great challenges. I think you ought to discover what you can do in your life, and I find a challenge to do something else than photography. So film was a great challenge for me. I'm in my 50s, so it was an organic process in a way, these things come together at the right moment. About half of the financing for the film came out of your own pocket. Was it a difficult decision to take that risk?

Mr. Corbijn: Well, it's an independent film and there were so many elements that made it harder for people to put money into it that there was a situation where the deal wasn't closed and it was either shooting or not shooting. So I put my money in for three months and by that time we had gone over half the budget. Yeah, it was pretty severe for a first-time director to have to do that, but you know, sometimes it feels like it's the right moment to do things, and for me it felt totally right and I didn't want to lose my cast and I didn't want to lose my momentum so that's what I did. &hellip; I can't say it wasn't stressful, but I set myself to do this and I wanted to do it. You know when your instinct is right on things quite often and you go for it. You had your actors -- some of them music novices -- actually learn how to play Joy Division songs so they could perform them live in the movie. They pulled it off -- did that surprise you?

Mr. Corbijn: I didn't think it was going to be possible. I love all my actors. I think they were the best cast I could hope for &hellip; they were so determined to get everything right. It's just a great quality of people who want to do that because it's a low-budget movie. It's not like you're paying them money to want to do this, it's just in them to want to be perfectionists. How influential do you think Joy Division has been for rock musicians, and who has taken cues from the group?

Mr. Corbijn: There are obvious ones that are out at the moment: Interpol and The Editors, Arcade Fire, Franz Ferdinand and The Killers. There's a track by The Killers in the film at the very end when the credits run. They do a cover version of the song "Shadow Play," a Joy Division song, and the reason I put that in there is to show how relevant that music still is for new bands. The Killers got their name from a video New Order did for a song called "Crystal," and in that video you see a drum and the name on it says "The Killers." What do you think is Ian Curtis's legacy in our cultural history?

Mr. Corbijn: A sense that poetry and great music go together, and like I said earlier: Out of very mundane circumstances, something very beautiful can come. It's just inspiring &hellip; and if there were equivalent talents around today it would be marvelous. I don't see the equivalent at the moment. What's next for you?

Mr. Corbijn: Publicity for this film. I'm on my way to Sydney for the premier, and then film festivals in Europe. But I would like to make another film. I really loved the whole process. The next one will have absolutely nothing to do with music and it will be fictional.

Write to Emily Meehan at