Most historians will never attach much importance to May 18, 1980. It wasn’t the day disco died, an assassination attempt on a president or when a new recession occurred.

However, it was the day that would change the course of rock music as we know it. It was the day that lead singer Ian Curtis, of the incredibly influential post-punk band Joy Division, took his own life.

Today though, with the release of Anton Corbijn’s first film “Control,” the tradition of Curtis’ legacy merely being considered a sad footnote in music’s history can finally be overturned. Here in the confines of this modern rock-drama masterpiece, Curtis and his band’s story may live on forever as never before imagined.

Filmed entirely in black and white, “Control” is shot for shot one of the most elegantly conceptualized movies of the past decade. Director Corbijn utilizes his experience as one of rock’s best portrait photographers (he is responsible for the most famous image of Joy Division) to create a world so enveloped in the smoky, deep luscious gray values of his camera that it’s impossible to look away. And that’s just the idea.

Framed within classic tunes from David Bowie and Iggy Pop, the stage Corbijn has set is that of 1970s smalltown industrial Britain. As a confused and excited Curtis (Sam Riley) grows up among its encompassing factories and tenement housing, a star is slowly born. But that’s jumping ahead. Before Mr. Curtis and his Division even get to the brink of blowing up, we see the entire evolution of the band from pub rats to cult favorites to legends.

The progression of the band, though, like other famous rock groups, was hampered by its own Yoko Ono: Deborah Curtis (Samantha Morton). As Ian Curtis’ teenage bride, Morton is a completely unhinged nervous wreck. Constantly rightfully unsure of her husband’s fidelity on tour and backstage, the two hardly cease fighting once Joy Division has landed a record deal.

Soon after this, another crisis for the couple, the band and Curtis arises: epilepsy. Diagnosed after a violent episode on the way home from a short tour, Curtis’ life and his control over it is shattered in an instant. Soon the combination of the pressures of living up to his upcoming fame and staying loyal to his high school sweetheart become too much to bear.

However, even though much of “Control” focuses on the romantic aspects of his life, including a love affair with a Belgian woman who may have been the catalyst for his divorce, it seems the real focus of the film is on Curtis’ inability to belong to anyone. As a mesmerizing Riley crumbles into an almost undistinguishable mess of a human being, on the screen, it’s clear not his band, his lovers or even his fans could ever own Curtis.

Filled to the brim with long shots and overbearing music, “Control” feels like an old reel of film documenting the candid moments of Joy Division that someone forgot to shut off. Riley, along with an underrated Joe Anderson as bassist Peter Hook, and the rest of the actors in the Division even perform several times throughout the movie and for once this is a biopic that doesn’t wane in intensity when trying to recreate a band’s legendary songs live. Some of the shows captured here are such an identical mimicry it almost feels better than the real thing.

“Control” is a film so immersed in the storied history of one of rock’s least touched on movements that it will not only leave audiences wanting more, but also wondering. Wondering how no one saw Curtis’ death coming, why no one has ever attempted to spread his story to a mass audience and how it’s possible for a film this stark, human and affecting to exist.