I thought the first episode last night was great - a brilliantly told story. And I love the bizarre sense of humour in the selection of archive footage. Also, (I should probably be ashamed of this), I had no idea Rumsfeld et al were around in the 70s! That's crazy!
What did everyone else think?
― pete b. (pete b.), Thursday, 21 October 2004 07:46 (sixteen years ago) link
― lukey (Lukey G), Thursday, 21 October 2004 07:51 (sixteen years ago) link
― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Thursday, 21 October 2004 07:54 (sixteen years ago) link
As for the likes of Irving Kristol and "Professor" Richard Pipes, the words "please kill me" sprang to mind...
― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 21 October 2004 07:57 (sixteen years ago) link
― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Thursday, 21 October 2004 07:59 (sixteen years ago) link
― pete b. (pete b.), Thursday, 21 October 2004 08:03 (sixteen years ago) link
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Thursday, 21 October 2004 08:21 (sixteen years ago) link
Come to think of it, where exactly does Pol Pot fit into all this?
― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 21 October 2004 08:24 (sixteen years ago) link
― pete b. (pete b.), Thursday, 21 October 2004 08:26 (sixteen years ago) link
― RickyT (RickyT), Thursday, 21 October 2004 08:29 (sixteen years ago) link
But yes, a beautiful, confident piece of documentary making, that got me feeling all 'ahh, the BBC'.
I liked this assessment in the Times today:
If 'The Power of Nightmares' had been drafted as a play, it would be hailed as a dazzlingly thought-provoking drama. As a book, its thesis would become a debating point on talk shows round the world. Even in the form of a here-are-the-facts documentary, it is so artfully crafted, so engagingly argued, so playfully illustrated, that you happily reserve your questions and reservations until the final credits start rolling.
Here is a talented, intelligent film-maker enjoying himself and showing what you can do with an hour of television. It is deliciously spliced together, seasoned with deftly chosen archive footage from an improbale palette of sources: everything from clips from episodes of 'Perry Mason' and 'Gunsmoke', to American prom dances and Egyptian television commercials.
Apparently it was going to be trailed as long ago as the weekend before last, but they pulled back on it because of Ken Bigley.
― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 21 October 2004 08:41 (sixteen years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 21 October 2004 08:46 (sixteen years ago) link
― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Thursday, 21 October 2004 08:49 (sixteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 21 October 2004 08:54 (sixteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 21 October 2004 08:55 (sixteen years ago) link
X-post. Ahh, cool. I haven't read that.
― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Thursday, 21 October 2004 09:00 (sixteen years ago) link
― Pete W (peterw), Thursday, 21 October 2004 09:03 (sixteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 21 October 2004 09:08 (sixteen years ago) link
― pete b. (pete b.), Thursday, 21 October 2004 09:19 (sixteen years ago) link
― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Thursday, 21 October 2004 09:42 (sixteen years ago) link
― stevie (stevie), Thursday, 21 October 2004 09:44 (sixteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 21 October 2004 09:44 (sixteen years ago) link
I did like his book "Russia Under The Old Regime", so was slightly disappointed to find out he was in with all the neo-cons in the '70s. Although he did have one very annoying habit of referring to all medieval people of Scandinavian origin as "Normans".
― caitlin (caitlin), Thursday, 21 October 2004 10:11 (sixteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 21 October 2004 10:12 (sixteen years ago) link
― caitlin (caitlin), Thursday, 21 October 2004 10:16 (sixteen years ago) link
― pete b. (pete b.), Thursday, 21 October 2004 10:17 (sixteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 21 October 2004 10:18 (sixteen years ago) link
I can't remember what the Mitrokhin Archive says about Soviet sponsorship of teroorism, but there was something. Possibly supplied by The Spy Who Came In From The Garden.
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Thursday, 21 October 2004 10:39 (sixteen years ago) link
A torrent for the episode, if anyone is interested.
― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Friday, 22 October 2004 16:42 (sixteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 11:21 (sixteen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 11:34 (sixteen years ago) link
― Bumfluff, Wednesday, 3 November 2004 13:59 (sixteen years ago) link
In the end, it was strangely calming, rather than depressing. All this will pass.
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 22:14 (sixteen years ago) link
― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 22:16 (sixteen years ago) link
Tonight's episode was very poignant, and made me sad.
― Cathy (Cathy), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 22:24 (sixteen years ago) link
I second that. I downloaded the last two episodes last Saturday and watched them, very powerful. It's sad that there's great documentaries such as this and The White House for Sale airing on UK television, and most people in the US won't get an opportunity to see them.
― Leon in Exile (Ex Leon), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 22:36 (sixteen years ago) link
― RJG (RJG), Wednesday, 3 November 2004 22:45 (sixteen years ago) link
Also, things that weakened his argument, such as Madrid, were kind of skipped over a bit too lightly.
Kerry seemed shoved in just in case.
Quibbles aside, top-notch television. I may even go for a month without complaining about my licence fee.
It is strange that I had never heard those people swearing as the planes hit the towers.
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Thursday, 4 November 2004 07:18 (sixteen years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 4 November 2004 09:23 (sixteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 4 November 2004 09:37 (sixteen years ago) link
― caitlin (caitlin), Thursday, 4 November 2004 09:42 (sixteen years ago) link
The cumulative effect was a kind of political version of James Burke's Connections series from the '70s. OK in shaggy dog conspiracy terms but didn't really pinpoint whether it was just the expected cocktail of bilateral incompetence, stubbornness and stupidity which led us to our current pretty pass rather than a Conspiracy as such.
― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 4 November 2004 09:57 (sixteen years ago) link
I too totally agree with PJ Miller. I don't recall Madrid being mentioned at all. I couldn't get the idea out of my head that while it's fine to criticise the hysteria created by the neo-cons, (that Disney video!!), you can understand why the likes of Britain have to at least be on their guard against the kind of thing that happened in Madrid - even if we acknowledge the programme's main point that there is no such thing as monstrous Al-Qaeda.
― Japanese Giraffe (Japanese Giraffe), Thursday, 4 November 2004 10:12 (sixteen years ago) link
― Pete W (peterw), Thursday, 4 November 2004 10:40 (sixteen years ago) link
― Two-Headed Zombie With No Face (kate), Thursday, 4 November 2004 12:00 (sixteen years ago) link
This was the third part, part 1 was all about Afghanistan
― Masked Gazza, Thursday, 4 November 2004 12:14 (sixteen years ago) link
great use of music, mind.
― Pete W (peterw), Thursday, 4 November 2004 12:43 (sixteen years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 4 November 2004 13:25 (sixteen years ago) link
― Stew S, Thursday, 4 November 2004 13:47 (sixteen years ago) link
a) didnt really explore what Bin Laden's motivations were for trying a new policy of attacking america, going against what other islamic fundamentalist gorups were interested in (eg toppling central asian regimes*).
b) kept on repeating how the neo cons "grand mission" was some titanic battle of good vs evil, that seemed a bit suspect. are these people really solely driven by moral purpose, no matter how extreme or well, silly, that moral purpose is?
c) er i tcant think of another. but i sort of inherently dont believ things on tv when people make somewhat grandiose claims, whether they be blair, bush or some dude intoning opposing views over loads of tiny clips. it was kinda eisenstein-esque, and well, his aim was kinda totally "manipulate the viewer, worry bout factual issues later".
* interesting becasue in 2000 i was in debate with loads of russian politics students, and they savaged us about Chechnya, along the lines of "Russia is under the threat of Attack by a islamic super state, chehcnya will be the first to fall to them". We (ie a few brits) were all like, "WTF? Islamic fundamentalism? whats that? whats the issue here? quit being so paranoid!". a year later, it became a bit clearer what the idea of a threat from islamic fundamentalism might mean.
― ambrose (ambrose), Thursday, 4 November 2004 14:26 (sixteen years ago) link
lol, i would love to hear a ken burns take on the adam curtis schtick
― That's not really my scene (I'm 41) (forksclovetofu), Monday, 22 February 2021 19:54 (one week ago) link
montage of found images set to Appalachian fiddle music
― Mr. Cacciatore (Moodles), Monday, 22 February 2021 19:57 (one week ago) link
i think although obviously they're quite difft frederick wiseman's films are far more challenging and interesting than curtis
― plax (ico), Monday, 22 February 2021 20:26 (one week ago) link
there was a piece in Vice where I think Brooker interviews him, despite liking his work (not fucking Brookers, no!) I can't think of anything much more insufferable. I would probably consider him as big a tosser as Brooker if I'd have clicked on it and read it but he doesn't seem to have much interesting to say outside of his work anyway, well based on an interview I heard on WS where he was pedalling all that usual hackneyed polarisation of politics bollox beloved of most libs.
― calzino, Monday, 22 February 2021 20:43 (one week ago) link
So far I think episodes 1 and 4 are best. 2 and 3 are kind of lists in search of an overarching point and 5 is all over the shop even by his standards. 1 and 4 both focus on a tendency that the left is broadly hostile towards - individualism and apolitical activism, respectively - and gives them their due, explains where they came from, while still pointing at how they can end in catastrophe.
it's very funny to me that this thing is getting any kind of mainstream discussion/attention in your country; if this showed in the US on PBS, no one would notice
Think you might be trapped in the same bubble I was in when I logged onto the iplayer page expecting this to be the featured item - turns out it wasn't even on the front page!
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 23 February 2021 11:30 (one week ago) link
It was a featured item for me, presumably because of personalisation.
― Alba, Tuesday, 23 February 2021 12:17 (one week ago) link
but really the operative word here was depersonalization [segues into stars of the lid track]
― calzino, Tuesday, 23 February 2021 12:28 (one week ago) link
sorry that was piss poor!
― calzino, Tuesday, 23 February 2021 12:30 (one week ago) link
So far I think episodes 1 and 4 are best. 2 and 3 are kind of lists in search of an overarching point and 5 is all over the shop even by his standards.
― badg, Tuesday, 23 February 2021 17:01 (one week ago) link
Yeah that's the one - lots of interesting stuff in there as usual but just moving from story to story with no sense of direction.
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 23 February 2021 17:03 (one week ago) link
damn, i wanna see these but i don't have a UK TV licence and don't want to get one. can you buy/rent it or something somehow?
― Party With A Jagger Ban (dog latin), Tuesday, 23 February 2021 17:41 (one week ago) link
you know they don't know whether or not you use iplayer?
― himpathy with the devil (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 23 February 2021 17:43 (one week ago) link
also that if the tv license man comes round you have no reason to let him in?
if you live in the UK just click "yes I have a license" on i-player, but perhaps close your curtains as a precaution if you see the tv detector van rolling past your yard!
― calzino, Tuesday, 23 February 2021 17:44 (one week ago) link
or just... pay your tv license 🙄
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 23 February 2021 17:51 (one week ago) link
I thought having an internet connection means you are compelled by law to buy one, even if in the "I don't even have a television" category
― calzino, Tuesday, 23 February 2021 17:54 (one week ago) link
figured they had cleverer ways to tell if you've been watching iPlayer these days, like checking if there's a TV license associated with your account, or using your IP address or something.
You don't have to have a license if you don't watcvh live or streamed BBC TV afaik.
certainly not paying for a license just to watch one show though
― Party With A Jagger Ban (dog latin), Tuesday, 23 February 2021 17:58 (one week ago) link
Not sure if UK blocks this but this is how I watched it
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtPP_-rkrT3CAPe8OmDnlZBDvaQ7baH7B
― reggae mike love (polyphonic), Tuesday, 23 February 2021 18:05 (one week ago) link
any iPlayer use requires a TV license but it’s not enforced. there is no mechanism for it.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 23 February 2021 18:15 (one week ago) link
i would not suggest not paying the license fee if youre a habitual user of the iplayer and or someone who watches broadcast tv in the uk. if you literally want to just watch one show then i don't see any issue. although the amount of media ive consumed in my life that came from "the usual sources" probably means i have a certain stance on this kind of thing that others may not share. i also hate the license fee guys who are arseholes who go around bullying pensioners and housewives
― himpathy with the devil (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 23 February 2021 21:13 (one week ago) link
I didn't pay a license fee for years and it was handy living in an upstairs flat because if it looked like a cunt knocking I simply wouldn't answer the door. I have memories as a kid of my mum pulling the curtains over and telling us all to be quiet while some cunt aggressively bangs on the door. Lol it was a vintage b+w valve tv and the license would have probably cost a few quid.
― calzino, Tuesday, 23 February 2021 21:38 (one week ago) link
In America, in the early 1950sLittle Rock, PasternakBut at the same timeMickey Mantle, KerouacLittle did the people expectSputnik, Zhou En-laiSimultaneously Bridge On The River KwaiBut something else inside themLebanon, Charles de GaulleMeanwhile,California baseballFive thousand miles away,Starkweather HomicideWhat they didn't foresee wasChildren of ThalidomideAt the very same momentBuddy Holly, Ben-HurBut someone was listening:Space Monkey, MafiaBut even as one group grew strongerHula Hoops, CastroAnd at the very same timeEdsel is a no-goOne poor farmer had an idea:U-2, Syngman RheeThere would emerge a new ideaPayola and KennedyJust across the border,Chubby Checker, PsychoMeanwhileBelgians in the Congo
― John Wesley Glasscock (Hadrian VIII), Wednesday, 24 February 2021 01:31 (one week ago) link
brutal
― assert (MatthewK), Wednesday, 24 February 2021 02:16 (one week ago) link
Started chapter 3 tonight; gave up about 20 minutes from the end - it was going nowhere.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, 24 February 2021 02:29 (one week ago) link
Turns out it's all Cecil Sharp's fault. All the woes of the C20, down to him and his bloody folk dances.
― mahb, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 07:57 (one week ago) link
fucking morris dancers eh?
― calzino, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 08:04 (one week ago) link
the cecil sharp stuff was weak af - there’s plenty of interesting stuff to be said about late and long victorian arts and crafts, merrie england, and the influence of pastoral on national vision but this wasn’t a useful vector tbh.
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 09:41 (one week ago) link
do you ever see any Morris Dancers in London? in the pre-Rona days they descended like a nightmare plague in the Holm Valley near me every summer, possibly with the ghost of Roy Castle lagging behind in his tap shoes.
― calzino, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 09:48 (one week ago) link
Cecil Sharp stuff felt like he had just read Richard King's The Lark Ascending and decided to crib a little from that. Rad book btw, recommended to everyone. There was gonna be a special concert for it at the Barbican but then co-organizer Andrew Weatherall died and after that BAM, corona. :(
― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 11:14 (one week ago) link
the last london open house i went on (a tiring and drizzly day in 2018 iirc) i ended up visiting cecil sharp house, at which i encountered
a) a small exbihition of punk rock sleeve art b) a darkling panelled room its walls stiff with large elk skulls c) being warned i couldn't stay long bcz the AGM of the morris dancing soc was just abt to start (many oldish ppl trooping, in a handful dressed as morris himself commands)
― mark s, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 11:22 (one week ago) link
they shd let me make these documentaries *cues up eight hours of the crazy frog*
― mark s, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 11:27 (one week ago) link
"but this was a fantasy"
https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article13590383.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200b/21_Mr-Blobby-theme-park-in-a-run-down-state.jpg
― mark s, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 11:28 (one week ago) link
I went to a night at Cecil Sharp House put on by Bob Stanley and Pete Paphides years ago. There were some bands and Stephen Duffy DJed. Lots of Vashti Bunyan and so on. Good beer behind the bar.
But little did we realise the horror that such acts would unleash etc....
― mahb, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 11:50 (one week ago) link
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 13:45 (one week ago) link
went to cecil sharp house library once to look up some folk song stuff. also saw a performance by “The Copper Family” absolutely wretched stuff do not deserve to carry the name of the Coppers, eliminate with prejudice. did see a v frail Bob Copper sing in a friend’s local (The Queen’s Head universally known as Elsie’s after the 400 year old woman who ran it, who was the size of a peanut and would have to place pints on the bar reaching above her head to do so). One beer and whisky only, along with vodka which she introduced when the polish airmen were stationed nearby. that was a different matter entirely, a beautiful, frail voice singing about the nightingale and vicissitudes of the rural economy a+. kill his epigones.
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 13:49 (one week ago) link
I never saw any Morris Dancers when I lived in Woolwich although I did see a jester once; Rory McGrath sat across from me somewhere on the northern line.
― calzino, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 14:06 (one week ago) link
the moral arc of an ilx thread can be long, but it bends toward rory mcgrath
― mark s, Thursday, January 11, 2018 11:49 AM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― mark s, Tuesday, 7 May 2019 20:20 (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink
― mark s, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 14:18 (one week ago) link
More than three years ago, I pasted this text from someone's tweet into my Reminders app:
"Cecil Sharp House is the best thing you can go to in London for under ten quid. Totally rapturous & life-enhancing."
Circumstances being as they are, it'll be some time before I complete the task, I guess.
― Alba, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 19:18 (one week ago) link
Oops, missed the start of that. Should read:
"The Tuesday evening folk club at Cecil Sharp House is the best thing you can go to in London for under ten quid. Totally rapturous & life-enhancing."
without wishing to cast any aspersions on another’s pleasure… actually that’s exactly what i’m doing nm i would be astonished were that the case. folkies in the round always seemed to be an awful, pedantic group of bores, with a huge tolerance for nodding and smiling at the very worst stuff. it’s an amateurist crowd which is absolutely harmless as a group and it’s fundamentally a pleasure for those involved, but presents as “the sham coy simper, the complacency, the frisson titters” in the event. ime the music is either the indigestibly twee and “folky” or poor revisiting of “i know some of you will know old Scan Tester and here’s one he used to play before the King and Queen… and many other public houses” <guffaws> etc. go, Alba! you should definitely go. be interested to hear how it is.
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 20:21 (one week ago) link
Ha ha, well I'm living in New York now so it may be quite a while before I get to see who's right.
― Alba, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 20:23 (one week ago) link
there's a female morris troop called the Belles of London (do you see?) who prance around in what looks like Victorian underwear. People seem to enjoy it. their hoss is a bastard.
(Dan from enderby's room fiddles for them from time to time)
― koogs, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 20:27 (one week ago) link
Might watch them in slow motion so it seems more portentous than annoying.
― Alba, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 20:31 (one week ago) link
there's a female morris troop called the Belles of London (do you see?) who prance around in what looks like Victorian underwear. People seem to enjoy it. their hoss is a bastard.(Dan from enderby's room fiddles for them from time to time)
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 20:32 (one week ago) link
I see Paul Morley has met them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRYUNlDdGyY
― Alba, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 20:33 (one week ago) link
oh no
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 20:33 (one week ago) link
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 20:34 (one week ago) link
Was tickled to read a while back that on the nite he had his Damascane punk conversion moment, viewing the Clash in Leeds 1977, Green Gartside was in full Morris get-up, having gone to the gig after an evening folk dance class.
― Piedie Gimbel, Wednesday, 24 February 2021 20:37 (one week ago) link
There's a mini series on BBC Sounds called My Albion that features reflections on this stuff from the perspective of black british ppl involved in the folk scene, some Twitter Left folks show up too. Worth hearing.
― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 25 February 2021 10:49 (six days ago) link
oh i would like to hear that Daniel - thanks for the tip.
― Fizzles, Thursday, 25 February 2021 13:38 (six days ago) link