The Power Of Nightmares/Adam Curtis

pretty uncomfortable massage, NV ;-)

This Economist interview is pretty weak, and an odd, belated time and place for it to appear.

On the question of his relation to Frank Furedi's progression and role, (outlined in that Pandora's Docs piece upthread) there is more evidence that he aligns to a degree. Here against identity politics in what I would consider a weak argument:

Mr Curtis: I’m not denying it. But that has colonised all of politics. Those kinds of economic policies have a very good role to play. But in the 1990s that attitude spread and captured the whole of politics and at that point, they became managers. What we lost was the idea of politics where you tell a simple, powerful and romantic story of where you are going and what it’s all for.

These are questions that people do ask themselves. People ask why they can’t have a better standard of living, but they also have this thing in their heads asking what it’s all about. One of the reasons we have politics is because it gives answers to those sorts of questions. In Britain, for example, the Labour Party was born out of religion because it will give you a sense of being part of something that will go on past your own existence.

I really don't think what we need is a simple, powerful and romantic story at the moment. Evidence of politicians engaged in practical policy to help the large number of people who live in their country would help more than that. There's necessarily been a lot written on failures of democracy, the globalisation of power and neoliberalism, recently, and Adam Curtis' poles, how he sets out the tent-pegs of his theory, look less and less appealing or intellectually amusing. There's a lot here that's quite embarrassing, although I suppose some of the incoherence can be put down to it being an unedited interview (never really a very helpful approach imo).

I've just watched rough cuts of my friend Adam Curtis's imminent new series 'Can't Get You Out of My Head - An Emotional History of the Modern World'. It is brilliant and the range of stories are amazing. Mao's wife Jiang Qing and Afeni Shakur are especially great. Also...

— jon ronson (@jonronson) January 2, 2021

🚨NEW ADAM CURTIS SERIES INCOMING🚨

CAN'T GET YOU OUT OF MY HEAD: AN EMOTIONAL HISTORY OF THE MODERN WORLD drops on @BBCiPlayer 11 February

First look: https://t.co/7eJRH3tAhq pic.twitter.com/p8t564SR0L

— BBC Film (@BBCFilm) January 20, 2021

stoked for the bummed-out-ness

same

I have found the last couple of things a little disappointing, hope this one is a return to form.

when bitter lake came out i watched all of his stuff (from 2002 onwards) in a big binge. all starts to meld together and you forget which part belonged to which show. feel like i may have gotten to a saturation point with his style and the tactics of his arguments, and i no longer put too much stock in the "message" of his films, but this will still be better than 99% of things i'll watch this year

I think it's been said upthread somewhere, but not having the interviews holding the documentaries together has weakened them, I get what he is going with the medium is the message stuff, but it would be nice to have a thread that isn't just adam's voice.

Maybe a return to the series format will mean a return to interviews too.

there might be a few groans here and there as Curtis maybe gives that unconvincing portentous voiceover to a Burial fadeout another runout, but I'll guarantee this will still be better than anything else on the BBC rn

My friend Adam Curtis has made this trail for his imminent new series 'Can't Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World.' The trail is exclusive to this tweet and will exist nowhere else! I love the series and its wild range of stories. pic.twitter.com/jCe8FqM8H6

— jon ronson (@jonronson) January 24, 2021

it was amazing to watch that, yesterday, without knowing what it was. i mean, very clearly from the first few images and words and sound, it was adam curtis. but i couldn't tell if it was satire or parody or not. but within a minute, it was clear it was him, because although he has a crystal clear, recognizable style that's easy to emulate, no one does it as well as him. he's a great editor, it's a pleasure just to watch him do his thing

that trailer is like the perfect filmic equivalent of every guy i've ever tried to avoid getting caught in a conversation with at a lecture or art opening

i did like the putin wax dummy head tho tbf

Adam Curtis New Yorker article: Adam Curtis Explains It All (pulls face)

fairly one-sided, but some detail around his archive collection. reminded me how unhelpful i find his read on the modern world via narratives=meaning framework. still obv looking fwd to the series, but it doesn't sound like there'll be much if anything in the way of non-archive interviews (as... someone... said upthread, that was a lot of the interest in the Mayfair set etc).

There's a neatness to the way his films have skipped the Trump presidency: Hypernormalisation was released the month before he was elected and ominously ended (I think) with that slo-mo footage of Trump fuming while Seth Meyers roasted him at the White House correspondents' dinner and now we have this the month after Biden is inaugurated.

I remember him saying, in the Adam Buxton interview I think, that he didn't want to do anything on Trump because the whole world was.

tasty stuff here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eRrZifFkHA

got major adam curtis vibes from this today

A woman did her regular aerobics class out in open without realizing that a coup was taking place in #Myanmar. A Military convoy reaching the parliament can be seen behind the woman as she performs aerobics. Incredible! pic.twitter.com/gRnQkMshDe

— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) February 1, 2021

lmao otm, hope he regrets not keeping his “women be dancing EVEN THO HISTORY IS VERY SERIOUS” powder dry all these years

(still a fan, i think)

FYI "The Century of the Self", "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace", "Bitter Lake", and "HyperNormalisation" are all currently on Amazon Prime in the US.

Ooh, nice to be able to watch non-YouTube versions of these

oh they they are on UK prime as well.. I've got two days free trial left and have been struggling to find anything worth watching.

all right the huge intrusive BBC Worldwide logo in the top left is annoying af

But this was an illusion lol

it was a phantom watermark that was manipulating and controlling the viewer... to stick to fucking downloading bastard torrents in future!

From the Owen Hatherley critique mark s linked to above, on AC’s habit of presenting unsubstantiated claims - which could be found in his work as far back as The Great British Housing Disaster:

The film’s final assertion—that the policy by local authorities to re-clad badly-built prefabricated towers with layers of insulation would create its own set of technical disasters—has not been borne out over the past thirty years.

sometimes you can present unsubstantiated claims in a factual manner and still be bang on correct

I don't get as irritated by some of the famous Curtis idiosyncrasies as much as I used to, he has grown on me a bit recently.

I'm about halfway through "The Century of the Self" and digging it so far - but wanted to point out that the Betty Crocker cake mix/egg anecdote in it isn't quite true according to Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/something-eggstra/

Also, the conversion or transfer or render or whatever of the video itself seems slightly dodgy - here's a screenshot of an "HDD SLEEP" pop-up window that appears over Wilhelm Reich's cloudbuster ("bustin' makes me feel good"): https://imgur.com/qHavVGO

Bad eggsample, Adam.

They're up! https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p093wp6h/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head

this wanker

pain that these are digital only. surely there's an episode of something with portillo in it that they can drop.

This is fabulously all over the place. 40 minutes in we’ve had Sandra Howard, the Mau Mau uprising and the Voynich Manuscript.

he didn't want to do anything on Trump because the whole world was

There are other plausible reasons

Michael X, Jiang Qing, Komarov's charred remains in an open coffin - this is fun stuff!

i have never argued that Adam C isn't an entertainer tbf

tried to pretend for 5 mins that i was in the uk using the internet. iplayer saw thru my charade. F

they had an interview with AC on BBC WS earlier where it was mentioned it will probably be on Youtube shortly if I heard it correctly.

xp

lol dig the Komorov tribute dn!

well some of them might be on YouTube for a while before they get taken down by music copyright claims

First one is OK once it gets going.

Took a shot when a bit of Burial played obv

I loved in Century of Self when Pye Corner Audio soundtracked the Russian hair salon

https://thoughtmaybe.com/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/

mirror for Americans who don't want to use a VPN

ty

OPERATION MINDFUCK!
https://imgur.com/a/k7pebfh

some more fun or at least frictive than usual form/content stuff going on in this one, like the way quite a bit of it seems to be saying "did you know there are people who believe that by making imaginative free-associative connections and organizing rapid streams of information along subliminal or emotional lines, you can affect their thoughts?" as sherlock holmes once said, yes i have heard something of the kind

audibly gasped tho at "you were willing to be quite ruthless weren't you?" "well, i-- i had to be ruthless, to be... f-free" like i wouldn't even have begrudged it if YOU HAVE TO BE RUTHLESS / TO BE FREE immediately appeared on the screen in colorful ariel

always nice to hear stars of the lid

resident jiang qing specialist is rolling her eyes at me rn

"an ongoing chaotic rush of biochemical data that flashes up and fades away... turned into stories that bear little relationship to the reality outside" you say?

think he consciously elides "but this was a fantasy" now even if he leaves innumerable opportunities for you to insert it yourself. on the other hand the dancing, "at the very same time", and "but in order to do this" are all absolutely out of control lol